Imagine for a moment that South Africa finally decides to do what people have been recommending for decades, by bringing in a proper businessperson to run the country. Huzzah! His or her first concer...

The Department of Trade and Industry is reportedly considering a voluntary way of “shortcutting” black economic empowerment regulations, which would allow unlisted companies to bypass some aspects of ...

Here is a big question: what is artificial intelligence going to do to website income, and how will that change the internet?  The problem with big, global, tough questions like this is that the qual...

There is no question that the world is in a period of global geopolitical flux. If only there were a global forum where you could hear the world's leaders address these pressing challenges and propose...

We got treated to some wonderful evidence this past week about the abstruse dangers of political honesty.  When President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed thousands of ANC councillors and mayors from across...

During a press presentation on Friday, MTN CEO Ralph Mupita made a brief comment, almost in passing, about the various kinds of questions he gets on his international roadshows. He’s currently on one ...

When I smoked, I was always somehow convinced that the act of smoking made me seem more attractive. When people asked why I smoked, I would respond, “Isn’t it obvious? I just looked so much suaver, br...

The news of the past week has been worrying, from the crisis in the police, to more news about the construction mafia, to South Africa getting bad press internationally. In this podcast, Mark Barnes ...

Why is the truth so difficult? American journalist and social-political activist Gloria Steinem once said, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” And that captures the heart o...

If the Starlink debate has done anything, it has rekindled South Africa’s long-running, anguished and contested debate about Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and affirmative action.  Confronted with ...

Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s theatrical meeting with Donald Trump on Wednesday last week, there has been an absolute outpouring of “fact-checking”. It's been a tidal wave: interviews, opinion...

In the end, they both came away with a book. The much-heralded confrontation between SA President Cyril Ramaphosa and US President Donald Trump, which one US diplomat anticipated would be an “unmitiga...

My most enduring, most heartfelt thanks goes to the readers of this column who have been fabulously thoughtful, reactive, instructive and supportive of some views which at times have strayed, I’m prou...

There are few things more fun than seeing economists having a fat go at each other and getting proved wrong by history. Perhaps that’s an overstatement; the spectacle of economists arguing is perhaps ...

One of my favourite comic writers, Dave Barry, recently wrote an article on his substack entitled Summer Vacation Travel Tips. It has the subtitle, “I honestly don't have any.”  In his comic way, Bar...

Some time ago, I was granted a one-on-one interview with Bill Gates, the renowned entrepreneur, healthcare buff, and global philanthropist, as everybody knows. To say this was a rare honour would be a...

One likes to be open-minded and free-thinking, but for reasons of diplomacy and decorum (especially if it’s your job), there are things you just don’t say, especially on a recorded zoominar.  If you ...

Something odd is happening with the readership of South African news websites; it's dropping like a stone. Why? Is that globally unusual? Will it come back? Who, or what, is responsible? I think most...

Foreign policy is often so carefully hedged and circumspect and subsumed by niceties, that it's hard to follow. But then suddenly, there is a moment which penetrates like an icy knife into the very he...

Thank goodness for the occasional hot mic. What politicians say all over the world is now so scripted, and controlled, and preordained, that it's a pleasure when a politician, or banker, or anyone in ...

Or... why is reducing the size of government becoming a vote-winner? If there was an iconic image of elections worldwide in 2023/24, it was the Argentinian president-to-be Javier Milei snarling at th...

President Donald Trump’s executive order on Friday offering to resettle Afrikaner “refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination” invites the question: Is there a violin small enoug...

What should South Africa do in the face of the sudden emergence of the two-headed Musk/Trump hydra from the depths of the underworld?  Well, I think it's worth asking the expert in this field, Sun Tz...

Just when South Africans thought load-shedding was a thing of the past, it has returned. It's like the Creature from the Black Lagoon or any other horror movie villains - they always return because we...

Like a huge number of people on the planet, I have been delighted to tear myself away from the craziness that is President Donald Trump’s first fortnight in office to read extensively about DeepSeek. ...

The broad ethic of the World Economic Forum’s meeting every year at Davos in Switzerland is about being constructive. The forum prides itself in being a problem-solving institution, which can make it ...

Trust is important. Everybody knows that. Writer and academic Stephen Covey, the author of the best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, wrote perhaps the last word on trust: “Trust i...

There is a widespread but terrible journalistic habit of ending analyses with “Only time will tell”. It's the ultimate cop-out; if something is too hard to decide, just say it's too soon to do so.  Th...

It's four days until the US presidential inauguration day on Sunday, Janaury 20, 2025. How, one asks oneself at a moment like this, could one alienate the maximum number of people in the minimum amoun...

What is it about foreign policy and elephants? It's perhaps not the most common analogy cited when discussing foreign policy - maybe chess is the most frequently used as in, “Diplomacy is the art of k...

This weekend the ANC will be marking its traditional statement to commemorate its 8 January founding. May I just say right now with almost absolute certainty, it is going to be a non-event. This raise...

You have to feel a bit sorry for Schrödinger's cat. From Schrödinger's perspective, the situation is uncertain. But from the perspective of the cat, while things are also uncertain, the consequences o...

What exactly is wrong with New Year's resolutions? They are famously unsuccessful, but they remain enormously popular; we are resolute about our resolutions. They have existed for centuries. They conf...

The brink of the new year is a time to look forward but if you'll permit me, just for a second, to look backwards and ask, somewhat plaintively, a distressing but poignant question: who are the people...

One of my favourite prediction jokes is about the person who asked an astrologer what 2025 would bring and the astrologer replied, “Well … it is very cloudy, but there is a 100% chance of stars.”  An...

Christmas is when we are enjoined to think of the things that money can’t buy, even though it's the time of year we shop like crazy. If you think about it, this is just the start of the contradictions...

It's been a tumultuous year and a lot needs fixing. Here is an odd question, can humour help?  There is a tradition in polite society that seriousness and humour should always be kept apart. Not only...

The year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-four was designated at its start to be the year of democratic elections. These past twelve months set a record for the largest number of votes cast in demo...

One of my favourite notions is that the spectrum of political affiliation is not, in the ultimate analysis, left to right. It's circular. We know this because of fashion.  British comedian Eddie Izza...

Javier Milei and Donald Trump are repellant; but what do their successes tell us? According to the New Yorker, Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, once described the government thus: “The sta...

What if you don’t care what the “word of the year” is? What is the world’s word of the year? What is South Africa’s word of the year?  Why do we even care? Toward the end of the year, i.e. now, an...

What is it about clubs? People love to be asked to join but are less enthusiastic about participating and the allure soon wears off.  Comedian Groucho Marx famously said he didn’t want to belong to a...