How does an ambassador navigate his way when sent to a country led by a protocol-busting, hard-charging populist and protectionist who ransacks state institutions, tears up international trade agreements and announces, at their inauguration, "we must not import a single nail"? This was precisely the situation I found myself in circa 2009 when I was [...]
Consider an alternate history written for the 29 May elections in South Africa. As a work of historical fiction – based on real characters and actual events – it could include these "facts": The DA leader, the largest opposition party, is banned from participating in the poll; the ANC, the governing party, is accorded unfettered [...]
You might be a little embarrassed by Cyril Ramaphosa’s new role as Putin’s parrot, blandly repeating all the Kremlin lines and lies allegedly justifying Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country and firing deadly missiles at hospitals, theatres and shopping centres. Or you might wonder, beyond the imagined links of “struggle solidarity”, why SA in [...]
Exactly seventy-two years ago on Monday, June 6 1944, over 150000 allied troops stormed the Nazi-held beaches of Normandy, France, a day immortalised as D-Day. D-Day began the final, though bloody, phase of the war against Hitler and the liberation of Europe from the Nazi jackboot, achieved with finality the following spring, on May 8 [...]
Cynics here and elsewhere might think it appropriate that South Africa's face overseas is that of a criminal accused Readers might have observed last week's moving ceremony in Hiroshima, when Barack Obama made history by becoming the first US president to visit the city America hit with an atom bomb in 1945 . Less noticed, [...]
Contrary to the popular song by Andrew Lloyd Webber, there has been much to cry about in Argentina. Bad economics, worse governance and a populist president are three headline-grabbers from across the South Atlantic. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner gave, figuratively, the middle finger to international investors and did in Spanish over there from a position [...]
So much wealth and wellbeing was squandered by bad governance and even worse economic policies THIS month three years ago I had an interesting encounter with one of the most senior members of our government. I had just returned from my stint as SA ambassador to Argentina, and I was asked for my views on [...]
In May 1973, British Prime Minister Edward Heath told the House of Commons that the bribery and corruption practised by mining house Lonrho in Africa, under the swashbuckling Tiny Rowland, represented ‘’the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism.’’ Heath’s famous phrase got local application recently when retailer Lewis Ltd was exposed by the enterprising Summit [...]
