Is there an adult in the room?

Loading player...
The world is closer to war than it has been for decades. As the US and China square up to each other, any of the flashpoints in the Middle East, Ukraine, Taiwan and the South China Sea could erupt at any time. All it would take is one rash act. World War 1 began with a Bosnian separatist, Gavrilo Princip, shooting and killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in 1914. It turned out the world then was ripe for war, South African Institute for International Affairs chief Elizabeth Sidiropoulos tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge. And it may be ripe again now.
17 Jul 2024 English South Africa News Commentary · Politics

Other recent episodes

They’re mature, we’re premature…

Industrial strategy consultant Jake Morris enters the hot topic of industrial policy and tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that localisation has its place in industrial growth strategies and shouldn’t be automatically written off as many of its critics do. But they are only a…
12 Feb 45 min

Trump takes the GNU back to the brink

In the space of a week DA leader John Steenhuisen has moved from threatening legal action against the Expropriation Act signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa to defending the Act following US President Donald Trump’s astonishing attack on the country. Can Steenhuisen survive his flip-flop? Can the GNU survive…
4 Feb 42 min

Cyril’s in his happy place

Believe it or not, veteran political editor and Business Day Editor-at-Large Natasha Marrian tells Peter Bruce in tis edition of Podcasts from the Edge, President Cyril Ramaphosa is enjoying an all-too-rare personal and political purple patch right now and has found his happy place. Pushing through first the Bela Bill…
29 Jan 44 min

Maintenance, it was always maintenance…

Jamie Holley, CEO of Traxion, Africa’s largest private rail and rail services company, tell Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that the company is dead keen to participate in the long-promised concessioning of rail routes owned by Transnet to the private sector and now that Transport…
22 Jan 53 min

The right kind of bloodlust

Rise Mzansi leader and SCOPA chairperson in parliament, Songezo Zibi tells Peter Bruce in this first edition of the Podcasts from the Edge of 2025 that with the turn of Donald Trump to the White House and the removal of constraints from social media platforms like X (Twitter) and, now…
15 Jan 43 min