The DA’s spokesperson on foreign affairs, Emma Powell, found herself at the wrong end of a powerful assault by the State last week after she notified the country that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Special Envoy to the US (and, subsequently, to North America), Mcebisi Jonas, had done little or no work trying to heal our battered relationship with the Donald Trump White House in the 90 plus days since he was appointed. In fact, the Americans wanted nothing to do with him and had declined his request for a diplomatic visa. The National Security Council, which reports directly to Ramaphosa alerted The Sowetan to a report it has done on Powell and accused her of running the country down during a trip to the US in February. The newspaper splashed the story as the Presidency put out a statement calling her part of “a right wing nexus” acting against South Africa’s interests abroad. Powell tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that this is nonsense. "It's an empirical fact that the ANC had done nothing of value or meaning in order to shore up and rebuild trust with the United States in order to safeguard South Africa's interests in regards to our continued inclusion in Agoa beyond September,” she says. “We were trying to do our part and waving South Africa’s flag”.
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Not a moment too soon
People have been celebrating with some relief the publication of Songezo Zibi’s new book, Manifesto. It’s been a long time coming and with characteristic reticence, former Business Day Editor Zibi tells former Business Day Editor Peter Bruce in this episode of Podcasts from the Edge that he still isn’t quite ready to say quite what his new future will look like. Getting the book done was just the start but Manifesto at least makes his intentions clear. “It is Herculean,” he says of the job of forging a new think tank, the Rivonia Circle, and of creating a possibly new institution. But, he says, “in this respect, I have decided to take every step necessary to ensure that what I say here (in the book) does indeed take place”. In other words, there’s a new political party/formation/something on the horizon and it promises to be exciting. Zibi is young and smart and deeply contemptuous of our current political choices. He believes though that there is a vast mass of voters looking for an alternative to the status quo come the 2024 general elections, the ANC, the DA and the EFF. He is going to go and find them.
Peter Bruce, veteran South African newspaper editor and commentator, interviews the country's social and political leaders and experts in a weekly effort to explain what is actually going on in this complicated country. Bruce's interviews are about making events easy to understand for people with little time to listen.
South Africa