Des Erasmus

Middle Earth

Christian; wife to the brilliant @JonathanErasmus; journalist; sea lover. Frequent abuser of semi colons. Calling a spade a TLB since birth.

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Articles

New equity targets are constitutional, counsel for labour minister tells court

1 week ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

Fana Nalana SC on Tuesday told the Pretoria high court it was not unconstitutional for the minister of employment and labour to set numerical redress targets for companies. Appearing for Minister Nomakhosazana Meth, Nalana sought to counter an argument from counsel for the Democratic Alliance (DA) that section 15A of the recently gazetted Employment Equity Amendment Act amounted to unfair discrimination.
South Africa’s energy future lies in innovation

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

And just like that, we’re back! The past 10 months with no load-shedding has been great, but every day without rolling blackouts has felt like one step closer to the inevitable return of power cuts. Just like a holiday crossing its halfway mark, the looming return of Eskom’s troubles has kept us from fully enjoying our reprieve from the less romantic combination of candle-lit evenings and cold showers. Are we paranoid?
Why Pope Francis’s papacy mattered for Africa

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

The death of Pope Francis in an Italian hospital on 21 April 2025 marks the end of a significant era for the Vatican and the global Catholic following of 1.3 billion faithful. The first pope from the Americas and also the first to come from outside the west in the modern era, Pope Francis was elected leader of the Catholic church on 13 March 2013.
Pope Francis: The end of a radical papacy born in the south

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936, died on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, aged 88. The symbolism was impossible to ignore: the head of the Catholic Church died at the heart of its most sacred weekend—Easter, the ancient commemoration of suffering, death, and resurrection. In a faith built on ritual and meaning, this death echoed with a deeper clarity.
South Africa needs innovation by design to fix fragile, failing systems

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. The statistics as reported by the World Bank are sobering — a Gini coefficient of 0.67 (2018), placing us among the most unequal globally; 63% of the population living below the upper-middle-income poverty line; youth unemployment at a staggering (15 to 34-year-olds) and a general unemployment rate of 31.9% by the end of 2024.
The God Edition | Searching among the bones for Homo naledi’s soul

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

Did Homo naledi have a soul? That may sound like a very strange question, but let me explain the context. It is now 10 years since the excavation of H naledi’s skeletal remains in the Cradle of Humankind near Krugersdorp. About 1 500 fossilised bones, estimated at about a quarter of a million years old, were recovered from an almost inaccessible recess of the deep and convoluted Rising Star cave system.
‘We just want to sleep without fear we will be killed in our beds’

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

In Nigeria’s Plateau state, Martha Dalyop awoke to gunfire one night in December. Within minutes, her village was surrounded by armed attackers. Despite frantic calls to security forces stationed just 7km away, help arrived five hours later — long after the attackers had disappeared, leaving 37 dead, including Martha’s husband and two children. “They came from all directions. We had nothing to defend ourselves with,” Martha recounts.
The God Edition | The runner’s high is the smug hill on which I’ll die

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

I don’t have religious convictions. My approach to my own agnosticism is to argue that any all-powerful, ever-loving creator, if they exist, is unlikely to be perturbed by what I, one among the billions of life forms on an ever-increasing number of stars and planets, believe about them. It’s more important, I think, for each person to start in their own sphere of influence and behave in a way that they can morally live with themselves among those closest to them.
The God Edition | Making a meal of religion

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

For those who are not true believers religion can be terribly confusing. Some would say incomprehensible. Others would say mystifying. The less tolerant would say unbelievable. There are tomes, screeds, scrolls, scriptures to be studied, interpreted and memorised. There are strict rules to be obeyed. Sins to be avoided and punishments to be absorbed. There are songs to sing, chants to repeat, clothing edicts to be adhered to, places of worship to be attended, ceremonies to be held.
Female pastor successful in constructive dismissal claim

3 weeks ago | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus

In Makombe vs Cape Conference of the Seventh Day Adventists and Others, the Labour Court found that a pastor employed by the Cape Conference of Seventh Day Adventists (Cape Conference) had been constructively dismissed. The claim arose in circumstances where the congregants refused to accept her, as a female pastor, and where she was exposed to a persistently hostile working environment.