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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

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…
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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

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…
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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

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…
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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

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…
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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

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…
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‘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

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…
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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

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…
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BOTSWANA’S GEM: 140 carats, one famous friend, and a career most gemstones can only dream of

BOTSWANA’S GEM: 140 carats, one famous friend, and a career most gemstones can only dream of

BOTSWANA is having a moment. Actually, scratch that - Botswana is having a year. A mere few days ago, 102 million pairs of eyes from every corner of the globe were locked onto this landlocked Southern African nation as it staged the World Athletics Relay Championships - the first time the continent of Africa had ever hosted the event. The tracks were fast, the crowds were electric, and the world was forced to reckon with a simple truth it had long overlooked: Botswana does not merely participate in the world; it defines moments in it. And now, before the applause…
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WHO moves to contain hantavirus outbreak as British patient fights for life in Joburg hospital

WHO moves to contain hantavirus outbreak as British patient fights for life in Joburg hospital

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has moved to reassure a concerned public that a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard an expedition cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean is under tight international management - even as a British national evacuated to Johannesburg on an emergency basis remains critically ill in intensive care. Seven of the 147 passengers and crew aboard the vessel have fallen ill, and three have died, the WHO confirmed on Tuesday. The British patient - transferred to a Johannesburg hospital as part of an emergency medical response - is reported to be receiving intensive care, with the WHO indicating…
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Oil shock, fear and flight: South Africa’s migrant backlash ignites continental diplomatic storm

Oil shock, fear and flight: South Africa’s migrant backlash ignites continental diplomatic storm

SOUTH Africa’s latest wave of anti-immigrant anger is no longer just a domestic crisis. It is fast becoming a continental fault line, as economic pain, political opportunism, and online misinformation fuse into a volatile threat to African unity. On Sunday, 130 Nigerian citizens signed up for government-assisted flights out of South Africa, the first group to register under a new voluntary repatriation scheme ordered by President Bola Tinubu after anti-foreigner protests swept Pretoria and Johannesburg last week. Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, confirmed the move and warned that more could follow as fresh protests are expected today, May 4, and…
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