The Airports Company South Africa last week claimed that it is 90% ready to deal with the demands of the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup to take place in June. On the very same day that the general manager of OR Tambo International Airport made this claim, a visitor to his airport could not gather from the overhead signage in the main lobby which of the signs – one pointing north and the other south – was for domestic and which for international departures.

With a decision that leaves many South African fans – and quite a few sport scientists – flabbergasted and bemused, South African rugby administrators have embarked on an untenable workload for the Springboks, particularly toward the latter part of the year when they should be gearing themselves for the defence of their Rugby World Cup title in 2011.

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If anything good is to emerge from the current worsening tensions within the ruling Alliance consisting of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies – the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SA Communist Party (SACP) – it is that this has caused the assault on corruption to have been stepped up dramatically.

The Chilean earthquake that hit the country during the early morning hours of 27 February has followed close on the heels of the recent earthquake-induced devastation in Haiti. Many of the images that came to us on our television screens were very similar on both occasions. But some of the results were also vastly different, and in that there are important lessons to be learned according to a very recently published report by The Brookings Institution.

This year’s Fifa Soccer World Cup in South Africa is set to generate the highest commercial revenue ever for an edition of the event, said chief executive officer of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) Danny Jordaan, during a recent lecture organised by the Royal African Society in London. At the same time, according to a report circulated in February by the website "Project 2010", Fifa expects to make a marginal loss on the 2010 World Cup. Are the public being lied to? Is clever spin at work? Does Fifa simply not know how to work with money, or is it a case of Chinese bookkeeping?

The possible nationalisation of South Africa’s mines – that hornet's nest first opened up by ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema – continues to be the one single policy issue of concern to South Africa-watchers everywhere, as has  been demonstrated again recently by British media reports during President Jacob Zuma’s state visit to London. The bottom line, however, is that South African government leaders are unable to give any unequivocal answer as to whether or not nationalisation may become a future reality, leaving the issue open to more harmful speculation and uncertainty.

As South Africa remains under electricity supply pressures on all fronts, its floundering nuclear energy sector also seems to have run into more heavy fog with the sudden resignation of Jaco Kriek, chief executive officer of South Africa’s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd (PBMR). In the meantime, an Australian expert has warned that his country’s lack of a proper energy policy, also regarding nuclear energy, is on a “road to bankruptcy".

In December 2007, South Africa observed with keen interest developments at the African National Congress’ national policy conference in Polokwane. Not quite halfway to the next conference, minds already are turning to Bloemfontein in 2012. As a very early succession race continues to gain momentum, it seems increasingly likely that his own party will deny President Jacob Zuma a second term as the country’s First Citizen. There does not, however, seem to be any solid basis to expect that Zuma will be forced from office even before his current term expires. The damage to the ANC itself would simply be too great if that were to occur.