SPECIAL FEATURES - The African Mirror

Sep

30

2025

By DANNY BRADLOW; ANA SAGGIORO GARCIA; KENNEDY MBEVA and SANDY AFRICA

G20 in a changing world: is it still useful? Four scholars weigh in

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

U.S. President Donald Trump’s address to the annual gathering of the United Nations General Assembly in late September 2025 set a new low in international relations. Trump delivered a broadside attack on multilateralism – the effort to solve the world’s problems through collective endeavour – as well as issues that have found common cause among rich and poor countries alike, such as climate change. So, where does this leave the work of organisations such as the G20? The body was set up by the G7 in 1999 in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. The purpose was to create…

Sep

24

2025

By ANTHONY DIALA

South African men may now take their wife’s surname – why traditional leaders are upset

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

A unanimous Constitutional Court ruling has sparked fierce controversy by affirming the right of South African men to adopt their wives’ surnames if they wish to. It emerged from a lawsuit against the Department of Home Affairs by Henry van der Merwe, who was denied the legal right to take the surname of his wife, Jana Jordaan, and Andreas Nicolas Bornman, who could not hyphenate his surname to include the surname of his wife, Jess Donnelly-Bornman. They asked the judges to confirm an order of constitutional invalidity granted by the High Court in Bloemfontein. The Constitutional Court affirmed that section…

Sep

23

2025

By STAFF REPORTER

Seeds of Change: How VW’s corporate community investment creates lasting impact

MOTORING NEWS

IN an era where corporate social responsibility often feels like a checkbox exercise, some companies are writing a different story - one where genuine community investment becomes the foundation for sustainable change. Volkswagen Group Africa's recent initiative in Diepsloot stands as a powerful testament to what happens when a major manufacturer moves beyond traditional philanthropy to create meaningful, lasting impact in the communities where they operate. Beyond the Factory Gates: A Vision for Shared Prosperity On a crisp Saturday morning in September, something extraordinary unfolded in Diepsloot. One hundred and sixty Volkswagen Group Africa employees, joined by their families, transformed…

Sep

23

2025

By STAFF REPORTER

JAECOO fires back at compact SUV rivals with sharp-priced J5 triple threat

MOTORING

JAECOO has thrown down the gauntlet in South Africa's fiercely competitive compact SUV arena, unleashing its all-new J5 with launch pricing that undercuts key rivals while delivering premium specifications that punch well above their weight class. The Chinese marque's latest salvo arrives as a three-pronged attack on the sub-R500k market, with the entry-level Vortex variant storming in at just R369,900 for early adopters – a full R10,000 below its regular R379,900 sticker price. The range-topping Inferno caps out at R479,900, positioning JAECOO squarely against established players in one of the market's most lucrative segments. Turbocharged Performance Meets CVT Efficiency Under…

Sep

23

2025

By JOSEPH FALZETTA

Who is the White Army, the militia at the centre of renewed conflict in South Sudan?

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

TO many in South Sudan’s government, they are rebels bent on overthrowing the state. In most media accounts, they appear as a brutal, faceless mob with no clear grievances. But to White Army fighters like Both Nhial, the group’s purpose is clear and just: To defend their communities against a predatory state and state-backed rival militias. “What we need is for the community to live in peace,” he said. This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Joseph Falzetta Drawn from the ethnic Nuer communities in the vast swamplands surrounding the Nile, the White Army is a patchwork of…

Sep

20

2025

By FRANZISCA ZANKER and RONALD KALYANGO SEBBA

Uganda has signed a deal with the US to take asylum seekers – what’s behind it and what’s at stake

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

A new deal to deport asylum seekers from the US to Uganda was announced in August 2025. The full agreement, already signed by the ambassadors of the two countries at the end of July, set out the terms of the arrangements. Franzisca Zanker and Ronald Kalyango Sebba, who have studied refugee and migration policy in Uganda, unpack its significance. What deal has Uganda signed with Washington on taking refugees? Uganda has agreed to take on an unspecified number of third-country nationals who have a pending asylum claim in the US but cannot return home due to safety concerns. In other…

Sep

19

2025

By MHLANGABEZI SLAYI

Reviving South Africa’s grasslands: Eastern Cape villagers explain the challenges they face

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

SOUTH Africa’s Eastern Cape province has several million hectares of open land in rural areas, not privately owned but held in trust by the state on behalf of communities. The people who live there use it mainly for grazing livestock, subsistence farming, and sometimes hunting. A common misperception is that the grassy, rolling hills will take care of themselves. But these rangelands degrade for many reasons, making them unusable for the small-scale and landless farmers who need communal land for their animals. Agricultural scholar Mhlangabezi Slayi researches practical ways of preserving rangeland ecosystems so that farmers can continue to graze…

Sep

18

2025

By WILL WORLEY

Mozambique: A case study of growing need and global aid cut confusion

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

WHEN unprecedented aid budget cuts were announced by the United States and other major donors earlier this year, concerns were raised about where the reductions in finance and operational capacity would hit hardest and fastest. The months since have been marked by torturous deprioritisation efforts that have been shrouded in mystery and confusion. In this article, we try to unpack the impact on humanitarian responses in one setting, Mozambique, and work out what it might signal elsewhere. This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Will Worley The UN-led system has cut the number of people it aims to…

Sep

17

2025

By SALLEK YAKS MUSA

Nigeria’s use of soldiers for civilian tasks comes with serious costs – how to prevent this

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

NIGERIANS have experienced what it means for their government to be controlled by the military. From independence in 1960 until 1999, the country was under democratic rule for only about seven years. Since then, the military has taken a back seat in the affairs of the state. But in 2020, then President Muhammadu Buhari deployed the military to enforce restrictions imposed to manage the COVID pandemic. This was not unusual. The armed forces have long been used in Nigeria for roles normally assigned to the police, from quelling protests to responding to floods. In more than 30 states, troops were…

Sep

16

2025

By NICKY FALKOF

Satanic panic: 5 ‘occult’ crimes that gripped South Africa’s imagination

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

YOU might think South Africa was awash with occult crime if you scrolled through the country’s tabloids, social media and even mainstream newspapers. Criminal acts performed by witches, satanists and sangomas (indigenous knowledge practitioners), as well as threats from supernatural forces, loom large in South Africa’s collective thinking. From demon-possessed killers to charismatic cultists, it sometimes seems like the country is at war with evil itself. As a media studies scholar, I’ve written extensively about white fears of the occult in South Africa. But it’s not only white people who exhibit this anxiety. My new book The Devil Made Me…