NEWS - The African Mirror

Jun

24

2026

Blue lights, broken trust: Ex-lover tells how EMPD crew stole R14.9m in gems – and sold them for R110,000

NEWS

ON Tuesday, a guarded voice relayed over an audio link - disguised to spare its owner’s life - walked the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry through the anatomy of a betrayal: how a love affair with a senior Ekurhuleni police officer curdled into a staged “police operation” that stripped a Johannesburg gem owner of stones valued at nearly R15-million, sold for a fraction of that sum and carved into five identical slices of cash. The witness, protected behind the pseudonym Witness K, is an inspector in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department’s VIP protection unit. She is also, by her own admission,…

Jun

23

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

The ghost G-Wagon: how a Nigerian-American allegedly ran a $320,000 diaspora car scam

NEWS

OPERATIVES of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission's (EFCC) Ilorin Zonal Directorate have arrested a Nigerian-American businessman, Adegoke Oluwatobi Adams, over an alleged cross-border vehicle import fraud that investigators say drained more than $320,000 — roughly ₦434.88 million — from two Nigerians who believed they were buying a brand-new 2024 Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG from the United States. The vehicle, the EFCC says, never arrived. Neither, in the end, did any vehicle at all. Adams, who holds dual citizenship of Nigeria and the United States, is being investigated for alleged criminal breach of trust and obtaining money by false pretence, the…

Jun

23

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Drama at Entebbe Airport: Kenya, east African human rights lawyer denied entry

NEWS

MARTHA Karua's flight touched down at Entebbe International Airport on Monday morning with one purpose: to stand alongside two embattled colleagues, jailed opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye and detained former Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, as Uganda's courts decided their fates. She never made it past the immigration desk. Within minutes of landing, the Kenyan senior counsel and former Justice Minister was stopped, separated from her phone, and held incommunicado, before being marched back onto a return flight to Nairobi. No warrant was produced. No charge was laid. No reason was given. By Monday afternoon, one of East Africa's most…

Jun

23

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Cocaine, cash, blue lights: how tender kingpin, police-linked CEO allegedly struck a 5kg drug deal

NEWS

SOUTH Africa’s Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System was confronted on Monday with its most explosive evidence to date: a documented trail of WhatsApp messages, voice notes and video footage that, according to chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC, shows Medicare24 chief executive Mike van Wyk and imprisoned tenderpreneur Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala discussing the sale of five kilograms of cocaine. The disclosure lands fifteen months into a commission already strained by testimony on police capture, tender fraud and political assassination. But Monday’s session, held at the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College…

Jun

23

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Phosa defends Didiza: former ANC treasurer general says speaker’s decision to “abide” was constitutionally sound amid impeachment crisis

NEWS

FORMER ANC Treasurer-General Dr. Mathews Phosa has issued a robust defense of National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza's controversial decision not to oppose President Cyril Ramaphosa's urgent interdict seeking to halt the impeachment committee, declaring the move was "legally sound, constitutionally appropriate, and entirely consistent with the institutional responsibilities of her office." In a statement released Monday, Phosa dismantled the criticism mounting against Didiza, arguing that detractors fundamentally misunderstand both the legal effect of a "notice to abide" and the Speaker's constitutional role in Section 89 proceedings. Phosa's central argument cuts to the heart of the public confusion: "A notice to…

Jun

22

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENTS

How Nigeria’s courts are now targeting the support networks behind its terror kingpins

NEWS

NINE days after Nigerian troops killed bandit kingpin Kachallah Ibrahim Battujo in a forest near Iluke, Kogi State, the Federal High Court in Abuja delivered a sentence that did more than close a single case file. It signalled, in stark legal terms, that the State now regards a terrorist's family circle as a legitimate front in the war against banditry - not merely as collateral relatives, but as functioning nodes in a logistics chain. Justice Hauwa Joseph Yilwa on Friday sentenced Safiya Salihu and Halima Abdullahi - Battujo's mother and sister - to 40 years' imprisonment each, after both women…

Jun

22

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Africa told to fund its own survival as Ebola death toll passes 247

NEWS

THE Ebola outbreak tearing through eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has crossed a grim new threshold this week, and with it has come an unusually blunt reckoning from the continent's own health leadership: Africa cannot keep waiting on foreign donors to save it from diseases the rest of the world has little incentive to cure. DRC's health ministry confirmed on Saturday that the outbreak had grown to 956 confirmed cases and 247 deaths, up from 933 cases and 245 deaths the previous day. Ituri province, the epicentre, now accounts for more than 91 percent of confirmed infections, with the contact-tracing…

Jun

22

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Inside Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s war on Uganda’s press, parliament and opposition

NEWS

GENERAL Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda's Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and the only son of President Yoweri Museveni, has over the past fortnight escalated a years-long pattern of social media threats against the media, the judiciary, Parliament and the opposition into what critics now describe as an open campaign of intimidation against anyone who crosses him. In a rapid-fire series of posts on X, the General has vowed to shut down Daily Monitor and NTV Uganda, the country's two most prominent independent newsrooms, both owned by Nation Media Group, accusing the outlets of years of coverage he regards as hostile to…

Jun

20

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Africa footballer of the year – PSG, Morocco’s Hakimi – to stand trial for rape

NEWS

ACHRAF Hakimi spent Thursday night marshalling Morocco's defence against Scotland in Foxborough, Massachusetts, wearing the captain's armband of a team chasing only its second World Cup knockout berth in history. Less than 24 hours earlier, a court in Versailles had settled a question that has trailed him for more than three years: he will stand trial for rape. The Versailles Court of Appeal confirmed on Friday that it had rejected Hakimi's bid to overturn a February ruling sending him to a criminal court on a rape charge, closing off the last avenue by which the Paris Saint-Germain and Morocco right-back…

Jun

20

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Ebola outbreak threatens displaced communities in DRC as conflict, disease converge

NEWS

THE accelerating spread of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is now a direct threat to more than 2 million forcibly displaced people, UNHCR warns, with the risk of cross-border transmission mounting across an interconnected region where fighting continues alongside the outbreak. “UNHCR is deeply concerned by the accelerating spread of Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the growing risks it poses to displaced communities across the region,” said Dr. Allen Maina, UNHCR’s Head of Public Health, at a press briefing today at Geneva’s Palais des Nations. “For…