If anything, the bid by South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to be elected chairperson of the African Union’s Commission, or secretariat, has shown up two things: an acrimoniously divided African continent, and South Africa’s anxious bid for political leadership in the continent which continues to be frustrated. To some extent it also exposed Western meddling in the affairs of Africa.

Julius Malema, the once seemingly peerless leader of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), has been totally outplayed under commendable democratic rules in the game of power politics, stretching over many months. On the one point that the ANCYL leadership’s appeal against the sentence conceded – an opportunity to plead in mitigation – the old guard is already piling up the count against them.

With only some 170 days to go before the Olympic Games of 2012 start in London on July 27, the quest for gold in men’s tennis is already building up to a battle for which the pundits and connoisseurs of the game are rubbing their hands together for. This is especially after the epic final at the Australian Open in January. Will Rafael Nadal be able to successfully defend his Olympic crown or will Novak Djokovic walk away with the gold around his neck?

South Africa must expect the New Zealand cricket team to use every trick in the book to unsettle them when they head off to that team's homeland on Friday, 10 February. Tours to the Land of the Long White Cloud are never easy and will include three tests, three one-day internationals and three T20 internationals.

In the trend of large-scale land acquisitions in Sub-Saharan Africa, green investments such as the production of agrofuels and agroforestry developments, are falsely upheld as climate solutions. At the same time the land grab is accompanied by a major water grab that raises serious concerns since the volume of irrigation water needed is already far and beyond what is sustainable for the continent.

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With the amassing of naval firepower, armaments and troops – American troops are expected to reach the 100 000 mark by March – in the Persian Gulf region, the spectre of what is called a fourth Gulf war, is starting to take on an air of inevitability. If it does come to pass, few countries, including South Africa, will be left untouched. It is at the same time also fundamentally driven by economic considerations and by forging a global strategic realignment, changing the dictates of what can be regarded as being in the best national interest.

Developments in southern Africa's two former Portuguese territories illustrate how difficult it is for a liberation movement to transform itself into a democratically-minded political party. Many former liberation movements battle with the challenge. Globally, and in Africa in particular, there are many examples of movements who could not complete the transition.

The ghost of Libya has come back to haunt the US and her Western allies. An attempt to have the UN Security Council pass a resolution that would back an Arab League plan to resolve the crisis in Syria, failed when Russia and China vetoed it. At the same time North African stability is also threatened by further fallout from the Libyan conflict; another development over which the Western allies should be losing sleep – lots of it.

The more things change, the more they stay the same and history is set to repeat itself in 2012 if Heyneke Meyer, the new Springbok rugby coach, does not learn from the disasters of the 1999 and 2011 Rugby World Cups. Who he will appoint as his Springbok captain might just set the tone for, and the success of, his tenure as coach.

In our weekly column, Final word, we explore the origin of words and expressions, often exposing an underlying typical South African humour that transcends racial and language divides in a shared heritage. A selection of 50 of these columns is now available in a book.

The attractive young female presenter of a SABC magazine programme recently persuaded an Adonis of a rugby player to strip off his shirt so that she could see his tattoos - this had me wondering about a few things.