GULUVA is not a deeply religious or spiritual person but he is honestly beginning to believe that God the Almighty, Jehovah, Allah or the Supreme One is, through the depressing economic developments unfolding in certain parts of Europe today, trying to tell us something.

Why, for example, of all the European countries going through the debilitating economic meltdown are Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain - in that order - the only ones bearing the biggest brunt?

The devastating economic woes that have been visited on these once economically prosperous countries have effectively reduced them to, some would even venture to say, pigsties.

It is a bit of an unfair exaggeration and a deeply insensitive one at that, especially judging by the suffering that comes with such economic situations. But the analogy is not exactly way off the mark considering the fact that the acronym for Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, incidentally, is PIGS- as if it were a kind of economic bloc, such as BRICS.

But what did these countries do to deserve this revolting label and endure such punishment?

A pig, as many people know, is looked down on by the world's major religions and treated as a stepchild of the animal kingdom. A pig has throughout history earned itself the label of the world's unholiest and dirtiest animal.

Are people in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain being called PIGS because they are pig-headed or make pigs of themselves?

But these are the nicest and friendliest people you can find in the whole world.

Unfortunately, their countries are so bankrupt these days that they don't have two cents to rub together or a dime to put in a piggy bank.

All they have been doing since they began this extraordinary economic decline is to piggyback on other countries - such as Germany, the United States and even Mzansi - for their survival.

Let's pray.

BRICKS is better than BRICS

BRICS needs Kurdistan. Talking about economic blocs, the acronym BRICS looks incomplete and clumsy for Guluva's liking.

Perhaps it is time for the countries that make up BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - to invite Kurdistan to join the bloc and become BRICKS.

With an acronym like that, everyone will know they really mean business.

But then again, that's the day when pigs will fly.

Research in motion is workin progress

The monumental crash of the BlackBerry server - which this week put millions of the stylish and elegant smart phone users in Africa, Europe and the Middle East out of action because they could not access Internet services for days on end - was a long time coming.

The company that has been at the forefront of moving Internet services from large and unwieldy personal computers to handsets seems to have been surprised and now overwhelmed by its own success.

The Canadian company that owns the BlackBerry brand does not inspire confidence at all.

That shows in its choice of name. The name Research In Motion, as the company calls itself, suggests it does not know exactly what it is doing as it continuously experiments with evolving technology.

In Guluva's book, Research In Motion means almost the same thing as work in progress.