You need to go quite far back to find a time when SA had a universally admired president, his deputy — to whom no personal or financial scandal attached — was thoroughly engaged in keeping the machinery of government humming, and the country had a clear and serious view of its place and purpose in [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWsTm6T3aOs
In the degraded discourse around local politics a niche backhander on social media — aimed at dissenting or decamping DA figures that are usually black — is “watch out, you’ll soon be sent to Harvard”. This meme suggests, absurdly, that the official opposition has the magical ability to use Harvard, the world’s pre-eminent and richest [...]
Due to economic headwinds gusting in the face of the publishers of this newspaper, and the media sector overall, today’s column is the last in a series I’ve written for TimesLIVE Premium and its print predecessor stretching back more than a decade. My columns for Business Day continue through December. I will miss my engagement [...]
I should be grateful to President Cyril Ramaphosa for declaring my birthday on December 15 a public holiday. My day of birth, of course, never featured in his calculation and is unknown to him. But declaring December 15 a public holiday, six weeks after the epic World Cup victory the mighty Springboks reaped on Saturday [...]
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 [...]
Barney Mthombothi, writing in the Sunday Times, decried the decision of the Johannesburg City Council to rename William Nicol Drive in honour of Winnie Mandela. Having tangled with the lady in many jousts inside and outside parliament, I share his view of Mandela’s Janus face: a liberator of note coupled with her role as a [...]
A new word, “retcon”, has entered the lexicon, shorthand for “retroactive continuity”. American journalist Lance Morrow explained this week it’s a “literary device in which form and content of a previously established narrative is changed. Retcon retrofits the past plot to suit present purposes.” Retcon is a device for novels (such as when history is [...]
