News/Politics

The US intelligence community in terms of a report styled “Global Trends 2025”, suggested that the planet will be living with the daily threat of nuclear war over the period of the next two decades. As we watch the events in Mumbai unfolding the bleak picture that they have painted for our medium to long-term […]

Submitted by Fana Marivate In the early days of the new republic, after the battle for liberation had been won, the party was overwhelmingly strong. Its leader, a man whom posterity would acclaim as among the greatest statesmen his country has ever produced, ascended to the nascent republic’s presidency. The party went from strength to […]

This week’s Talkback question on the Mail & Guardian Online: What will it take to break the Zimbabwe talks impasse?

Two areas of former president Thabo Mbeki’s term of office are undergoing scrutiny in the international media; his administration’s policies on Aids and Zimbabwe. Neither are going to serve his legacy well. Mbeki’s achievements have been well documented throughout this blog and it would be unfair and unkind to dismiss them during the course of […]

Quick, what’s the difference between a catfish and a politician? The one is a slimy, predatory, bottom-feeding opportunist that would eat its own young. The other is a fish. That’s the overwhelming feeling washing over South Africa’s battered middle-class as they watch the bizarre events unfolding ahead of next year’s elections. There’s a new logo […]

The National Prosecuting Authority’s appeal against the decision of Judge Chris Nicholson, in favour of ANC president Jacob Zuma, in the Pietermaritzburg High Court will be heard by a full bench of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein on Friday. Nicholson’s judgment amounted to the granting of an application brought by Zuma on the […]

Jolly. Jovial. Man of the people. This is how presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma has been projecting himself to South Africans. Here and there reality interfered – rape trial, corruption charges – but Zuma kept up the singing and dancing. When asked about policy issues, he would hide behind the usual “ANC collective” excuse: a mere […]

In the year 75BC, Gaius Julius Caesar, citizen of the great Roman Empire was sailing on a Roman battle trireme in the Mediterranean when pirates attacked the ship. Caesar was captured and ransomed, as was the practice back then. Legend has it that the great man was not impressed when the pirates decided to bill […]

When Robert Mugabe undertook his murderous campaign to crush the Ndebele in Matabeleland during the 1980s, the planet should have realised then that here was an African leader who would stop at nothing and no one in his efforts to retain power. And so it has proved: while the pirates off the coast of Somalia […]

Allow me to make a bold claim: it was not the ANC that brought us liberation. It was a vehicle that the people used to bring themselves to freedom. Just like the newfound Cope cannot claim to be the defender of the Constitution. The people are merely using it as a vehicle to defend the […]

In Afrikaans “skielik” means suddenly. It is also the name of the cluster of shacks where dirt-poor black people live in the tiny North West hamlet of Swartruggens (literally “black backs”, though that could as easily derive from a topographical feature or any number of species of animal as it could refer to the backs […]