麻豆约拍

Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from 麻豆约拍 correspondents around the world. In this edition, Andrew Harding wonders what recent events have revealed about South Africa's readiness for a post-Mandela reality. We've heard a lot about the lasting violence of the apartheid era - but despite alarming statistics and sometimes alarmist reporting, he asks whether the nation might in fact be settling into a less dramatic, less heroic, but more normal way of life. Meanwhile, in France, the public seems ever more disenchanted with politicians - even the ones elected to govern - amid continued economic woes. Which might be why, as David Chazan explains, there's more general affection for a convicted bank-robber-turned-folk-hero thank for some of the most powerful men in the land.