WORLD - The African Mirror

Apr

29

2026

Donkeys are a symbol of endurance for Palestinians – they are also a target of settler violence and care

WORLD

DONKEYS tend to symbolize humility and redemption; in Jewish tradition, the Messiah will arrive on a white donkey. But in today’s “land of the Bible,” donkeys have become victims of the war in Gaza and, increasingly, targets of the growing settler violence in the West Bank. Take what happened in December 2025 near Jaba, north of Ramallah. While a Palestinian child watched, seven Jewish settlers from Gur Aryeh, a small illegal outpost, reportedly led away his family’s three donkeys. When an Israeli peace activist later arrived at the scene, she found one of the donkeys with a rope around the…

Apr

29

2026

By FRANCESCA JACKSON

King Charles embarks on state visit to the US – can he repair the special relationship?

WORLD

The visit, which runs from April 27 to 30, has been controversial amid tensions between the White House and Downing Street. Trump has repeatedly criticised Keir Starmer over a lack of support for the US military operation in Iran. Trump’s threats to buy Greenland and the capture of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro have also received varying levels of criticism from the UK government. Trump has also called the UK’s plan to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius an “act of great stupidity”, and reports suggest the US is reviewing its position on Britain’s claim to sovereignty of the…

Apr

28

2026

By JAMES PIAZZA

Latest attack threatening President Trump reflects rising political violence in US

WORLD

FOR the third time in three years, Donald Trump has come under threat by an attacker. Many facts remain unclear after a gunman stormed the Washington Hilton on April 25, 2026, during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. As the investigation into the shooting continues, Alfonso Serrano, The Conversation’s politics and society editor, spoke with James Piazza, a political violence scholar at Penn State, about what is driving the rise of political violence in the U.S. and what can be done about it. This is not the first time Trump has faced political violence. What stands out after the latest…

Apr

28

2026

By SHEFALI LUTHRA

Sleepless nights, diapers and GLP-1s: More people are turning to weight loss drugs after having babies

WORLD

EVERY time Sarah Kinee opened Instagram, she was barraged with advertisements for weight loss products. One time, she recalled seeing six in a row. “I was like, what is this? Why do I keep getting ad after ad?” said Kinee, who had her second child late last year. “It’s all about how they can make money and profit off women.” This story was originally reported by Shefali Luthra of The 19th. Meet Shefali and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. Kinee, 31, was breastfeeding and gaining weight; she and her husband began talking about whether she…

Apr

28

2026

By TILMAN RUFF

A new nuclear arms race is accelerating. There’s only one way to stop it

WORLD

THIS week in New York, diplomats from almost every nation will convene for a four-week review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the most comprehensive nuclear arms agreement in the world. The stakes could hardly be higher. Russia, Israel and the United States, all nuclear-armed, are conducting illegal wars of aggression against countries without nuclear weapons. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan engaged in conflict last year across their disputed border, raising the spectre of nuclear escalation. In February, the last remaining agreement constraining Russian and US nuclear weapons lapsed, with nothing to replace it. The two countries…

Apr

27

2026

By VALERIE MORKEVICIUS

‘Just war’ has guided Catholic thinking on conflict for centuries – including criticism of Iran war

WORLD

SINCE the beginning of the Iran war, Pope Leo XIV has frequently called for peace, cautioning that the “delusion of omnipotence” makes military force seem preferable to diplomacy. Although U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, criticized some of the pope’s comments, a growing choir of Catholic voices has criticized the conflict by invoking the concept of “just war” – an evolving tradition that has guided Christian thinking about war and peace for 1,500 years. In March, the archbishop of Washington said the war failed “to meet the just war threshold.” A month later, the prelate leading the U.S. military’s…

Apr

27

2026

By OULA KADHUM

The Russian resistance no one is talking about

WORLD

YOU could be forgiven for thinking everyone in Russia either supports the war in Ukraine or is too scared to do anything about it. A dominant narrative is that Russian civil society is passive, complicit or has been quashed to the point of being neutralised. Some elements of this may be true. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian citizens criticising the war or expressing an anti-war position have faced severe prison sentences. These fall under expanded war censorship laws that target the spread of alleged “false information” or the “discrediting of the army”. But this is not…

Apr

25

2026

By CHRISTIAN EMERY

Has the Strait of Hormuz emerged as Iran’s most powerful form of deterrence?

WORLD

ONE of the US and Israel’s justifications for launching the war on Iran was to ensure the regime in Tehran could never possess nuclear weapons, the ultimate deterrent against external attack. But the main lesson that has been taken from the war, according to some commentators, is that Iran’s own geography already provides it with all the deterrent it needs. The US-Israeli strikes have inflicted massive damage on Iran’s leadership and have destroyed billions of US dollars' worth of military and civilian infrastructure. However, this display of force has proved unable to stop Iran from controlling who enters the Strait…

Apr

25

2026

By GRACE PANETTA

Sexual misconduct by lawmakers is widespread — but often goes unreported

WORLD

THE recent resignations of two members of Congress have reignited a conversation about sexual harassment in politics nearly nine years after the peak of the #MeToo movement. And new data sheds more light on the scope of the problem — and the major barriers to reporting and addressing abuse. The National Women’s Defense League (NWDL), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on combating sexual misconduct in politics at the state level, released its annual updated report detailing ongoing research into sexual misconduct in statehouses and — for the first time — data on sexual misconduct in Congress, shared first with The…

Apr

25

2026

By WESLEY MORGAN and BEN NEWELL

The end of oil? As fuel shocks cascade, 53 nations gather to plan a fossil fuel phaseout

WORLD

US President Donald Trump is a longtime climate denier and oil industry ally, who sums up his own energy policy as “drill, baby, drill”. Yet he is doing more than almost anyone to speed up the global shift from fossil fuels to clean energy and electric vehicles (EVs). After the US and Israel struck Iran in late February, Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz and triggered the largest disruption of oil supply in history. Ironically, for Trump and his oil industry donors, this crisis may be an irreversible tipping point for clean energy. For years, fossil fuel advocates spruiked oil,…