For years, Rian Malan has unflinchingly dared to say the unsayable about his native country, believing murder, corruption and disharmony will tear the rainbow nation into its separate colours. It's a conviction that has cost him his marriage and almost his sanity.

It is remarkable that during President Thabo Mbeki’s eight-year tenure as head of government, not a single Cabinet Minister has been fired. Nor encouraged to retire for health reasons, nor greased out.

Overseas impressions of SA are difficult to measure. Many people have only the crudest idea of the country and what is going on here.

Wine-tasting?

Sports sanctions played a crucial role in undermining the apartheid dictatorship. They may also soon help to topple Robert Mugabe’s tyranny.

If you want to know why affirmative action will be with SA for quite a while, look no further than the national cricket team.

The Supreme Court of Appeals has overturned Louis Trichardt’s change of name to Makhado because its municipality failed adequately to consult residents on the decision.

SA has forfeited the right to stage the 2010 World Cup.

When President Thabo Mbeki and other leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met last week in Tanzania to address the crisis in Zimbabwe, they responded by announcing another round of ‘quiet diplomacy’.

Once again, South Africans find themselves in a dead-end debate about race and racism. It’s a national pastime, and aliens, of both the extraterrestrial and earthly variety, would forgive us for our obsession.

Former Proteas star Gary Kirsten has paid a glowing tribute to his old coach Bob Woolmer, saying he made an enormous contribution to he sport in SA and around the world.

With the crisis in Zimbabwe intensifying rapidly, a South African who has spent many years in exile, speaks out about his anger at how Pretoria has chosen Zimbabwe’s leader over Zimbabwe’s people.

Two seemingly unrelated events have dominated extra-parliamentary politics over the past month: There was FNB’s aborted advertising campaign about the grave crisis of violent crime, and then there were the concerted efforts to discredit the enthusiastic response to Bok van Blerk's song calling for a heroic figure like the Boer War general Koos de la Rey to lead the Afrikaners out of their present state of political disarray and impotence.

SA's relations with the US in the era of President Thabo Mbeki have never been good; but they are now rapidly deteriorating.

For the past few weeks, SA's 'national' debate has been dominated by concerns about crime.

The US has opted to increase its military presence in Africa through the creation of a military command post, known as Africom.

After a few days in the fortress suburbs of Johannesburg, a visitor could be forgiven for thinking that SA was well into the abyss.

The SABC has been rocked by the resignations of respected radio presenters John Perlman and his co-presenter, Nikiwe Bikitsha, after months of turmoil at the public broadcaster.

When a handful of expats waved old South African flags at Twickenham last year, they were slammed in SA as bitter whites who were unable to accept change.

Somalia is Africa's forgotten crisis.

The most amazing thing about US foreign policy under George W Bush is that, even when everyone believes his administration cannot sink to new lows of stupidity, they prove us wrong.

Everything that has happened over the past year seems to be a dress rehearsal for the coming year.

In 1992, white South Africans voted in a referendum to answer the question: 'Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on February 2 1990, and which is aimed at a new Constitution through negotiation?'

Glittering malls stand beside grim poverty; the government is split and so are the people.

It was only four years ago that DA evangelists were criss-crossing the nation preaching about the dawn of a new era for the party.