TimesLIVE Podcasts Podcasts from the Edge

Podcasts from the Edge

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.
Weekly English South Africa News Commentary · Politics
133 Episodes
1 – 20

Don’t do it

If he were a young Afrikaner, former Gauging Premier Mbhazima Shilowa tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge, he wouldn’t take up Donald Trump’s offer of refuge in the US, expropriation act or not. For a start, “as a young Afrikaner I would be educated enough…
19 Feb 41 min

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

"We need leadership and discipline"

Eskom Chairman Mteto Nyati tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that South African’s crisis is about a lack of leadership. It was there at the start…. Like the rest of us he worries about the country but reckons our problems can be solved with discipline…
27 Nov 2024 53 min

So What?

So Donald Trump becomes President. Former DA leader and GNU co-architect Tony Leon tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that while the Trump White House may indeed smile benignly on South Africa it is highly unlikely. We have built an arc of Trumps biggest targets…
13 Nov 2024 51 min

It's OK to be a little scared

Celebrated South African trade and industry specialist Donald MacKay tells Peter Bruce in this Edition of Podcasts from the Edge that he thinks Donald Trump is going to win the November 5 US presidential election and that the result could spell trouble for South Africa. If Trump declares war on…
30 Oct 2024 40 min

Home Truths

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that digitising our the entire chain of documentation between the state and us citizens, and for inbound travelers, “is completely doable” despite the weaknesses of the state-owned IT agency, Sita. He says officials are…
16 Oct 2024 42 min

Pots and pots of money

Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean McPherson tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that are are “pots and pots of money” available to finance the right infrastructure projects in South Africa. And the National Treasury sits on a nominal R950bn for infrastructure. The trick though…
9 Oct 2024 39 min

Cyril's first GNU reshuffle loading?

Reports that Justice Minister Thembi Simelani took what she calls loans worth R575 600 from a financial advisor who paid her out of commissions he had earned as part of the looting of the VBS bank should be enough for President Cyril Ramaphosa to require her immediate resignation. That the…
27 Aug 2024 8 min

The DA is never wrong, Peter

Rise Mzansi leader and former Business Day editor Songezo Zibi says the Government of National Unity has seven months to get the country out of the woods. And he tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that the DA is simply incapable of understanding why its…
14 Aug 2024 33 min

Why on earth gas?

Combative and passionate South African investor and industrialist Vuslat Bayoglu and Peter Bruce cross swords over the virtues of coal and renewable energy in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge but both agree than plans in the latest Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) to build a new 3 000MW gas-fired…
6 Aug 2024 52 min

SA has the right stuff

Jorge Heine, arguably Chile's most illustrious modern diplomat, tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that South Africa has no choice but to follow an Active Non-Alignment path in its diplomacy as the US and China square up to one another. Heine has been ambassador to…
31 Jul 2024 41 min

Is there an adult in the room?

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…
17 Jul 2024 57 min

Matters of Fact

Technology is dramatically speeding up change. The first meeting this week of the Cabinet of President Cyril Ramaphosa's new coalition Cabinet must quickly come to grips with the ferocity of the revolution rushing towards South Africa. In all probability they will ignore it. But as futurist Neil Jacobsohn tells Peter…
10 Jul 2024 34 min

Orchestrating Manoeuvres in the dark

Former DA leader Tony Leon has emerged mightily relieved to get his life back after two weeks spent in the political cauldron he left behind more than a decade ago. He tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that DA ministers in President Cyril Ramaphosa's are…
2 Jul 2024 29 min

And What Rough Beast Next?

Former Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has harsh words for the Independent Electoral Commission and praise for ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula following last week’s tumultuous election results. As he heads off to join the DA’s post-election negotiating team he tells Peter Bruce in this…
4 Jun 2024 39 min

If you're going to create winners where do the losers go?

Trade specialist and CEO of XA Global Trade Advisory Donald MacKay is unimpressed with the good press trade, industry and competition minister Ebrahim Patel has been getting (and giving himself) lately. At his lyrical best in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge he tells Peter Bruce that far from…
15 May 2024 47 min
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