Israel is one of the few countries available for the South African political establishment to burnish their human rights credentials.
For reasons of solidarity and expediency or simple inattention, such gross rights violators as Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Syria –where political protestors are shot dead, imprisoned or gassed with poison respectively, escape both attention and censure.
Thus the […]
‘The return of Molefe to Eskom and the ridiculous reasons offered for it makes even Trump’s explanation for firing James Comey seem plausible’
Here are two — of several — quotes plucked from the weekend which seem to describe the depressing national condition into which the Jacob Zuma presidency has plunged South Africa with its continuing […]
He might not be much of a lawyer, his independence and integrity are questionable and his lack of personal responsibility is glaring.
But you have to hand it to Shaun Abrahams, the national director of public prosecutions: he has a great sense of humour and – given the comedy of errors he presides over – an […]
“An October surprise” is American political-speak for news deliberately created or timed to influence the outcome of its November presidential election.
US Election Day, just ten days away, sees the two most unpopular candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, ever recorded in polling history, face off against each other.
Neither has really needed the addition of an […]
‘You have to go a long way back to find a cabinet which is so openly at war with itself’
The brilliantly funny 1993 movie Groundhog Day concerns an unpleasant weatherman, played by Bill Murray, who is covering the annual ritual of the groundhog emerging from its hole to predict the arrival of spring.
But he is […]
The most famous use of animal allegory in political satire was by George Orwell in his 20th-century classic Animal Farm. Its place in the canon of the most influential books of our time is cemented because of its brilliant, indirect, but coruscating account of a magnificent and just revolutionary cause morphing into a nightmare of […]
Fearful kakophony drowns business voice, writes Tony Leon.
‘Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?” Apparently, Henry Kissinger never uttered this great quip attributed to him, on the impossibility of receiving a coherent and unified response from the EU.
But the line is useful shorthand right now, with local substitution, to frame the […]
On Zuma’s watch, growth has halved, the national debt has doubled and another million are unemployed
THERE‘S a grim choice confronting the US electorate in November between the two most unpopular candidates in polling history. This caused Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson — one of the most erudite and eloquent people on the planet — on […]
Political gestures can be low-cost or ultra-expensive, harmless or dangerous, provide evidence of sunset on the old order or can morph into a false dawn. Political assassinations are at the extreme end of such symbolism.
One hundred and two years ago, the murder in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, famously tipped […]
It’s difficult to capture in a headline the essence of what is going on, and going wrong in South Africa right now.
If you were to borrow the title from the world of books, perhaps Beryl Bainbridge’s slim 1996 classic of the night the Titanic sank Every Man for Himself, would be a handy summary.
If current […]
