There are some things in life that totally bamboozle me. One of those is how often we count on a little bit of luck to avoid the inevitable result of certain actions knowing it would probably turn out to be Irish luck unless we are saved by some fluke. We would do better if we accept that most of the time Murphy’s Law applies.

Succeeding against all odds has become a hallmark of the career of double-amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius, who qualified for the World Athletics Championships after taking 0.54 seconds off his personal best with a 45.07 seconds victory in the men’s 400-metre sprint in Lignano, Italy last Tuesday.

Have you ever wondered what is the defining quality of a true sport champion? John Parsons described it as defiance, a special form of stubbornness – a determination  to succeed against all the odds and obstacles, real or imaginary, which they felt  stacked against them and, more often than not, to come out on top. The other quality is the way in which a champion stomachs defeat. On both scores the Springboks failed against Australia.

The severe drought across the Horn of Africa and much of East Africa is a human emergency that requires urgent attention. It also signals a global crisis: the convergence of inequality, food insecurity and climate change, writes Paul Rogers.

The atrocities inflicted on Norwegian society by a far-right activist leave the country shocked and in mourning. They will have lasting effects even if their exact character is hard to foresee, writes Thomas Hylland Eriksen.

Ongoing events in Libya – the expected duration and impact of which many had at first badly miscalculated – have led to a number of serious challenges in the global energy sector. While the real motives of some parties to the conflict are cause for concern, oil production in Libya - Africa’s largest  and the ninth in the world producing 1.8-million barrels a day prior to the conflict - has come to a standstill.

Results from the latest Graduate Professionals Confidence Index, which tracks more than 3 000 of South Africa’s graduate professionals, show that confidence levels among them deteriorated over the second quarter of 2011 on all seven of the factors surveyed.

Recent reports concerning alleged witch-hunts against the Public Protector, Advocate Thuli Madonsela, and the head of the Asset Forfeiture Unit and the Special Investigating Unit, Willie Hofmeyr, both of whom were investigating alleged corruption in the South African Police Service, have triggered speculation about a conspiracy or orchestrated campaign against corruption-busters and Chapter 9 institutions.

According to the World Development Movement (WDM) the fact that it is expected of developing countries to enter into loans to help them cope with climate change, is a major problem and regarded as unfair since they are not the ones who caused human induced climate change in the first place. The tab should be for the developed world.

Evil prospers when political leaders  lack convictionand make appeasing noises, as happened in 1938 when a lack of assertiveness and strong political leadership towards Hitler and Nazi Germany led to the the Munich agreement and the outbreak of World War II. Herein lies a lesson for the politics surrounding climate change.

The South African economy continues to suffer its annual strike season, with several key industrial sectors affected. As the country gradually runs out of petrol due to one strike, it now seems electricity supply could be adversely affected by another. Meantime various new developments are unfolding in the annual round of wage negotiations impacting on the governing alliance.

South Africa remains firmly in the smothering grip of its annual wage negotiations and accompanying strike season. Several strikes continue, while new ones could be launched. The consequences for the economy could become more serious.

Small children sometimes play a game believing that if they close their eyes, they are invisible. My cat, when scared of something, dives under the covers of my bed also believing if he cannot see it, it cannot see him. Adults too have such a game: they often think if they pretend a problem does not exist, or if they look the other way long enough, it will go away.

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