Dinner table conversations around the country are dominated by some of the more interesting political stories of the day. The topics of the conversations vary from, the race for the imminent ANC Youth League presidential elections; the much anticipated State of Nation address by President Zuma in early February, to be followed a couple of weeks later by the Budget Speech, to be delivered by Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan; the fight for the leadership of COPE and not least among these, the local municipal elections due to take place sometime between April and May of this year. Lost within these many conversations taking place at dinner tables around the country, is the upcoming 2011 Census, which is due to take place on 9th and 10th October.
Over the past few years, Statistics SA has been hard at work preparing for the population count. Of course the Census is more than a simple count of the people living in South Africa. The initiative also aims to give as realistic a view as possible of the demographic nuances of our country such as: age breakdown, gender breakdown, population spread by geography, among other dimensions. In this sense, the Census is perhaps one of the most important information gathering mechanisms that any country can invest in. It must be borne in mind that many countries in the developing world hardly ever carryout population counts. We as South Africans must therefore never take for-granted this year's Census or all other population counts that Stats SA will carryout in the future.
STAND UP AND BE COUNTED!!!
. What with the promise made by President Zuma and his Cabinet that 5 million jobs would be created over the next 10 years. 
which have affected house-holds and farmers across most parts of the country. The costs of damage to property is now estimated at more than R 500 million. As you read this, the floods continue to ravage the country and so the projected costs will most certainly increase. I have no doubt therefore that President Zuma's speech will therefore seek to address the question of how households and business (specifically farmers) will be assisted to deal with losses as a result of the floods. The floods have exposed other challenges which South Africa faces, least of which is the management of our 
To this end, President Zuma's address may well have an element of reconstruction flowing through it, as a result of the floods (pun not intentional). Government is already under huge pressure to deliver basic services, the floods will therefore hit the government coffers even harder. On the evening of February 10th, the nation will be watching to see what strategies President Zuma will propose as a way of dealing with the aftermath of the floods, let alone all the other challenges which the President and his government have to deal with.
grouping continues to top the headlines. There's more and more voices, especially those outside of SA, coming out against the move by SA joining the BRIC formation. The overwhelming argument seems to be that, economically South Africa just does not measure up to the economies of the BRIC countries. Indeed, these voices point out that there are many other economies which are better qualified than South Africa, to join the BRIC family.