Twenty-seven years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, the country finds itself reflecting on the catalysts of a week of looting and destruction of property resulting in more than 200 deaths and US$ 1.3 billion in damage.
Mobs have attacked foreign-owned businesses on the streets of at least three South African cities in recent days. This has caused outrage across Africa. There have even been
retaliatory attacks. The South African government, under pressure to protect her
large international migrant community, quickly defused the attacks.
Millions of South Africans headed out in large numbers, some braving cold and wet weather to cast their ballot in the country's sixth democratic elections this week. The 2019 election was one of the most competitive and contested elections that also saw a whopping 48 parties on the national ballot—up 300 percent from a mere 10 years ago.
Between 1982 and 1988 Birgitta Karlström Dorph was on a secret mission in South Africa. "Why didn't they stop us? Probably they were not aware of the scope of the operation. The money was transferred through so many different channels. We were clever, " Karlström Dorph says.
Long before Joy Daniels became the manager of a travel company she was cleaning rooms at a guesthouse. But after joining a Fair Trade-certified business, a place that valued its staff, in a few years she was soon promoted to manager.
South Africans await judgement to be handed down in a court case that could set a sweeping precedent by empowering communities on communal land with the right to reject new mining projects.
April 12 is expected to be the infamous “Day Zero” in South Africa’s second largest city of Cape Town, a tourist hub which attracts millions of visitors every year.
The crowd in the park gave out roars of approval as the next act was announced: Mothusi Bashimane Ndlovu, one of Zimbabwe’s most popular singers and actors, who took to the stage with a small axe in hand.
At the dawn of the millennium, Sheila Mponda, 60, waved goodbye to her four children, who were leaving Zimbabwe for the United Kingdom in search of greener pastures. Mponda had just lost her husband and had been a housewife all her life.
Southern African countries have agreed on a multi-pronged plan to increase surveillance and research to contain the fall army worm, which has cut forecast regional maize harvests by up to ten percent, according to a senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) official.
The United States and Europe’s preference for white meat is hurting Africa’s poultry industry, says Luc Smalle, manager at the agro firm Rossgro in South Africa’s Mpumalanga area.
“Comrades, we have arrived. This cherry is eight years awaited. We have made it to this place,” Bishop Jo Seoka told the crowd, pausing to allow for the whistles and cheers.
In a country with unemployment rising above 25 percent, South Africans are increasingly looking for job creation in small-scale mining, an often-informal industry that provides a living for millions across the continent.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) may have had a small reprieve this week from a string of African withdrawals, with Gambia’s newly elected President Adama Barrow telling various media outlets that there is no need for Gambia to leave the court.
A persistent fear of diminishing phosphorus reserves has pushed mining companies to search far and wide for new sources. Companies identified phosphate deposits on the ocean floor and are fighting for mining rights around the world.
When #FeesMustFall began to trend on social media platforms in South Africa in October 2015, government shrugged it off as an example of isolated hotheads, while political pundits predicted the student campaign wouldn’t last.
The dam supplying Johannesburg’s water sits less than 30 percent full. Water restrictions have been in place since November and taxes on high water use since August. Food prices across South Africa have risen about 10 percent from last year, in large part due to water shortages.
Almost half a decade of drought across most of South Africa has led to small towns in crisis and food imports for the first time in over 20 years, as well as severely hampering the government’s planned land redistribution programme.
Brightly coloured cans, bags of fertilizer and packets containing all types of seeds catch the eye upon entering Nancy Khorommbi’s agro dealer shop tucked at the corner of a roadside service station.
Nolukhanyo Babalaza finished her final year of high school and received her diploma in 2000, but this was not an immediate passport to a good life. She was frustrated to see some people making it while she struggled to afford basic things like everyday food.
Despite a cultural, historical and linguistic identity quite distinct from the rest of Africa, Ethiopia never became a major tourist destination on the continent.