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Listed below are comments made by SizweMahlala between Friday, 16th January 2009 and Tuesday, 9th June 2009.

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• From 'Taleban' to 'Taliban' 10:45am on 09 Jun 2009 Taleban vs Taliban? I'm based in South Africa and it's always interesting to read what journalists consider issues abroad. I imagine this is what firmly qualifies as a first world issue?
  
  Sizwe Mahlala
• Is the web's amateur hour over? 10:18am on 09 Jun 2009 As an artist and musician myself, I certainly believe the Internet has given me access to a far larger audience than I would have otherwise had. In the old model, luck was the order of the day - you got noticed by some talent scout of some sort and taken under their wing to build your own brand - that is how people became professional. There are plenty of talented writers, musicians and artists whose work didn't get to the public eye because of luck. Now, these very same 'amateurs' as Andrew puts it are empowered to promote their own products - and that's exactly what it is - marketing. Let the public decide what's good and what's not - at least now they have a platform to view variety and make their own decisions.
  
  Regardless professionals already have a brand and that makes it easier to gain eyeballs on the Internet - they still have a significant advantage over aspiring 'amateurs'. The fact that they cannot maintain the level of interest as they had before is likely because of public preference not the 'death of culture' syndrome as Mr Keen claims. The public ultimately determines what is art and what is trash.
  
  Sizwe (Wabber cartoons)
• Tweet, tweet 9:07pm on 21 Apr 2009 Guys it seems your links are not working on the new commenting platform - the South African 2009 election news link in my previous comment is: http://www.wonkie.com/2009/04/21/south-african-2009-election-voters-guide/
• Tweet, tweet 8:46pm on 21 Apr 2009 A fad though it may be but even in South Africa the tweeters are out in full force covering the South Africa 2009 election news. The current election is the largest one ever and the local Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is expecting an 80+% voter turnout.
  
  While I agree it's hard to validate many of the tweets, taken in aggregate they do give a reasonably good indication as to what is happening on the ground which is great for news junkies like myself.
• Newsbeat and Susan Boyle 8:32pm on 21 Apr 2009 Well the [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]anti-condom Popewould certainly approve of Ms Boyle.. I can't see what the fuss is about given that she hasn't made as big a deal out of it as much as the media-bangers have.
• Changes to our blogs 1:59pm on 09 Apr 2009 Murphy's Law - now it works - it didn't on a previous post!
• Changes to our blogs 1:22pm on 09 Apr 2009 I like the wider column look but it looks like something is going wrong in comments with anchor text references in the comments section now. E.g. the link http://www.wonkie.com/2009/04/03/motlanthe-addresses-the-g20-summit/ works fine but if it presented as a readable text link like this: Africa at the G20 summit the same link does not work.. a bug or am I just not following some standard properly?
• Click's botnet experiment 1:13pm on 09 Apr 2009 Interesting point on one of the earlier comments about testing door locks by using a burglar and leaving an innocent message in insecure houses as part of the reporting. I do think this is different though and the BBC is justified in this case - the level of public awareness of these threats is very low and I found it an appropriate way to highlight the issue.
• Exploring the economic downturn 10:36am on 06 Apr 2009 Mr Burnett,
  
  I've travelled to a number of countries, both developed and developing, over the past few months as part of a research project to do with the current global economic crisis. The current system does appear to be really broken as you put it - the expected extent and timing of the damage however varies incredibly from country to country.
  
  In India for example, the sentiment amongst some leading economists is that while things are worse off economically than they were last year, there is no major cause for concern. This is primarily driven by the notion that India is largely a low cost service exporting market. China on the hand is badly affected on a number of fronts - exposure to significant dollar currency risk, plummeting product exports to name 2 major issues.
  
  I am currently in South Africa and the sentiment here appears ridiculously optimistic. This seems largely driven by confidence in the statements of the South African reserve bank governor and more recently the post-G20 comments of Trevor Manuel, the South African finance minister - both of whom believe that South Africa is relatively well-insulated from the crisis (i.e. affected but not severely). Still this did not stop them begging for aid from the developed nations - see the Africa at G20 cartoon on the Wonkie economics and political cartoon blog for a lighter look at the African G20 requests. Needless to say this South African view is quite misplaced in light of the country being a resource based economy dependent largely on raw material exports for growth. It remains to be seen just when and how badly the crash - particularly in local housing prices will play out. The hype around stability is likely to be exacerbated by the current elections which are being held later this month - it would be interesting to see how the tone changes to a more realistic one from May.
  
  Recent local economic analysis on how holding the IPL cricket in South Africa this year is going to save the country from a negative growth scenario this year is laughable. I, for one, look forward to getting some solid international viewpoints from the BBC on the economic crisis in developing countries.
  
  Sizwe
• Covering Gaza 1:19pm on 16 Jan 2009 I find the BBC coverage fair and balanced and I am not particularly partial to either party.
  
  EnjoyingLifeInUSA (44) - I think you're reading too much into semantics - extract what you need from the reports stripping away what you see as subjective and draw your conclusions like the rest of us.
  
  Sizwe (an African blogger

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