SPECIAL FEATURES - The African Mirror

Aug

11

2025

South Sudan’s new chief justice has a chance to reform the judiciary – if he’s allowed to do his job

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

SOUTH Sudan’s chief justice, Chan Reec Madut, was sacked in late May 2025 after more than 13 years on the bench. Madut leaves behind a legacy of inefficiency and accusations of judicial graft. But the sacking violated South Sudan’s 2011 transitional constitution and the law. Ultimately, the president’s decision threatens the rule of law and judicial independence. Constitutional scholar Mark Deng discusses this worrying development. What was envisaged for South Sudan’s post-independence judiciary? South Sudan won independent statehood following an internationally supervised referendum in 2011. The transitional constitution, drafted after the referendum, is the country’s founding law. It provides for…

Aug

08

2025

By ROBERT J. GORDON

Namibia’s forgotten genocide: how Bushmen were hunted and killed under German colonial rule

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

THE genocide of Namibia’s Ovaherero and Nama people by German colonial forces (1904-1907) is widely documented. But much less is made of what came next – the genocide of the country’s Bushmen, also known as the San. In 1992, anthropologist Robert J. Gordon published a book, The Bushman Myth and the Making of a Namibian Underclass, about these indigenous people of Namibia and how they were hunted and turned into servants by German colonisers. Now it has been thoroughly revised and has been republished as The Bushman Myth Revisited: Genocide, Dispossession and the Road to Servitude. We asked him five…

Aug

07

2025

By SAMIR RAMZY

Sudan’s rebel force has declared a parallel government: what this means for the war

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

SUDAN’S southwestern city of Nyala in Darfur recently became the centre of a significant political development. After more than two years of fighting Sudan’s army, an alliance of armed and political groups backed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces announced the formation of a parallel government on 20 July 2025. The new administration, dubbed the Government of Peace and Unity, is a coalition of armed movements from Darfur in Sudan’s western region and Kordofan in the central region. Together, these regions account for about 46% of Sudan’s total land area. The coalition has made Nyala its base. The city is…

Aug

06

2025

By Jovial Rantao

BMW Unleashes R2.8 Million M5 Touring in South Africa

MOTORING

High-performance estate delivers 535kW hybrid power and 305km/h top speed BMW South Africa has launched its most powerful estate car ever – the M5 Touring – with a staggering price tag of R2,795,000 that positions it among the country's most expensive performance vehicles. The luxury German automaker's flagship wagon arrives 12 months after its sedan sibling claimed Performance Car of the Year honours in the 2025 Old Mutual Insure South African Car of the Year awards, where it also secured third place overall. "The addition of the Touring derivative to our arsenal speaks to the overwhelming popularity of this model,"…

Aug

06

2025

By JONATHAN E. COHEN

The global health system can build back better after US aid cuts – here’s how

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

WHATEVER emerges from the current crisis, it will look very different from the past. As someone who has spent a 25-year career in global health and human rights and now teaches the subject to graduate students in California, I am often asked whether young people can hope for a future in the field. My answer is a resounding yes. More than ever, we need the dedication, humility and vision of the next generation to reinvent the field of global health, so that it is never again so vulnerable to the political fortunes of a single country. And more than ever,…

Aug

05

2025

By SIMPHIWE GONGQA and SALLY MATTHEWS

Ubuntu matters: rural South Africans believe community care should go hand-in-hand with development

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

THE failure of many development initiatives has led some scholars, especially those associated with the post-development and decolonial schools of thought, to call for alternatives to development. The idea of development is a very influential way of explaining inequalities between different parts of the world. Most people think of some parts of the world as ‘developed’ and others as ‘developing’ and believe that those in the ‘developing’ world need to follow in the footsteps of those ahead of them on a universal path to development. However, critics of development reject this way of thinking. They believe that development damages the…

Aug

02

2025

By ADRINO MAZENDA; CATHERINE ALTHAUS and MASSIMILIANO TANI

8 policies that would help fight poverty in South Africa’s economic hub Gauteng

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

POVERTY goes beyond income. It often arises when health, education and opportunities fall short of meeting people’s needs. Individuals are classified as impoverished when they face deprivation in one-third or more of the indicators in a multidimensional poverty index. The index reflects the various influences on socioeconomic class. These include housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, nutrition and school attendance. The index is one of the most comprehensive measures of poverty. The fact that the multidimensional index captures multiple dimensions enables it to reflect overlapping disadvantages. And provides a fuller picture of well-being. Other monetary measures, such as income, aren’t as…

Dec

27

2025

By DEVIN LEIGH

Apongo was a rebel leader in Jamaica – a diary entry sheds light on his west African origins

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

FOR over three centuries, between 1526 and 1866, at least 10.5 million Africans were forcibly trafficked to the Americas in the transatlantic slave trade. Over half of them (with known places of departure) left from a 3,000km stretch of the west African coast between what are today Senegal and Gabon. Scholars trying to uncover the lives of these diasporic Africans are forced to work with historical records produced by their European and American enslavers. These writers mostly ignored Africans’ individual identities. They gave them Western names and wrote about them as products belonging to a set of supposedly distinct “ethnic”…

Aug

01

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

SOUTH AFRICA’S WAR ON CORRUPTION: The SIU success story and blueprint for change

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

JOVIAL RANTAO CORRUPTION has been described by many South Africans as one of the biggest threats to building the country that millions who fought apartheid dreamt of. The scourge has siphoned billions meant to provide a better life to Nelson Mandela's nation, bringing the country to the verge of hopelessness. However, there is hope – found in institutions that continue winning victories against graft and citizens dedicating their expertise to fight criminals who loot state coffers. Hope is embodied by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which has taken the war against corruption and won handsomely over the past decade. The…

Jul

31

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

GWM Unleashes P300 LS: New bakkie heavyweight targets SA’s toughest jobs

MOTORING

A leading Chinese automaker has cranked up pressure on Toyota and Ford with a muscular new double-cab boasting a 3.5-tonne towing capacity and an aggressive R529,900 starting price GWM South Africa has thrown down the gauntlet to established bakkie rivals with the launch of its new P300 LS range – a hard-hitting double-cab that replaces the outgoing P-Series Black Edition LS with significantly more power and presence. The newcomer arrives as GWM continues its aggressive assault on South Africa's lucrative light commercial vehicle market, where Japanese and American brands have traditionally dominated. Armed with a potent 2.4-litre turbodiesel engine developing…