2024 - Winners and losers

In South Africa it’s been another bleak year. As write this in early December, many people seem to be shaking their heads and wondering what the hell is going on. But in the rest of the world, things are literally going bananas.

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Wars

Wars are big bad news – so I will start with those. In the powder-keg that is the Middle East, the war against Israel spread to Lebanon. Yet again, activists conflate the violent actions of a small group of people with entire nations and religions, sparking hate-filled rhetoric and yet more violence.

There seems to be no solution. So I guess the Israeli objective is to just wipe the whole problem off the face of the Levant. The big question is what happens then?

The axis of evil appears to be the mad mullahs of Iran. It is now common knowledge that Iran gave the ANC the vast sum needed to wipe out its legacy debt and fund its 2024 election campaign. As a quid pro quo it required our government to use our muppet lawyers as useful idiots by reporting Israel to the International Court of Justice – and leading antiIsrael protests. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

The paroxysms of the Middle East eclipse the long-playing tragedy of the Russia-Ukraine war, which I fear will only end with a rancorous stalemate with chunks of eastern Ukraine having been given to Russia as its reward for the invasion of a neighbouring state. When will Putin be hounded out? Can Trump complete the Abrahamic accords? If he did, would he deserve a Nobel Peace Prize? No wonder the humble banana has become a unit of measurement in the Starship.

South African Aviation

That’s enough of big picture angst. Back home, in our own little general aviation (GA) cabbage patch, what’s been going on?