Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, has called on bickering G20 nations to bring gold back into the global monetary system as an anchor to guide currency movements. His call came amid mounting and globally widespread evidence of moves away from the ailing United States dollar as the world’s central currency of settlement. At this stage there is, however no sign of a silver bullet to fix what seems to be a broken global currency system.

Addressing the G20 leadership summit in South Korea last week, South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma strongly punted Africa as “the third-fastest growing region after China and India". Saying there is still much to do for the continent to reach its full potential he pointed out that regional economic integration “is the lifeblood for investment and trade in Africa". In its own domestic region of Southern Africa, however, major challenges are at hand for the South African government.

His memoirs, Decision Points, was probably aimed,  a la Harry Truman, at securing his legacy in history, but it could turn out to be the catalyst to see former president George W Bush becoming the first American president to be formally charged with having committed war crimes and/or crimes against humanity. That is if respected organisations like Amnesty International (AI), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have their way.

People rightly question government access to personal data but they don’t seem to mind that a private company like Facebook controls more and more of their information and activities and drags its heels on privacy concerns. This is worrying.

Shifting realities in the global power game rendered the original formula for global forums irrelevant. In order to keep Chimerica at bay, global policy coordination needs to be reformed. Time to forget about political correctness and talk about real power, writes Piotr Maciej Kaczynski as he controversially ignores Africa totally in the new world order that he foresees.

At the recent November meeting of the Kimberley Process (KP) in Jerusalem, Israel, no decision was taken on Zimbabwe’s demand to sell diamonds from its Marange fields legally on the international diamond market. Zimbabwe is understandably upset and   threatens the future of the KP

In the modern English lexicon  in for a penny, in for a pound has become a  versatile expression which can have slightly different meanings depending on context. The same goes for another saying, given by most sources as a sort of synonym for the penny expression : you are in for the whole hog.

“Worth a read?” is not your ordinary book review; it is a meta-review. In other words, it provides an overview of the opinions contained in a variety of book reviews published in the media at large. This week we take a look at The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember,” written by Nicholas Carr and published in October 2010.

With the co-operation of the The LR Management Group, we can now bring you the leadership training tool 50 Lessons, which is a powerful force in the world of corporate learning. 50 Lessons is the worlds premier multimedia business resource, offering more than 1 000 personal and authentic video lessons from internationally respected business leaders. It can assist you to increase the utilisation and return on investment of your learning programmes immediately!

Zulgarnain Haider has already been relieved of his national Pakistan contract and the International Cricket Council (ICC) might sue him for using the wrong protocols when going awol and becoming a refugee and an asylum-seeker.

The attitude of the ruling ANC alliance towards and its intentions with the South African judiciary has yet again been dropped into controversy and confusion in recent days, with its Youth League being threatened with disciplinary action for a negative statement while a deputy minister making a scathing racialist attack on judicial institutions seemingly totally ignored.

“Fame is a vapour, popularity an accident. Money takes wings. People who cheer you today will curse you tomorrow. “The only thing that endures is character,” is a quote attributed to a former American newspaper editor Horace Greeley. His quote is most applicable to the Springboks, who ground out a 29-25 victory against the Welsh Dragons on Saturday.