Michael Trapido

The United States’ continued preoccupation with Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran has opened a window of opportunity for Russia to win back some of her global influence and prestige. Since August 7 she has flung Georgia out of South Ossetia and crossed the border, entered into a new arrangement with Syria, threatened to return to Cuba, […]

If presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain becomes the next president of the United States, then, judging by his take on Georgia and his approach to matters military, we might well end up longing for the “peaceful” days of George W Bush. McCain — along with Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister — can be […]

While the negotiations between the major parties on Zimbabwe’s future are ongoing, I have specifically avoided giving any commentary. This is being done to afford the negotiators every chance of succeeding while giving Zimbabwe’s starving masses the opportunity to receive aid. I therefore find the continued refusal to give the aid agencies access to the […]

Matt Bai, in an article for the New York Times Sunday magazine, suggests that the rise of Barack Obama to presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States might well signal the end of “black politics” in that country. Black people, in accordance with Bai’s view, would, like the Irish and Italians, be swallowed […]

[“Why is there little real debate over the country’s problems and alternatives?” More pointedly, “Why is there a conscious blindness to [new ANC leader Jacob Gedleyihlekisa] Zuma’s actual positions?” At this juncture, an open debate is needed more than ever. “We fought not only for the ANC to rule but for the freedom to speak […]

Think of a number, add the CIA then divide that answer by two, then multiply your answer by MI5, take away the number you started with and your answer is Thursday. FFS, I’ve heard some cock and bull stories about why the Scorpions have to be disbanded along the way but the Kikinegate revelations yesterday […]

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili made two major miscalculations when he attacked South Ossetia — firstly, in respect of the resolve of the EU or Western world to bail him out if he got into trouble; secondly, with regard to Russia’s determination to re-establish its prominence in the region and on the world stage. “In the […]

The clash between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, as disturbing as it may be, could have been far worse if Georgia was a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. In that instance the Russian attacks on Georgian cities, as part of its retaliation for the invasion, would be considered an assault on a […]

The Mail & Guardian, in its fabulous article “Scramble to secure a Zuma presidency”, sets out the challenges facing those who would convert the ANC president’s party leadership into a national presidency. In doing so, they capture not only why the “Zuma faction” are taking the measures they are, but also the impact this is […]

In his address to students at the University of the Witwatersrand, the South African Human Rights Commission’s Jody Kollapen said that South Africans must prepare themselves for speech that will shock, disturb and offend them. “We’re going to find robust contestation around ideas,” Kollapen said. Cautioning the public against merely calling for this speech to […]

In death, Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn’s life and works have once again taken centre stage. Arguably Russia’s greatest writer yet and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, he achieved enormous acclaim for exposing the flaws in the Soviet system at a time when it was not only unpopular but, in most cases, fatal to do […]