WORLD - The African Mirror

May

13

2026

Trump‑Xi summit will be no ‘Nixon in China’ moment – that they are talking is enough for now

WORLD

MEETINGS between Chinese and American leaders are not exactly routine, but few are historically groundbreaking. The exceptions include the very first visit by a sitting U.S. president to China, when Richard Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing in February 1972 – at a time when America did not even formally recognize the People’s Republic of China. Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the U.S. in 1979 generated a similarly iconic moment when the reformist Chinese leader donned a Stetson at a Texas rodeo, a sign that he would be willing to engage with America in a way that Mao contemplated…

May

13

2026

By FRANK GERITS

Why Nairobi Africa‑France summit bears the hallmarks of Macron and Ruto priorities

WORLD

THE 2026 Africa-France summit in Nairobi on May 11-12 is the first to be held in an African country that is not a former French colony. It is also the first to be held since the dramatic collapse of relations between France and a number of West African countries – notably Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The 2026 summit can be understood as the latest example of President Emmanuel Macron’s new Africa doctrine, which he laid out in Burkina Faso in 2017. The doctrine’s three notable messages were: An apology for colonial wrongs a neoliberal small-business approach to assistance programmes…

May

12

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

A precedent written in blood: Australia’s first crimes against humanity trial tests the limits of justice, compassion, and state accountability

WORLD

ON 7 and 8 May 2026, Australian federal authorities crossed a constitutional threshold that had stood uncrossed for twenty-four years. Three women - returning nationals who spent more than seven years detained without charge in the dust and disease of northeast Syrian desert camps - were brought before Australian courts on charges that have never before appeared on the country's docket: crimes against humanity. Two of the women are accused of enslaving female Yazidi captives, a community that the Islamic State (ISIS) systematically sought to annihilate through killings, sexual slavery, and torture. A third faces charges of entering a declared…

May

12

2026

By TOM HARPER

China has played a key role in the Iran war – and will continue to do so

WORLD

DONALD Trump has paused “Project Freedom”, the US operation aimed at restoring commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. In a post on social media just days after the operation was first announced, Trump said he had made the decision to give US negotiators time to reach an agreement with Iran to end the war. Iranian state media has framed the suspension as a US failure. Iran had warned that it would target vessels attempting to enter the waterway and subsequently launched missiles and drones at civilian ships and the United Arab Emirates. It is unclear where the conflict will…

May

12

2026

By IRENE APPEANING ADDO

What Ghana’s foreign‑built landmarks tell us about its global relationships

WORLD

THE call to prayer echoes across the neighbourhood as people congregate under the sweeping domes and tall minarets of Ghana’s National Mosque in Accra. For many, it is a place of faith, community, and national pride. Yet, few pause to consider that this landmark – now firmly part of Accra’s skyline – was funded and built by Turkey. This detail points to a bigger story. Some of Ghana’s most important public buildings are shaped by global relationships as much as local needs. And those relationships are not just economic; they are deeply political. Therefore, buildings are not just functional. They…

May

11

2026

By GUILHERME CASARÕES

Trump and Lula at the White House: a relationship built on pragmatism and a broader regional calculus

WORLD

FOR about three hours of closed-door talks between Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and US President Donald Trump at the White House on May 7, 2026, many observers in the two countries held their breath. Since there was no official joint statement or press conference, they did not know what to expect. Despite the reported “chemistry” between both presidents at the United Nations General Assembly last September, bilateral tensions were far from resolved. The meeting between both presidents could have gone many ways: on the surface, Brazil and the US currently stand more as geopolitical rivals than allies.…

May

11

2026

By TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS

“You will not encounter them”: WHO chief writes directly to the people of Tenerife over hantavirus ship crisis

WORLD

IT is not common for me to write directly to the people of a single community, but today I feel it is not only appropriate, but it is also necessary. I want to speak to you directly, not through press releases or technical briefings, but as one human being to another, because you deserve that. I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word "outbreak" and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss…

May

11

2026

By KATAYOUN SHAHANDEH

What Iran’s absence from the Venice Biennale reveals about art and politics

WORLD

JUST days before the opening of the 2026 Venice Biennale, organisers announced that Iran would no longer participate. A short statement posted to the Venice Biennale website on May 4 said: “With regard to the National Participations in the 61st International Art Exhibition…it has been announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not participate.” No explanation was given. I believe that silence is itself revealing. Iran’s withdrawal is less a sudden decision than the result of converging geopolitical and economic pressures that are reshaping both the global art world and Iran’s place within it. At the most immediate level,…

May

09

2026

By The African Mirror

WHO draws firm line: Hantavirus outbreak is not a pandemic in the making

WORLD

THE World Health Organization has moved decisively to contain not just a deadly outbreak of hantavirus aboard a Dutch cruise liner, but the gathering panic around it, issuing an unambiguous public health verdict: this virus does not spread like COVID-19, and the risk to the general population remains, in the agency's own words, "absolutely low." The reassurance came as the MV Hondius - a Dutch-flagged polar expedition vessel - remained moored off Cabo Verde with a complex, multi-country response operation underway. Three passengers have died, and eight cases of infection have been confirmed or suspected, with the ship currently carrying…

May

09

2026

By JONATHAN ESTE

Iran war has shown the limits of US power

WORLD

IN his 1873 book On War, the great Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz wrote that: “War is the realm of uncertainty.” He would have been at home in Washington this week, where Clausewitz’s “fog of war” appears to have descended on the White House, at times obscuring reality. On Tuesday, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, briefed reporters that the US plan was to get the Strait of Hormuz “back to the way it was: anyone can use it, no mines in the water, nobody paying tolls”. This was, of course, the way things were before the war…