Recently in Parliament, in answer to a question by DA MP GR Krumbock, Naledi Pandor, minister of international relations and co-operation, stated that "South Africa does not consider Hamas" - perpetrator of the mass slaughter of civilians in Israel on 7 October, "as a terrorist organisation". In her answer, Pandor claimed that SA’s stance is [...]
If you were doing a mental health check on the state of South African democracy today, schizophrenia could be an accurate diagnosis. On the one hand, never in its 30-year bumpy ride toward the pivotal 2024 election has the outcome been so unclear nor as contested. Evidence of the rude good democratic health here arrived [...]
In 1843, Lord Thomas Macaulay, an English politician and historian, wrote: "We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality." Substitute the ANC government and update it to present times, and you achieve a neat fit for the crowing and posturing of President Cyril Ramaphosa and [...]
No end of ironies emanate from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) proceedings launched by South Africa last week against Israel charging the Jewish state with genocide in Gaza. First, The Hague seat of the ICJ named "the Peace Palace" was ground zero for its opposite - a ferocious emotive attack on the words, conduct, [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWsTm6T3aOs
Political anoraks certainly, and probably many concerned citizens, will enjoy a new book by seasoned journalists Adriaan Basson and Qaanitah Hunter entitled Who Will Rule South Africa? Who indeed is the topic de jour as recent opinion polls suggest that, for the first time in three decades, ANC hegemony could end or at least be severely dented in [...]
South African governments have in the past supported the Palestinian people and their struggle for their own homeland, but have managed to balance that with cordial relations with Israel. There has however been a noticeable shift from this policy during the Presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa. President Ramaphosa remained silent on the Hamas attacks and only [...]
Gen David Petraeus, former commander of US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a former CIA director, commented that the slaughter of 1,400 Israelis and kidnapping of 203 hostages by Hamas on October 7 was “far worse than 9/11”. As he explained, the attacks on the Israeli targets, all within the borders of the Israeli [...]
Headline articles in two influential British newspapers encapsulated the contradictions in the SA story: its boundless promise in one and its disastrous profile in another. One of the most popular UK broadsheets (read serious) newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, published its latest travel awards based on the votes of its readers. SA came out tops as [...]
There will be a lot on the agenda during this week’s visit to Pretoria of German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. It is worth noting that last February when Russia launched its disastrous invasion of Ukraine, Bearbock’s boss, German chancellor, Olaf Scholtz, described the event as Zettenwende or “a changing of the times”. And in the 17 intervening [...]
