The World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index for 2015 ranked South Africa a fairly average 48th out of 141 countries. For a country blessed with such rich natural and cultural resources as South Africa, the varied factors holding back the country’s travel and tourism potential are cause for introspection and decisive action.
Headhunters is an edge-of-your-seat Norwegian thriller based on the eponymous novel by best-selling author, Jo Nesbø. With more plot twists and turns than a rattlesnake in heat, this dark Scandinavian gem ignites the screen like the pyromaniacal love child of the The Fugitive and Die Hard, with shades of Hitchcock thrown in for good measure.
The most backward, reprehensible cultures are those where the abuse of animals, the pollution of nature, the exploitation of children, the repression of women, and intolerance of religious, cultural and political diversity are allowed to flourish. The world does not need reams of essays and articles on the subject; it is a very simple equation. What is not so simple is when an individual, a society, a community or even a country projects an image that may seem outwardly democratic and civilized but rely on obfuscation, ignorance and outright lies to promote a hidden agenda.
A recent comparison of the New York Times with South African media behemoth, Naspers, by Michael Moritz, the chairman of Sequoia Capital, deserves comment. Not only for the cynical and superficial nature of his argument, but also for what it exposes about the general low quality of local journalism.
In the run-up to South Africa’s 2014 election we analyse the social media success of SA political parties and their leaders, using infographics to illustrate who have grown their Twitter and Facebook support base over the past eight months. Does social media success necessarily translate into more votes at the ballot box?
