South Africa

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s 2008 budget was a more powerful statement on Thabo Mbeki’s presidency than the President’s own speech. In his State of the Nation address to...

Trevor Manuel’s budget showed real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5% in 2007 and forecast growth of 4% in 2008, 4.2% in 2009, and 4.6% in 2010.

The African National Congress’s new leadership, in which the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) have aligned themselves behind Jacob...

African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma’s purge of allies of President Thabo Mbeki is gathering pace, with all the ANC’s key policy-making committees under the control of the...

Pomp, ceremony, fashion parades and backslapping are the usual accompaniments to the state-of-the-nation address with which President Thabo Mbeki opens a session of South Africa's parliament. This time,...

The electricity shortage is the immediate issue that makes South Africans question their government's competence. The energy utility Eskom says that underinvestment has left it with inadequate generating...

The governing African National Congress is preparing for all-out war between President Thabo Mbeki – and his allies in government ­ and Jacob Zuma, the ANC's newly elected...

The African National Congress conference in December elected six pro-Jacob Zuma activists into the top leadership positions and gave them control of the National Executive Committee. The Congress...

Two politicians – South Africa’s highly effective Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and France’s forthright Cooperation Minister Jean-Marie Bockel – are adding to the pressure on international institutions to...

South African companies are pushing into India’s markets. So far, the traffic has been one-way with Indian manufacturing companies such as Tata, Mahindra and Mahindra, and pharmaceuticals...