A core task of an ambassador is to put the best gloss abroad on challenging aspects on the home front. True to this idea, on the eve of his departure to the United States as ambassador-designate, Ebrahim Rasool said of the fragile GNU here, and the exclusion of Jacob Zuma's MK Party from it: "There [...]
"Retrospective clairvoyance" was the arch phrase of Clive James for the miraculous ability of pundits (me included) to deduce this week an event that was "inevitable" last week, though it was not actually seen as likely at the time. Thus, the sweeping win of Donald Trump last Tuesday has birthed endless analyses of why it [...]
A panel beat of Shakespeare to fit modern elections, referencing last week's graceful presidential concession in Botswana, would read, "Nothing in his political life became him like leaving it." We live in a rough political neighbourhood with stolen elections in Zimbabwe now normalised, violent killings recently visited on the opposition in Mozambique, and a feudal [...]
Timing in life and politics is everything. So, spare a thought for new Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau. He arrived on Tuesday in Washington DC, as head of a government-business delegation seeking to engage Congress and the White House on retaining our Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) privileges and mitigating the fallout from [...]
