The promised crackdown on illegal immigration: A show of force, but that is all.
On Sunday evening, when President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on illegal immigration, he had two tasks.
The US War with Iran – it was supposed to be easier than this…
There is a particular kind of hubris that afflicts powerful states on the eve of a war they expect to win quickly. It is the conviction that the enemy will behave according to the planner’s model rather than its own military and defence strategies. The Trump administration carried that conviction into Iran on 28 February 2026, and it has spent every week since discovering, expensively, how wrong it was.
Ramaphosa’s forked tongue on immigration
The president condemns xenophobic violence while validating the very falsehoods that fuel it. The mob he warns against is the mob his own party helped create.
No jobs: The dashed dreams resulting from a stalled economy
Watching a Bloomberg documentary on the Stilfontein mining disaster, I came to the realisation that these zama-zamas know full well the illegality of their actions, but to them the difference between legal and illegal work is immaterial. They work to put food on the table, put their children through school and care for their ageing mothers.
Proposed Pinelands development battle is not “about a golf course”
There is a growing refrain emerging in the debate around the proposed development of the King David Mowbray Golf Club precinct in Cape Town: that opposition to the development is an attempt by a privileged few to preserve an elite enclave. It is a convenient narrative for some, but it is a fundamentally misleading one.
Stephen, we don’t need to wait for history to judge Ramaphosa’s reforms
This piece, written in response to a recent article by Daily Maverick writer Stephen Grootes, was offered to, but declined by, the Daily Maverick.* Stephen Grootes is right that economic growth is the test of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s legacy. But the early returns are already in, and they point the other way.
Liberalism: in search of an idea – Part 2
As a driver of political action, liberalism manifested itself initially in demands for expanding liberties and constitutional governance, although not necessarily (indeed, not generally among liberals of the early 19th century) for comprehensive democratisation.
An urgent meander at The Hague
“Honestly, m’lord, we know he was in the bank when the robbery took place. We believe he is one of the robbers. Grant us an urgent interdict preventing him from doing any further robberies. If he is the robber, then we are stopping further robberies. If he is not the robber, well, then he is not suffering any harm. We’ll bring comprehensive evidence in due course to show that he is actually the robber, we promise.”
Assessing Powell’s performance at the Fed
MIT professor Kristin Forbes says Jay Powell successfully dealt with four extraordinary events during his eight years heading the Federal Reserve. Fed independence, she said, was tested more than at any time in 50 years, US tariffs went to a 90-year high, a global pandemic was the worst in 100 years, and inflation, she told a Washington audience, spiked to a 40-year high.
Palestine-Israel question overshadows atrocities across Africa
Most African countries reclaimed their political independence from the late 1950s, with Ghana becoming the first African country to attain independence, paving the way for several others to follow suit.Most African countries reclaimed their political independence from the late 1950s, with Ghana becoming the first African country to attain independence, paving the way for several others to follow suit.