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... 

It’s logical to assume that Africa is the go-to continent if one wants to breathe clean air most of the time, given its small contribution of just 4% to global greenhouse-gas emissions. But... 

Africa continues to bear the brunt of climate change, despite being responsible for a measly 4% of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions. Now we are told its remaining glaciers on three mountain... 

Italy, where a rightwing leader assumed the reins in October, and France have been locked in a war of words over Europe-bound Africans crossing the Mediterranean. The neighbours’ relations soured... 

I’m not a great fan of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The fellow is not big on genuine democracy and doesn’t brook any serious political opposition, with some of those perceived to be a threat to... 

Is Kenya’s new President, William Ruto, intent on governing for longer than the permissible two five-year terms? While his party moved swiftly to distance itself from a public announcement by one... 

So, the new Twitter lord, South African-born US tycoon Elon Musk is to introduce an $8-a-month charge for its Blue service, where a blue check mark next to the username on the social media platform... 

Quiet quitting refers to the practice whereby employees strictly stick to what is in their job description and, once they are away from the office, leave work behind them and focus exclusively on... 

With the great Nelson Mandela at its helm back in 1994, South Africa appeared to be on a trajectory different to the trajectories of other countries on the continent, many of which had seen the... 

I previously wrote about how our versions of the English language have found their way into mainstream English – ‘our’ being the possessive pronoun for the sons and daughters of the African soil.... 

Functional stupidity, a phenomenon that is often encountered in workplaces, refers to a situation where smart people refrain from speaking up when they are convinced that tweaking the way their... 

I’m aware that our political overlords in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, as is the case with their counterparts elsewhere, have at their disposal experts providing advice... 

It may be old hat now, but it bears mentioning in this column that Michael O’Leary, the mampara who runs Ryanair, finally regained his marbles and has been experiencing a prolonged period of... 

As news of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II’s passing broke on the evening of September 8, Twitter (and presumably other social media platforms as well) went into overdrive, with many of those who... 

Phophi Ramathuba may not have been a household name beyond Limpopo province, where she is the MEC for Health, until last month, but this is not the case anymore, after a video clip in which she is... 

Please fill me in, someone: Do we now have places in South Africa where conversations are sprinkled with phrases such as “Habari, rafiki yangu?” or words such as “Karibu”? To those who might be... 

Social media are changing the political landscape across the globe, including in Africa, where Presidents and other top politicians are using various platforms, especially Twitter, to mobilise and...