The Editor's Desk - Mon 19 Jan 2026: Mbeki’s load shedding revisionism — and today’s must-reads

Three senior executives are gone from one of South Africa's flashiest bitcoin bets this week, and the company's new interim boss won't say how big the alleged share manipulation was. An intelligence analyst says the crime bosses everyone is fixated on are just middle management, answering to people we never…

What really happens after the entrepreneurial dream comes true? Andrew Smith, co-founder of Yuppiechef, opens up about building a business from a side hustle into a retail powerhouse, taking venture capital, navigating rapid growth, surviving Covid, and ultimately selling the company. Drawing on years of handwritten journals, he shares candid…

In this edition of the NdB Sunday Show, Chris Steyn and intelligence Analyst Alwyn Swart of Fulcrum Analytics talk about the instrumentalisation of the intelligence apparatus by administrations across the ideological spectrum; as well as the links between high-ranking officials and external parties using South Africa as a proxy, not…

Three weeks after BNC#9 in the Drakensberg, Stafford Masie is back in the interview chair, this time as interim CEO of Africa Bitcoin Corporation. His predecessor Warren Wheatley, founder of Africa's first listed Bitcoin treasury company, along with his wife Tatum Keshwar-Wheatley and chief investment officer Akshay Karan, have just…

Sasol's oil hedges are built for a $50-a-barrel world, its Qatar plant has been switched on and off every three weeks by fighting near the Strait of Hormuz, and its biggest customer market just hit it with a 30% tariff. CEO Simon Baloyi sits down to unpack how a company…