South Africa’s Urban Crisis
The ANC’s neglect and corruption have driven South Africa’s cities toward decay despite last-minute renewal promises.
Columns
December 28, 2025
17 min read
Key to Modern Power Politics Still Lies in 17th-Century Europe
Kissinger’s Diplomacy argues that today’s geopolitical rivalries still follow the hard rules first written in 17th-century Europe.
Columns
December 27, 2025
5 min read
From Brexit to Bots, George Osborne Returns to Run OpenAI’s UK Pitch
From Brexit’s wreckage to Silicon Valley, Britain’s political class keeps cashing in. Now George Osborne is set to smooth OpenAI’s path into the UK state, nudging regulation and contracts.
Columns
December 26, 2025
9 min read
Six Reasons South Africans Can Feel Hopeful This Christmas
South Africa can enjoy Christmas with more to celebrate than the daily noise suggests, from deep democratic resilience and expanding freedoms to major social gains and a surprisingly unified public mood.
Columns
December 25, 2025
4 min read
The Common Sense's Christmas Diary
A good year, avoiding populism, the GNU passed its latest test, prudence at the Treasury, a welcome review of BEE, a way out of NHI, a foreign policy fix, SA can come right from here.
Columns
December 25, 2025
6 min read
ANC and DA Emerge as Twin Pillars of South African Politics
Polling from November showed the ANC and DA locked in the low 30% range, drawing support from the overlapping established and aspirant middle classes and pointing towards a future where cooperation could matter more than rivalry.
Columns
December 24, 2025
4 min read
Corporate South Africa Must Rethink its Western Reflex
As power shifts from a US-led world to a crowded multipolar order, South African companies can no longer rely on inherited Western loyalties and must build ties across all major centres of power.
Columns
December 22, 2025
7 min read
Living in Trump’s World
RW Johnson writes on Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy and how it abandons values and alliances in favour of power, spheres of influence, and transactional deals, leaving Europe divided, rivals emboldened, and South Africa increasingly irrelevant in a world reshaped by Trump’s instincts.
Columns
December 21, 2025
16 min read
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in 2025
David Ansara reflects on the year that was.
Columns
December 21, 2025
10 min read
Democracy – It Works if you Work it, so Work it, it’s Worth it
Viv Vermaak writes on meeting US congressman Thomas Massie and what his experience reveals about how democratic systems can bend, but hold, even under intense political pressure, if those inside them understand the rules and have the courage to use them.
Columns
December 20, 2025
9 min read
