Businesses are compromising their strategic planning by basing decisions only on data easily accessible within their formal, corporate information systems, and should ask themselves if they are indeed fully prepared for organisational decision-making in a complex and changing environment. New visual analytic technologies enable them to explore the totality of information available and simultaneously uncover the relationships that exist within this mass of data.

As with so many other common expressions, there are not too many arguments about the meaning of the expression babes in the wood; but when it comes to its origin, there is some debate. Over the years, it has become the theme of some interesting, and not always innocent, creativity and humour.

Food security is rapidly becoming a global concern. Not only is food security a growing worry for developing countries, but developed and so-called first-world countries are also contemplating the increasing concern surrounding the long-term consequences of a deteriorating food security situation. At the same time, arable land and food is becoming the new gold.

From our series over the last few weeks on the epoch in which we are living at present, on our way to a new era in human existence, it has become clear that on a few fronts other than energy - combined with climate change and the development of a so-called green economy - challenges and changes are going to be more profound. It is, however, on this energy front that there are probably the most opportunities, particularly for South Africa.

Whichever way you look at it, in the teachers' strike starting today, the only real losers are South Africa’s millions of learners whose education has already suffered due to an ill-conceived outcomes-based education experiment and an extended winter holiday. Now, teachers have abandoned whatever moral high ground they might have held thanks to the deliberately calculated threat to Matric exams by some trade union leaders; while education departments seem to be completely out of touch with, or naïve about, conditions on the ground with their advice to pupils.

A personal letter to the president – or call it an SOS call – by a world-class scientist and Springbok fan, did little to convince the embattled Bok coach Peter de Villiers that South Africa should change course and embrace a more conservative work ethic in protecting its primary assets, its players, from burnout. But De Villiers simply ignored the advice by Professor Tim Noakes.

A month after the Fifa Soccer World Cup has ended, it seems that despite some incidents of violent attacks and looting aimed at foreigners, things have returned to normal and the danger of a large-scale outbreak of xenophobia averted. Then a whispered remark by an irritated cashier in a supermarket till queue (“When are they ever going to leave?”) in reference to black French-speaking customers, serves as a reminder that xenophobic violence can and is very likely to flare up again in the future.

Cyberspace is increasingly attracting the attention of governments across the globe, be it to block certain undesirable network traffic; trying to milk it of intelligence for national security purposes; or to control political/propaganda messages. In the latest developments, two major players – Google and BlackBerry, and the European Parliament – have been sucked into controversies as individual privacy and commercial confidentiality are increasingly coming under pressure.

Israel’s combative military posture, evident in a tense border skirmish with Lebanon and in its wider strategic plans, is a recipe for permanent insecurity. The flurry of speculation that followed reports of a possible assassination attempt on 4 August 2010 against Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an indication of the febrile atmosphere surrounding the region, writes Paul Rogers for Open Democracy.

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