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May
14
2026
By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS
South Africa’s farms under siege: How cartels turned rural land into narco laboratories

South Africa’s farms under siege: How cartels turned rural land into narco laboratories

NEWS
WHEN South African Police Service officers swept into Portion 45, Farm Brakspruit, near Swartruggens in the North West Province on Tuesday, they did not find tractors, grain, or livestock. They found an industrial-scale narcotics laboratory - chemicals, processing equipment, and drugs estimated at a street value of R100 million. Eleven people were arrested, among them four Mexican nationals. It was not the first time. It will not be the last. In September 2025, a strikingly similar operation played out 600 kilometres away on Oudehout Kloof farm near Volksrust in Mpumalanga. Police, acting on a tip-off about a suspicious chemical smell,…
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May
13
2026
By The African Mirror
South Africa’s highest court shuts the gate on repeat asylum claims

South Africa’s highest court shuts the gate on repeat asylum claims

NEWS
SOUTH Africa's Constitutional Court - the highest court in the land, whose word on matters of asylum is absolute and final - has handed down a landmark ruling today that strikes at the heart of a long-running controversy over the misuse of the country's refugee protection system. In Director-General, Department of Home Affairs and Others v Irankunda and Another, the Court's majority upheld the Department of Home Affairs' appeal and overturned a June 2024 Supreme Court of Appeal judgment that had ruled in favour of two Burundian nationals who sought to file a second asylum application after their original claim…
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May
13
2026
By OWN CORRESPONDENTS
Hantavirus: Zimbabwe, South Africa move to contain a crisis – while the world watches

Hantavirus: Zimbabwe, South Africa move to contain a crisis – while the world watches

NEWS
IT began with a bird-watching excursion on the remote island of Saint Helena - and it ended, for three people, in death. For the rest of the world, the outbreak of the Andes hantavirus strain aboard the Dutch-flagged expedition cruise ship MV Hondius has become the most alarming new pathogen event of 2026: a rare, rodent-borne killer that has, for the first time in recorded history, gone genuinely international. Now, as fear ripples outward from the South Atlantic to the shores of southern Africa and beyond, Zimbabwe and South Africa have stepped into the breach - not with alarm, but…
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May
13
2026
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
SILENCE BY DECREE: How Kinshasa is criminalising dissent as DRC burns

SILENCE BY DECREE: How Kinshasa is criminalising dissent as DRC burns

NEWS
IN a country already bleeding from one of the continent's most devastating armed conflicts, the government of Félix Tshisekedi has chosen to open a second front - this one directed inward, against the men and women who report, protest, organise, and dissent. The Democratic Republic of Congo is silencing its own conscience. That is the damning conclusion that emerges from a comprehensive Human Rights Watch investigation covering the period between January and May 2026. Across Kinshasa, Kisangani, Bunia, Kalemie, and Matadi, the pattern is consistent and chilling: speak critically of the government, and the security apparatus will find you. The…
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May
12
2026
By The African Mirror
Ramaphosa condemns xenophobic ‘lawlessness,’ vows mass deportations as Africa demands AU probe

Ramaphosa condemns xenophobic ‘lawlessness,’ vows mass deportations as Africa demands AU probe

NEWS
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has issued a forceful condemnation of violence against foreign nationals as criminal opportunism, while vowing escalated deportations and border enforcement - amid a diplomatic row with African nations over attacks on their citizens. In a letter titled "Everyone in South Africa must respect and uphold our laws”, Ramaphosa rejects the protests as unrepresentative. "The recent violent protests and criminal acts directed at foreign nationals in parts of our country do not represent the views of South Africa’s people nor reflect our government’s policy," he said. "These are the acts of opportunists who are exploiting the legitimate grievances,…
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May
12
2026
By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
UN Chief Guterres delivers fiery rebuke of global finance, champions permanent African seat on Security Council

UN Chief Guterres delivers fiery rebuke of global finance, champions permanent African seat on Security Council

NEWS
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has unleashed a scathing indictment of the world's financial architecture, slamming it as "deeply unfair" for saddling African nations with borrowing costs three times higher than those of wealthy countries – even as many boast stronger growth prospects and financial stability. Speaking at the inauguration of the United Nations Nairobi Expansion Project in Gigiri, Guterres framed the disparity as a colonial hangover from 1945, when Africa's voice was absent from the founding of key institutions like the UN Security Council (UNSC) and the Bretton Woods system. "It is not acceptable that African countries pay more than…
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May
12
2026
By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Mercy mission: Ghana rescues 28 nationals from West Africa’s human trafficking web – but hundreds remain trapped

Mercy mission: Ghana rescues 28 nationals from West Africa’s human trafficking web – but hundreds remain trapped

NEWS
GHANA's Foreign Affairs Ministry has announced the successful rescue and repatriation of 28 of its nationals from Côte d'Ivoire, where they had been held captive by a sophisticated human trafficking syndicate that had lured them across West African borders under the false promise of a new life in Europe. The government's confirmation, delivered through Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, came amid growing public alarm over a trafficking network whose reach, investigators now believe, extends to at least five countries and ensnares hundreds - possibly thousands - of vulnerable Ghanaians. THE MINISTER SPEAKS In a statement that was at once…
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May
11
2026
By The African Mirror
Ramaphosa: I am not resigning, defying calls from opposition parties

Ramaphosa: I am not resigning, defying calls from opposition parties

NEWS
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has told South Africans he will not resign in the wake of the Constitutional Court's landmark ruling that Parliament acted unconstitutionally when it blocked the Section 89 Independent Panel report, saying he intends to take the parliamentary panel's findings on review. Addressing the nation following the Constitutional Court judgment handed down on Friday, 8 May 2026, Ramaphosa was unequivocal: he would contest the determination by the Independent Panel, chaired by retired Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, that there is a prima facie case he violated his oath of office. "I am not resigning," Ramaphosa declared, signalling his intention…
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May
11
2026
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
Queen of the hill: Ajon, ambition and a Rolls-Royce Cullinan

Queen of the hill: Ajon, ambition and a Rolls-Royce Cullinan

NEWS
THERE is a word in the Teso language of eastern Uganda — Aicerit na Okide — which means, roughly, a woman of strength and purpose. The people of Bukedea District use it to describe their queen, their TOTO, their mother: Anita Annet Among, Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Uganda. The rest of the continent, surveying the spectacular latest chapter of her remarkable story, might be forgiven for reaching for a different word altogether. Several, in fact. None of them would be boring. Because on a recent bright morning at Entebbe International Airport, a cargo aircraft from England…
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May
11
2026
By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Growing calls for justice as Rwandan dissident Aimable Karasira dies in state custody

Growing calls for justice as Rwandan dissident Aimable Karasira dies in state custody

NEWS
AIMABLE Karasira had signed his release papers. His family was on its way to collect him. Five years of imprisonment - years scarred by alleged torture, medical neglect, and a prosecution that sought to silence him with a 30-year sentence - were finally behind him. Then, on the night of 6 May 2026, he was dead. The 48-year-old Rwandan academic, YouTuber, and relentless government critic died at Nyarugenge District Hospital in Kigali on the very day the state was legally obliged to set him free. Rwandan Correctional Services announced that he had died of a medical overdose, saying through a…
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