Meyer will not stop the refugee programme – and he shouldn’t bother to try
It’s rare that a South African diplomatic appointment attracts any public notice, and even more so for an appointee to be invited onto a radio talk show to discuss the objectives of his posting. But Roelf Meyer’s appointment as ambassador to the United States is hardly an ordinary one,
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The awkward question of class
Social class and inequality have always been live salient political issues. Indeed, politics is defined as ‘debating the distribution of power’. Politicians in all political camps have no option but to address class issues.
Speaking of which
Noah, hanging his head, has a hangdog look. The dog he is looking for has hair that, he hopes, will be an antidote for the booze he drank last night. A hang of a lot of it, it was.
Parliament discovers tobacco harm reduction
In a rare outbreak of evidence-based policy, the Portfolio Committee on Health has repudiated the dogma that “harm is harm”. Credit where credit is due.
Tau is right about the decline, but the remedy misses the cause
Parks Tau, Minister of Trade, Industry, and Competition, told a defence industry conference in Pretoria this week that South Africa must confront three decades of decline in its arms industry. Defence force acquisitions from local manufacturers fell to R850m in 2017 from R26.2bn in 1989/90.
AI – The Chinese are coming! The Chinese are coming!
Even people with only a light interest (or even disinterest) in AI know that there is a leaderboard. Sometimes OpenAI is on top. Then Anthropic releases a new model and they grab the lead. Somewhere behind them SpaceXAI and Meta
Resolve Communications, the Daily Maverick, and the public conversation
The Daily Friend shares below a piece written by the IRR’s Head of Strategic Communications, Hermann Pretorius, originally submitted to the Daily Maverick on 14 July in response to DM writer Rebecca Davis’s article of 12 July, EXCLUSIVE: The DA
How to send SA's politicians to jail | interview with Paul Hoffman
Hermann Pretorius speaks to Paul Hoffman, founder of Accountability Now, about how to tackle corruption. Paul makes the case for an independent corruption-busting watchdog.
Accelerating – or deterring – off-shore oil and gas production?
The South African state’s crude oil reserves have dropped to some 8 million barrels (enough to meet the country’s fuel needs for just 13 days), the country’s refining capacity has halved and conflict in the Middle East is badly disrupting