Save for several years after his unceremonious ouster as head of State, triggering what some have described as an understandable sulk, former President Thabo Mbeki has never been one to mince his... 

Haiti, an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea with a population of about 11.5-million people, should be fairly well known to the average South African. That’s partly because former President Thabo... 

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot tool, has been around for just under a year, having been unveiled in November last year, yet it has become a major talking point, with the... 

It’s been a few weeks since the curtain came down on the seventy-eighth session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. Besides the many great speeches that were delivered, one of the... 

When asked by a journalist to reflect on his ten years as Botswana’s President – from April 2008 to April 2018 – Ian Khama was succinct and unequivocal: “I didn’t enjoy politics. Everybody’s... 

The increased availability and consumption of unhealthy foodstuffs in South Africa – as is the case in many countries – has fuelled what one can only call an obesity or overweight epidemic, what... 

Female heads of State have been something of a rarity in Africa. Current and recent incumbents can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan, who has been at the helm... 

Reality television lovers would be familiar with Keeping up with the Kardashians, the American series that focused on the personal and professional lives of the blended Kardashian-Jenner family and... 

I know there is such a thing as an overkill and I would have stayed clear of Africa’s multilateral institutions this week, having highlighted a few weeks ago how difficult it is at times to be... 

As a concept, ESG – environmental, social and governance – has gathered much momentum in recent years, with a 2022 study by asset management firm Capital Group finding that 89% of investors are... 

I have never warmed to Kenyan President William Ruto, who shot to prominence as an activist for the then governing Kenyan African National Union’s youth wing at the party’s most vicious in the... 

As Kenyan-born public intellectual and pan-Africanist PLO Lumumba often reminds us, there is something distinct about Africans – we are too tolerant of corruption among those who govern us, unlike... 

A couple of weeks back, I disclosed in this column how a nutritionist-designed diet and engaging in physical exercise daily had helped me shed tens of kilos, in the process taming my rampant blood... 

Much as one may try, it’s not always possible to be charitable towards some of Africa’s institutions. The very unexceptional and scandal-prone Pan African Parliament (PAP), which has been hosted by... 

I recently read a magazine article where the writer remarked that he could not remember the last time he had phoned a company and was answered by a human being. This is but one illustration of how... 

I have never made any bones about my dislike for former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – not after the racist comments about Africans that he made in newspaper columns during his time as a... 

A frequent experience for me during the past 18 months is acquaintances I haven’t seen in a while stealing furtive glances at me in a manner that betrays concern on their part about the state of my... 

South Africa has the unenviable distinction – nay, infamy – of being the most unequal country in the world, with a Gini coefficient of 0.65. This is little wonder, given the country’s unemployment... 

The ubiquitous face mask is now gone. So too have the rigid lockdowns that saw many of us work from home for the better part of the period from 2020 to early 2021. But not all reminders that our... 

Following the sluggish 1990s, the early years of this millennium witnessed spectacular growth in sub-Saharan Africa, giving rise to the Africa Rising narrative – the notion that it was inevitable... 

The term ‘climate apartheid’ has been bandied about to refer to wealthy nations’ ability to pay to escape the overheating, hunger and conflict that ensue from climate change while the rest of the... 

Inflation, unemployment and punitive borrowing costs – read interest rates – are said by those in the know to be sure-fire determinants of whether the citizens of a nation are a miserable lot. With... 

There has been much debate of late – in the media and elsewhere – about whether new Johannesburg mayor Kabelo Gwamanda is capable of leading a city with a R70-billion-plus yearly budget, given his... 

Assuming you are reading this article on this edition’s publication day, the odds are you are nursing a hangover, unless you live in South Africa or in the other countries where Africa Day – May 25... 

It must be five years ago now. Or slightly longer. But whatever. Back then, I wrote in this column about a latter-day Melchizedek of sorts, who, unlike the Old Testament character, is female. I... 

I did not know of Thapelo Amad at all prior to his short-lived tenure as the mayor of Johannesburg. Just as I was beginning to form an opinion of him, he resigned, but that was not before I had... 

Achraf Hakini, a star defensive midfielder for French football club Paris Saint-Germain, should have significant name recognition in a football-loving country such as South Africa, given his... 

Thabo Bester’s soapy-like prison escape in May last year and his equally dramatic capture in Tanzania this month are decidedly among the biggest talking points now – not only in South Africa but... 

A rather curious motion has been introduced in Lesotho’s Parliament. It seeks to reclaim all of South Africa’s Free State province, as well as parts of Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape... 

That Zimbabwe is one of the problem children of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is not in doubt. It’s also beyond question that, despite this dubious honour, leaders of the bloc’s... 

The Democratic Alliance’s (DA's) federal congress, held last week, included a two-way leadership contest that pitted the incumbent, John Steenhuisen, against former Joburg mayor Mpho Phalatse and... 

Conventional wisdom has it that our kids attaining a high degree of proficiency in the so-called STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is an absolute must if this... 

Namibia is something of a rarity in Southern Africa. I mean ‘southern’ as defined in the dictionary, not as the word is understood by the fellows at SADC House, in Gaborone, Botswana, to whom... 

Tunisia, a small North African nation, has had a lot of bad press of late. This comes on the back of a campaign against immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, with reports rife of random identity... 

At the time of writing, Bola Tinibu had just been named Nigeria’s President-Elect, after the wizened former governor of Lagos, Africa’s largest city, had shrugged off challenges from contenders who... 

A disclaimer first: this piece is not exactly original, as it draws heavily from a recent Twitter thread by Zakes Mda, the acclaimed South African novelist, poet and playwright who currently lives... 

Alan Knott-Craig Jnr, the namesake son of the former boss of telecoms giant Vodacom, wrote in his 2008 book that emigration will never beat living and working in one’s own country. As an... 

Loadshedding has become a new normal in South Africa, with the intensity having worsened in the past two years, and word is that we should brace ourselves for this scourge for at least the next 18... 

Apologies in advance: for the umpteenth time, I cite Kenyan public intellectual, anticorruption crusader and pan-Africanist PLO Lumumba’s take on Africans’ attitude to corrupt politicians, which,... 

Sudanese philanthropist Mo Ibrahim is someone all of us should be proud of; among other things, he uses part of his vast wealth, made from investments in telecommunications, to incentivise African... 

What is it with African Presidents? All too frequently, incumbents and their predecessors tend to squabble – to put it mildly – over all manner of issues. South Africa is no exception, with the... 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has grabbed headlines internationally since it started in February last year because of its global ripple effects – shocks to supply chains, energy markets and...