TO foreigners we must sometimes appear to be a strange nation. Warm and hospitable one day, we are capable of unspeakable violence against each other the next. We were able to host the World Cup, our banking system is the match of any developed country, and yet, a five-star tour[…]

WHAT could our 2011 municipal elections have to do with the North African political earthquake, or, recent events in places such as Cote d’Ivoire or Uganda? As I watched the results unfold at the Independent Electoral Commission’s results centre in Bellville South last week, I realised that the answer was[…]

THE other day I wrote an article about the halalisation of our consumer space by Halal bodies. They were more concerned, I suggested, in making a fast buck than acting in public interest. The piece, which appeared in a mainstream publication, was a response to complaints by non-Muslims that they[…]

ROBERT FISK, the Beirut-based correspondent for The Independent, knows his way around the geopolitics of the Middle East better than most. But more than that, Fisk speaks with the rare authority of having been there. Over the last three decades he has covered most of its major conflicts. His political[…]

President Barack Obama’s announcement that the US’s most-maligned figure, Usama bin Laden, had been killed in a covert operation 50 kms north of the Pakistani Capital, Islamabad, has caused surprise and cynicism in the Muslim world. There are many Muslims, in capitals such as Cairo and Tunis, who regard it[…]