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 [...]
In 1969, Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified the five stages of grief as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Fifty or so years later, Eskom added one more stage, six, to the national misery index through load-shedding, though our government remains stubbornly stuck in stages one (denial) and two (anger). On Monday, we were treated to [...]
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 [...]
A flurry of elections — two just held and one next week — in three hugely significant geostrategic countries — tells us quite a bit about the universalism of current politics and some striking similarities between contests fought locally but felt globally. Brazil is the sprawling giant of South America, and despite its sub-par growth [...]
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 [...]
