China might just be tricking the United States into believing that it is a greater military threat than it really is as part of a deeper strategy aimed at strengthening its relative economic power.

When the England cricket team was in dire straits once, the captain, Peter May, searching for a miracle to break a threatening partnership, tossed the ball to his premier fast bowler, Fred Trueman and said: “England is expecting, Fred.” To which Trueman replied: “Captain, is that why they call it the Mother Country.”

In what is likely to be a precedent-setting ruling by a full bench of the Western Cape High Court the ability of creditors, and particularly banks, to ride rough-shod over debt re-arrangement applications in front of magistrate's courts has been dealt a considerable blow in favour of debt-ridden consumers.

One day they will probably write on my tombstone “For the first time he is really deadly earnest,” South African iconic humourist Fanus Rautenbach wrote in one of the more than 20 books he produced. His passing away some 10 days ago set me thinking again about the roots of the term and the proper meaning of the word humour.

It could be a serious miscalculation to accept that even the United States is immune to the sort of unrest that is presently rocking the Arab world. “If Americans ever find the emotional strength to acknowledge the oppression under which they live, they, too, will be in the streets,” states a columnist last week on an international website.

While the latest census by the South African Business Women’s Association (BWA) indicates that women are still hugely under-represented in the ranks of executive managers and directors of companies compared to their proportion of the total population, a red-hot debate has broken out in Germany about the possible introduction of a quota-system for women in that country.

Is it just the non-democratic , mostly despotic rulers of the Middle Eastern Arab world that needs to fear the uprisings rolling through that part of the world or could this be a revolution that might go global?

The cliché has it that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It just might turn out to be true in the case of government’s proposed amendments to labour legislation presently up for public comment and scheduled for tabling in parliament in the near future.

The World-Cup winning Springbok flyhalf Butch James and his sweetheart Julia Westbrook on Saturday exchanged vows in a private ceremony at the Lynton Hall estate in Pennington. Peter de Villiers and the Super 15 coaches of South Africa also exchanged vows late in 2010 to marry the interests of players with the demands of Super Rugby and the World Cup tournament.

Starting with the recent uprising in Tunisia through to the apparent full-blast revolution in the streets of Egypt, social media is being credited with playing a central role. On the social front it is however receiving some sharp criticism and on the commercial front there is talk of a bubble that may burst.

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Centre stage this week on both the political and economic fronts goes to President Jacob Zuma when he delivers his state-of-the-nation address at the opening of Parliament on Thursday evening. Probably the key focus points in his speech will be economic transformation in tandem with the recently announced New Growth Path (NGP), as confirmed by Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane. A central theme within this is the promised creation of millions of new jobs.