Technology billionaires and puppet politicians
Last week, the erstwhile fire-breathing, MAGA-roaring, Trump-praising Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) appeared on 60 Minutes with host Lesley Stahl. MTG recently fell afoul of Trump
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The podcast report: searching for the good vibes in SA
Nicholas Lorimer and Viv Vermaak discuss Viv's search for some good vibes for South Africans on the podcast scene as we head into December. https://www.youtube.com/live/se8dpD94w6o?si=Z_qubKwxH7m-TAGs
Uganda: the dying throes of a demented regime
The Ugandan opposition leader, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, has warned that Uganda’s election planned for January 2026 is in danger of becoming a bloodbath like that in Tanzania in October, where thousands are believed to have
The Daily Friend Show year-end special: the slow death march of the ANC
Today's Daily Friend Show wraps up the year, and looks to the year ahead. John Endres, Nicholas Lorimer, Hermann Pretorius and Chris Hattingh chat about the economy and politics of South Africa and the world. https://www.youtube.com/live/2YEk_Ns2Pq0?si=INVw32EjptC323JV
Steenhuisen’s woes are a real issue – and the concerns are good for the DA
By the dismal standards of South African public life, it’s hard to see why John Steenhuisen’s financial management should have been worth the attention paid to it. It’s of course embarrassing: the leader of a political party and government minister
Sandra Laing and the Zombie of Race Classification
How post-apartheid South Africa inherited the logic it claims to reject The government rightly condemns apartheid’s racial classification as primitive, even laughable, while continuing to rely on the same underlying principles. Officials mock the pencil test the way medieval Europe
When the State fails: civil society must protect South Africa’s whistleblowers
South Africa’s witness protection system is failing. The deaths of the likes of Moss Phakoe, Jimmy Mohlala, Babita Deokaran, Marumo Phenya, Mpho Mafole, and now Marius van der Merwe, known in the official Madlanga Commission as Witness D, expose a
South Africa: Good hope from left, right and centre
“After many years of unsuccessfully trying to kill each other, it is starting to look more and more likely that we might actually start working together.” I am an old-school liberal. I embark from the position of tolerance, the capacity
A mockery of parliamentary oversight: The SANDF’s contempt for parliament must end
As the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) permanent representative on both the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans and the Joint Standing Committee on Defence, I am compelled to place on record my profound outrage at the events that unfolded