“Opportunities” for SA’s youth, in 1976 and in 2026
I began writing this last Tuesday, 16 June, nominally “Youth Day”, but in South Africa’s political lexicon, the commemoration of the 1976 Soweto students’ uprising.
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We keep having the wrong argument about safety in South Africa
South Africans have spent years arguing about farm attacks. One side sees them as a national crisis demanding urgent intervention. The other argues that they are too often presented as evidence of a unique victimhood that obscures broader patterns of
When bar meets barnyard and all goes black
Last week we entertained Ruffy (aka Raphael van Wyk), and he entertained us.
News Focus: Rietspruit River bridge and fake transformation
Reports of school pupils in Emfuleni being compelled to find their own way across the stinking, polluted Rietspruit River because an unfinished bridge on which work began 24 years ago has been abandoned is yet another illustration of how South
The futility of trying to lock up software
The Trump administration wraps itself in the language of freedom, but reaches for the hammer of tyranny as soon as they see something screwy.
Ports: South Africa leads the world in improvement, trails it in performance
The 2025 Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) findsthat Durban recorded the largest single-year efficiency gain of any port in the world between 2024 and 2025. Coega (Ngqura) was also among the top five most improved globally. Port Elizabeth leads all
Our three hapless two-term presidents
Since the demise of the parliamentary sovereignty of the white component of SA and its replacement with constitutional democracy under the rule of law, there have been three two-term presidents in SA. Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded one-term Nelson Mandela, our
The Battle for Language
Admittedly I can’t remember the last time a woman was last angry with me, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t smack her on the bottom and tell her to shut up and make me a martini. Doesn’t work, that kind
Why should SA keep policy that has failed the poor, IRR asks
After 25 years of BEE policy, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau “must explain why South Africa should persist with race-based laws that have failed the poor when workable alternatives exist to empower the disadvantaged directly”. This is the