Business owners at the centre of a scandal that led to former president Jacob Zuma’s resignation
Two wealthy Indian-born business brothers who were allegedly at the centre of a massive web of state corruption in South Africa have been arrested in Dubai, Pretoria announced on Monday.
The arrests came as an investigation was concluded into massive plundering of state institutions during former president Jacob Zuma’s era.
Continue reading...Airline accused of discrimination after it introduces test due to ‘high prevalence of fraudulent passports’
Ryanair is facing accusations of racial discrimination after forcing South Africans to take a test in Afrikaans before boarding flights home from the UK and Europe.
The budget airline, which claimed the “simple questionnaire” was part of efforts to tackle fraudulent South African passport holders, is facing criticism for conducting the general knowledge test in a language that is the third most used in the country and had a controversial role in the oppression of black citizens during apartheid.
Continue reading...In Africa, celebrations in honour of the Queen stir nostalgia in some, resentment in others
The jubilee has met with a muted response in much of sub-Saharan Africa, with commentators evoking the troubled history of the British empire, London’s diminished influence and the distraction of deepening economic problems on the continent to explain the apparent apathy.
Buckingham Palace listed 18 official beacons lit in commemoration across Africa last week, and Seychelles president Wavel Ramkalawan described the Queen as “a remarkable global personality whose legacy transcends national borders” who was “loved and respected by the entire world”. But such sentiments are not universal.
Continue reading...The South African government sent Anton Hammerl’s passport to his widow in 2016 but has refused to say how it came to have it
The widow of a British-based photographer who was murdered by Col Gaddafi’s forces in Libya in 2011 has accused South Africa of withholding crucial information about her husband’s death that could help in efforts to locate his body.
Anton Hammerl was killed in an incident in May 2011 that saw other journalists, including James Foley – who was later kidnapped and beheaded by Islamic State in Syria – taken prisoner.
Continue reading...Building work is quiet, for now, on £200m project that pits different visions of South Africa’s future against one another
Smoke curls into the air, a drum beats, the dance begins, a chant is raised. Ten metres away, cars howl past on a busy road, drivers unaware of the sacred ritual taking place in the centre of a bustling South African city.
Francisco Mackenzie, a chief of the Cochoqua community of the Khoi people, talks of ancient beliefs and battles five centuries ago, against invaders from overseas. He points to the iconic skyline of Table Mountain, and then to a nearby building site.
Continue reading...Regime reports another 21 deaths as fresh outbreaks of coronavirus in South Africa and US concern health officials
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has warned his country has been thrown into “great turmoil” after reporting another 21 deaths, days after the secretive state first admitted it was in the grip of a coronavirus outbreak.
The nation’s total death toll now stands at 27, with 524,440 illnesses attributed to a rapid spread of fever consistent with Covid since late April. The regime said 243,630 people had recovered and 280,810 remained in quarantine. However, it did not specify how many of the cases and deaths had been confirmed as Covid-19 infections.
Continue reading...Brutal heatwave in India and Pakistan also certain to have been exacerbated by global heating, scientists say
The massive and deadly floods that struck South Africa in April were made twice as likely and more intense by global heating, scientists have calculated. The research demonstrates that the climate emergency is resulting in devastation.
Catastrophic floods and landslides hit the South African provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape on 11 April following exceptionally heavy rainfall.
Continue reading...Inquiry says South Africa’s ruling ANC ‘should be ashamed’ by alleged efforts to steal vast sums
Jacob Zuma has been accused of systematic and “unlawful” efforts to give business allies control of billions of dollars worth of state assets, by the judge charged with investigating wrongdoing during the former president’s years in power in South Africa.
Raymond Zondo, who was appointed in 2018 to lead an inquiry into allegations of systematic corruption under Zuma’s rule, handed his latest report to the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, on Friday.
Continue reading...Rise in infections appears to be driven by Omicron sub-variants, say health officials
South Africa may be entering a fifth Covid wave earlier than expected after a sustained rise in infections over the past 14 days that seems to be driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub-variants, health officials and scientists have said.
The country that has recorded the most coronavirus cases and deaths on the African continent only exited a fourth wave around January and had predicted a fifth wave could start in May or June, early in the southern hemisphere winter.
Continue reading...Many are still missing after this month’s floods. Extreme weather is becoming more frequent, and it can be devastating
Survivors of South Africa’s devastating floods have described “sheet upon sheet of relentless rain” that washed away entire houses, bridges and roads, killing about 450 people and making thousands homeless.
The storm, which delivered close to an entire year’s usual rainfall in 48 hours, took meteorologists by surprise and has been blamed by experts on climate change. The new disaster comes after three tropical cyclones and two tropical storms hit south-east Africa in just six weeks in the first months of this year.
Continue reading...Emergency services on high alert in KwaZulu-Natal as search for victims continues, with almost 400 dead
South Africa’s flood-ravaged east has been hit by another downpour of rain, after the catastrophic storm killed nearly 400 people and left tens of thousands homeless.
Flood waters from the deadliest storm to hit the country in living memory engulfed parts of the coastal city of Durban earlier this week – tearing apart roads, sweeping away homes and those trapped inside them, and sinking heavy cargo containers.
Continue reading...More weather warnings ahead as search continues for those hit by deadly storms in KwaZulu-Natal province
South African police, army and volunteer rescuers have widened the search for dozens still missing five days after the deadliest storm to strike the city of Durban in living memory as the death toll rose to nearly 400.
The floods, which affected nearly 41,000 people, left a trail of destruction and killed at least 395 people, said Sipho Hlomuka, the regional head of the disaster management ministry.
Continue reading...‘Climate change is here,’ says President Ramaphosa after 300 died in eastern city of Durban
Police in South Africa have used stun grenades to disperse a crowd calling for more and better official aid for victims of the lethal floods earlier this week.
The demonstration on Thursday briefly blocked a major highway in the eastern city of Durban, where more than 300 people have died in flooding in recent days.
Continue reading...President describes ‘catastrophe of enormous proportions’ as more than 300 people die in Durban area
South Africa is bracing for more heavy rain in districts hit by massive and lethal downpours earlier this week.
More than 300 people have died in flooding in and around the eastern coastal city of Durban in recent days. On Wednesday the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, described the flooding as a “catastrophe of enormous proportions”, directly linking it to the climate emergency.
Continue reading...President Cyril Ramaphosa blames ‘catastrophic’ rainfall in KwaZulu-Natal on climate crisis
The death toll from devastating floods in and around the South African port city of Durban has risen to 306, the government said Wednesday, after roads and hillsides were washed away as homes collapsed.
The heaviest rains in 60 years pummelled Durban’s municipality, eThekwini in Zulu. According to an AFP tally, the storm is the deadliest on record in South Africa.
Continue reading...More than half of women in South Africa projected to have condition, with no country expected to meet WHO target of halting rise, according to World Obesity Atlas figures
More than a billion people around the world will be obese by 2030 – double the number there was in 2010, according to new global estimates.
No country is on track to meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) target to halt obesity by 2025, with one in five women and one in seven men predicted to have the condition by 2030.
Continue reading...Non-white refugees face violence and racist abuse in Przemyśl, as police warn of fake reports of ‘migrants committing crimes’
Police in Poland have warned that fake reports of violent crimes being committed by people fleeing Ukraine are circulating on social media after Polish nationalists attacked and abused groups of African, south Asian and Middle Eastern people who had crossed the border last night.
Attackers dressed in black sought out groups of non-white refugees, mainly students who had just arrived in Poland at Przemyśl train station from cities in Ukraine after the Russian invasion. According to the police, three Indians were beaten up by a group of five men, leaving one of them hospitalised.
Continue reading...Review of G20 fiscal stimulus spending counters many countries’ pledges to ‘build back better’
Only about 6% of pandemic recovery spending has been “green”, an analysis of the $14tn that G20 countries have poured into economic stimulus.
Additionally, about 3% of the record amounts governments around the world have spent to rescue the global economy from the Covid-19 pandemic has been spent on activities that will increase carbon emissions, such as subsidies to coal, and will do little to reduce greenhouse gases or shift the world to a low-carbon footing.
Continue reading...Analysis: Economic penalties have been meted out since Napoleon’s day but there’s little proof they achieve the desired outcome
Waging war by economic means is nothing new. Napoleon imposed an ineffective embargo on British exports in the early 19th century and during the first world war there were attempts by both sides to starve each other into submission.
But since 1945 sanctions have been used with increasing frequency as a means of trying to change either the policy stance or the regimes in targeted countries.
Continue reading...Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia first countries to be assisted by global mRNA hub
Six African countries – Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia – will be the first on the continent to receive the technology needed to produce their own mRNA vaccines from a scheme headed by the World Health Organization.
The groundbreaking project aims to assist low- and middle-income countries in manufacturing mRNA vaccines at scale and according to international standards, with the aim of ending much of the reliance of African countries on vaccine manufacturers outside the continent.
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