A disturbing picture of the extent to which Internet users – from the private individual to large institutions and businesses – have become vulnerable to cybercrime came to the fore in a warning from a number of reputable sources in recent weeks. Neither is the threat restricted to the realm of cyberspace alone, supplying criminals with invaluable intelligence when planning their activities.

A shift in South Africa’s currency policy – long resisted by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and the Treasury – may be on the cards later this year. However, it is not likely to go as far as pegging the rand as has been called for by the left-wing allies of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), although they have some seemingly unlikely support for their stance.

On the economic front, the South African outlook continues to be mixed: gradual recovery from the recession in some spheres with several key economic indicators recording improvement, but offset by other indicators and developments with a negative bearing. The latest unemployment figures remain disturbing, and economists and the government have tempered recovery optimism; now, slower or strained growth is the word.

This past weekend’s economic summits of the G8 and G20 in Canada came at an estimated direct cost of one billion Canadian dollars, or more than R7bn, not calculating the direct and indirect cost of the violent protests that accompanied it. Was this money well spent? Judged by the first reactions of the markets and some analysts, decidedly not. It seems to have been a non-event.

Is there a convergence of imperatives, from climate change and depleting fossil fuel resources to an increasingly unsustainable global financial system that can drive a new socio-economic global dispensation which can be described as a "green economy"? This last weekend’s G20 summit of the world’s largest and most influential developed and developing economies in Toronto, Canada was seen by some as an opportunity for a new spur in that direction, but in the end, it seems to have delivered more doubt than hope on that score.

The Wallabies acknowledge they are still a work in progress, New Zealand has focused its preparations on ways to nullify the aerial superiority by South Africa, and the Springboks have to explain some baffling backline selections to convince certain critics that they will successfully defend their Tri-Nations crown.

The Dark Mountain Project says that mainstream environmentalism has been assimilated by capitalism. Douglas Strang attended the project's recent festival in Wales and argues that these controversial ideas should not be dismissed as utopian.

Visitors to the Soccer World Cup games in the Mother City have flooded the fan fests, fan jols and the fan walks, with more than one million visitors expected by mid-week. Yet, most headlines since the weekend were not about the remarkable average attendance figures of 53 019 per World Cup match in South Africa, about the marksmanship of Carlos Tévez of Argentina or the penetrating runs by the German strikers, Thomas Mueller or Lukas Podolski.

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