Our website use cookies to improve and personalize your experience and to display advertisements (if any). Our website may also include cookies from third parties like Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Youtube. By using the website, you consent to the use of cookies.

Ok, I Agree
May
11
2026
By The African Mirror
Senegal’s Faye blocks Sonko’s comeback bill, opening succession battle at the top

Senegal’s Faye blocks Sonko’s comeback bill, opening succession battle at the top

NEWS
SENEGAL'S President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has refused to sign into law electoral amendments that would have cleared the way for Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko to contest the 2029 presidential election, sending the bill back to parliament in a move widely interpreted as the opening shot in a succession war between Africa's two most closely watched political allies. The decision, announced on 8 May 2026, came less than two weeks after the ruling PASTEF party's dominant National Assembly majority passed the amendments in an emergency sitting, voting 128 to 11 in favour of changes to Articles L29 and L30 of the…
Read More
May
09
2026
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
Wicknell Chivayo: Not a person of interest in SA. Just an interesting person. (He swears.)

Wicknell Chivayo: Not a person of interest in SA. Just an interesting person. (He swears.)

NEWS
THERE are men who, when accused of nothing in particular, say nothing. Then there is “Sir” Wicknell Chivayo. When the internet whispered his name in connection with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent private visit to Zimbabwe - a visit that generated more conspiracy theories than a Davos after-party - Chivayo did not retain a lawyer, issue a terse denial, or simply go for a walk on the Boulders Beach boardwalk. He took to the social media platform X (Twitter). At length. In CAPSLOCK. From Cape Town. On holiday. With his wife, his children, their friends, and — presumably — fifteen heavily…
Read More
May
09
2026
By JOVIAL RANTAO
The quiet giant: How humility built a nation

The quiet giant: How humility built a nation

NEWS
THERE is a particular kind of power that does not announce itself. It does not thunder into rooms or demand the orchestration of applause. It enters quietly, does its work with precision, and leaves the institution stronger than it found it. Festus Gontebanye Mogae, Botswana's third president, who died in the early hours of Friday morning at the age of 86, possessed exactly that kind of power - and spent a lifetime proving that humility is not the opposite of strength. It is, in fact, its highest expression. The news of his passing arrived as a quiet shock to a…
Read More
May
09
2026
By The African Mirror
Pan-African solidarity on trial: How a viral video threatens Ghana-SA relations

Pan-African solidarity on trial: How a viral video threatens Ghana-SA relations

NEWS
THE diplomatic relationship between South Africa and Ghana - two of the continent's most consequential democracies - has arrived at a precipice that few in either Accra or Pretoria had anticipated just two weeks earlier.  What began as a viral social media video of a Ghanaian man being humiliated and ordered to leave South Africa has, with stunning velocity, become a full-blown continental diplomatic crisis, now scheduled for adjudication before African heads of state. Ghana's Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa formally petitioned the Chairperson of the African Union Commission on 6 May 2026, requesting that xenophobic attacks against African…
Read More
May
08
2026
By OWN CORRESPONDENTS
The social media pharaoh of Ouagadougou: how Traoré’s propaganda machine conceals a nation under siege

The social media pharaoh of Ouagadougou: how Traoré’s propaganda machine conceals a nation under siege

NEWS
THERE is a version of Ibrahim Traoré that his communications apparatus works overtime to project onto the world: the young, Che Guevara-capped Pan-Africanist, unbowed by France, unbeholden to the West, leading a genuine popular revolution in one of the world's poorest countries. On social media, this version of Traoré is ubiquitous. Memes are minted, anthems are uploaded, and battalions of pro-junta digital activists - organised into what Human Rights Watch has documented as 'Rapid Communication Intervention Battalions' - flood platforms with coordinated messaging designed to make the captain look like Africa's liberator. Then there is the other version - the…
Read More
May
08
2026
By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Rwandan granny and ex-first lady in her late 80s face probe in France for genocide crimes

Rwandan granny and ex-first lady in her late 80s face probe in France for genocide crimes

NEWS
SHE is in her late eighties. She has lived for more than three decades in France, in comfort, far from the red soil of Rwanda. But this week, the long arm of justice reached across time and geography once more, as France's Paris Court of Appeal ruled that criminal investigations against former Rwandan first lady Agathe Habyarimana must resume - this time for her alleged complicity in one of the most savage episodes of mass murder the modern world has witnessed. The decision overturned a lower court ruling from last year that had dismissed charges against her on grounds of…
Read More
May
07
2026
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
Africa calls for $25m heritage fund boost, as it marks 20 years of continental cultural drive

Africa calls for $25m heritage fund boost, as it marks 20 years of continental cultural drive

NEWS
SOUTH Africa’s Deputy President Paul Mashatile has called on African governments, development finance institutions, and the private sector to fully mobilise a $25 million endowment for the African World Heritage Fund, warning that the continent's cultural and natural legacy remained chronically underfunded two decades after the Fund's establishment. Speaking at the 10th African World Heritage Day commemorations held at the Development Bank of Southern Africa in Midrand, Mashatile said Africa had never lacked heritage wealth — but had historically lacked the African-led financing and coordination structures needed to protect and leverage it. "Africa must take ownership of its heritage and…
Read More
May
07
2026
By OWN CORRESPONDENTS
Uganda passes softened ‘Sovereignty Bill’ but critics warn law still threatens civil liberties

Uganda passes softened ‘Sovereignty Bill’ but critics warn law still threatens civil liberties

NEWS
UGANDA'S parliament has passed the Protection of Sovereignty Bill, 2026, enacting into law a piece of legislation that critics say could be weaponised to silence dissent - even as last-minute amendments stripped out some of its most contentious provisions. The bill now awaits the signature of President Yoweri Museveni, who is expected to assent. The legislation was approved on Tuesday, 5 May 2026, during a packed plenary sitting chaired by Speaker Anita Among, following what ChimpReports described as a session conducted under tight military and police security, with deep divisions laid bare between government and opposition over the extent to…
Read More
May
07
2026
By OWN CORRESPONDENT
‘We are one people’: Ramaphosa scrambles to calm a continent as Pretoria’s migrant crisis goes diplomatic

‘We are one people’: Ramaphosa scrambles to calm a continent as Pretoria’s migrant crisis goes diplomatic

NEWS
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa stood in the gardens of Mahlamba Ndlopfu and delivered what amounted to a plea to the continent: judge South Africa not by the mobs in its streets, but by the soul of its liberation history. Flanking him was Mozambican President Daniel Francisco Chapo, whose very presence in Pretoria illustrated precisely how badly the crisis has escalated. The working visit between Ramaphosa and Chapo was billed as bilateral business: trade, investment, and economic integration. But no amount of diplomatic framing could obscure the elephant in the room. South Africa is haemorrhaging goodwill across the continent at an alarming…
Read More
May
06
2026
By The African Mirror
SA Home Affairs officials arrested for fraudulent selling of citizenship to Zimbabwean, Mozambican nationals

SA Home Affairs officials arrested for fraudulent selling of citizenship to Zimbabwean, Mozambican nationals

NEWS
TWO former employees of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) in South Africa were remanded in custody on Monday after their appearance before the Secunda Magistrate's Court on charges of identity theft and fraud, in a case that has exposed a systematic racket through which South African citizenship documents were allegedly sold to undocumented foreign nationals for financial gain. The accused,  Portia Mtshweni, 41, and Nondumiso Maboyi, 40, both previously stationed at the DHA office in Secunda in Mpumalanga province, are alleged to have unlawfully facilitated the issuance of South African identity documents to at least four Zimbabwean nationals and…
Read More
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Instagram
WhatsApp
Threads