ABBEY MAKOE - The African Mirror

Dec

2023

Special farewell to the great Mbongeni Ngema

A great man is no more. He left us when we least expected. It's been quite difficult to come to terms with the news of the passing of Mbongeni Ngema. He was my brother's keeper. We were brothers-in-arms. Twenty-four hours after Ngema lost his precious life in a head-on collision returning from delivering a eulogy at the funeral of his longtime manager, Mom Sheila Paris, in Lusikisiki in SA's Eastern Cape province, the terrible news is beginning to sink in painfully. Munt'omnyama, as Ngema and I were fond of calling each other along with a few members of his inner…

Nov

2023

By ABBEY MAKOE

A visa waiver policy for Chinese nationals will benefit sa more

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

METHINKS it is now time for South Africa to offer a new visa waiver policy for Chinese citizens, just like we did with Kenya and more recently, Ghana. I raise the two African nation’s examples to illustrate that a visa waiver policy can be implemented without hindrance whenever the political will exists. Bilateral relations between Pretoria and Beijing have developed exponentially since they were established 25 years ago by the Mandela administration following the dawn of democracy. Diplomatic ties between China and SA have since achieved leapfrog development. For example, there is ample evidence of increased political mutual trust between…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

World Bank and IMF are Western tools with doomed future

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, stated the obvious at a California conference when she lamented the gradual decline of the US dollar in global trade. Addressing the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference in the US this week, she said: “There has been a gradual shift away from the Dollar, it was 70% of (world) reserves, now it is slightly under 60% .” ABBEY MAKOE Well, the writing has been on the wall for a long while. The US dollar is certainly losing its once unassailable dominance as a kind of an omnipotent world’s main…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

The global civilization initiative: Fresh energy into human development

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

RECENTLY, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), calling for respect for the diversity of civilizations when he delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting. This is the third major global initiative presented by China after the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative. ABBEY MAKOE The political parties' conference was held by the Communist Party of China (CPC) ahead of US President Joe Biden's proposed second Summit for Democracy with the governments of Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Zambia on March…

Dec

2022

By The African Mirror

Who stands to gain in shelling Zaporozhye nuclear power plant?

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ZAPOROZHYE Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) – the largest nuclear power plant in Europe – is proving to be a major sticking point in the back-door diplomacy aimed at brokering peace to end the Ukraine war. The ZNPP was one of the first key facilities that the Russians took control of days after launching their “special military operation” in Ukraine in February. ABBEY MAKOE And now, amid the growing devastation of the war and heightened engagements in back-door diplomacy, the nuclear plant appears to be a key sticking point in efforts to reach a truce. Moscow regards Zaporozhye province – home…

Nov

2022

By The African Mirror

“Ukraine fatigue” features in the US mid-term elections

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ON the eve of the US Mid-Term elections, there is more at stake in America’s foreign policy in the same vein that polarising domestic issues and stark ideological differences are at play between the Democrats and Republican parties. ABBEY MAKOE The two main parties will be contesting the control of both the House and the Senate. In essence, the winner of both practically prevails over the legislative direction and foreign policy posture of the country. That, in a nutshell, sums up the importance of why the two main US political parties have in recent days unleashed their “big-hitters” on the…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

Africa mulls how to circumvent western sanctions as it chooses to cooperate with Russia

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ABBEY MAKOE RUSSIAN lawmakers have met with African diplomats in a virtual conference to thrash out mutual ways to mitigate the food security challenges in the wake of the looming global supply shortages aggravated by the ongoing Ukraine conflict. The US and EU economic sanctions against Russia have targeted food and fertilizer exports in an effort to cripple the Russian economy. However, the Ukraine conflict has also restricted the capability of the Kyiv administration to export particularly grain. This has triggered fears at the UN level that the international community is on the brink of a hard-hitting hunger and famine,…

Aug

2021

By The African Mirror

Keep the politics out of scientific pursuit for COVID-19 origin

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ABBEY MAKOE LEADING political elites in South Africa have joined a chorus of global scientists by expressing public support for the People’s Republic of China’s efforts to keep politics out of the Covid-19 origin-tracing studies. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) in a joint study with the Chinese health authorities launched a 34-member team of experts from around the world to investigate the actual origins of SARS-Cov-2. The study followed repeated unsubstantiated claims in some sections of the Western media that the Covid-19 virus first emerged through a leak in a Wuhan laboratory in China. In March this year, the joint…