Former Bosasa executive Angelo Agrizzi’s sordid testimony before the Zondo Commission was more than enough to wipe the gloss off the first month of 2019. Sadly, it was not the only disheartening event of January. Besides the unacceptable segregation of learners at a North West primary school, violent repression in Zimbabwe, a deadly terror attack in Kenya and a stolen election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the month produced a litany of other unhappy headlines. A record heat wave in Australia underlined the global climate threat and yet more Brexit chaos highlighted that the divisions in the UK are as deep as ever, while America’s longest-ever government shutdown pointed to an ongoing political gridlock in the US. As if that were not enough, the International Monetary Fund used its January update to warn of a broad-based economic slowdown.