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Jul
17
2020
By The African Mirror
South African cabinet minister recovers from COVID-19

South African cabinet minister recovers from COVID-19

COVID-19
AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER SOUTH Africa’s Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has recovered from COVID-19, the government has announced. In a statement, the Government Communication and Information Systems said Mapisa-Nqakula and her husband, Charles, the national security advisor to President Cyril Ramaphosa, have both fully recovered after testing positive and their symptoms have cleared. Charles Nqakula “The Minister and Mr Nqakula tested positive recently and are currently still in self-isolation. We are glad that all their symptoms have cleared and we are looking forward to them finishing their 14 days of mandatory self-quarantine period.  Both the Minister and…
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Jul
17
2020
By The African Mirror
Ethiopian maids ‘dumped’ in the streets in Lebanon as COVID hits

Ethiopian maids ‘dumped’ in the streets in Lebanon as COVID hits

COVID-19
ETHIOPIAN mother Alemtsehay Nasir went to Lebanon dreaming that her maid's job would let her earn money to make a better life for her young son. But she was fired when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and her employers dumped her on the streets. The 32-year-old was left on the curb outside the Ethiopian consulate in a suburb of Beirut, one of hundreds of women abandoned by employers without the means to get home after the pandemic hit, on top of a financial crisis that has devastated the Lebanese economy. Lebanese labour laws offer little protection for migrant workers. The best…
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Jul
17
2020
By The African Mirror
Zimbabwe economy to shrink by 4.5%

Zimbabwe economy to shrink by 4.5%

BUSINESS
ZIMBABWE's economy is expected to shrink by 4.5% this year owing to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and a brutal climate change-related drought, the finance minister said on Thursday. The crucial mining sector will contract by 4%, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube added in a mid-term budget speech, although he projected that GDP would rebound to 7.4% growth in 2021. Ncube added that inflation was expected to gradually decline to 300% by December, compared with 737.36% currently. Zimbabwe's economy was in a mess even before COVID-19 struck, with rampant inflation, chronic shortages of food, foreign currency and medicines, all worsened…
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Jul
17
2020
By The African Mirror
Zindzi Mandela buried next to her mom and grandchildren

Zindzi Mandela buried next to her mom and grandchildren

NEWS
AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER FRIENDS of the late struggle activist and diplomat Zindziswa "Zindzi" Mandela-Hlongwane held red roses and her coffin was carried over a red carpet in a poignant, emotional and dignified final farewell to her. Zindzi, who died this week, was buried today next to her mother, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and her two grandchildren Zinawe and Zenani after a private funeral service at the Fourways Memorial Garden in Johannesburg. Zindzi was the youngest daughter of liberation icons Madikizela-Mandela and the great Nelson Mandela. She was buried a day before what would have been her father’s 102nd birthday. Her family disclosed…
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Jul
16
2020
By The African Mirror
Gabon appoints first woman prime minister amid government shakeup

Gabon appoints first woman prime minister amid government shakeup

NEWS
GABON President Ali Bongo has promoted his defence minister, Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda, to prime minister, the first time a woman has held the role in the country. Ossouka Raponda, 56, is the sixth prime minister appointed since Bongo succeeded his father in 2009. Her first job is to form a new government after her predecessor, Julien Nkoghe Bekale, stepped down earlier in the day. She will take on two major challenges: declining oil production and prices, which have weighed on growth in recent years, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The Central African country has registered nearly 6,000 cases to date.…
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Jul
16
2020
By The African Mirror
“My last meeting with Zindzi Mandela”

“My last meeting with Zindzi Mandela”

NEWS
 THAMI KA PLAATJE AT a recent international conference at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation,  I had an occasion to reunite with Sis Zindzi. She was in the company of her amiable and jovial elder sister Zenani and we took to the remote corner to share our thoughts far from the ambassadorial glee and diplomatic loquaciousness of the conference.  This was our first encounter since the passing of Mama Winnie Madikizela Mandela, and the occasion called for some long catch-up and chit -chat albeit within the limited time allowed by the rigours of the conference underway.  Zindzi bemoaned the…
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Jul
16
2020
By The African Mirror
S.Africa COVID-19 cases set to reach 300,000 despite early lockdown

S.Africa COVID-19 cases set to reach 300,000 despite early lockdown

COVID-19
TIM COCKS SOUTH Africa's cases of COVID-19 were set to reach 300,000 on Wednesday, the most in Africa and in the top 10 in the world, despite a swiftly imposed lockdown aimed at preventing infections spiralling as they did in the West. Africa's most industrialised nation has 298,292 cases at the last count, and with positive tests now increasing at a rate of more than 10,000 a day, it is all but certain to vault over the 300,000 mark when the ministry releases nightly figures on Wednesday. At the end of March, President Cyril Ramaphosa took aggressive, early action, shutting…
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Jul
16
2020
By The African Mirror
Beautiful send off for SA political stalwart

Beautiful send off for SA political stalwart

COVID-19
AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER ARCHBISHOP Emeritus Desmond Tutu has led friend, comrades and family in paying warm and glowing tributes to anti-apartheid stalwart Tom Manthata, who has been laid to rest. Tutu told mourners at the funeral that Manthata was a wonderful person who was committed to the liberation of South Africans. He said Manthata was gentle but strong. “ Tom was a wonderful, wonderful person.  You would think that he could not say boo to a goose until you found out how deeply committed he was to the liberation of our people, shown by the fact that he and others…
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Jul
13
2020
By The African Mirror
Gallery: Zindzi Mandela

Gallery: Zindzi Mandela

MULTIMEDIA
                  ZINDZISWA “ZINDZI” MANDELA: 23 December 1960 - 13 July 2020.  A picture says a thousand words. Captured in these images are memories of Zindzi, who many South Africans remember as a comrade, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a cousin or a simply, a woman of her time, born into the struggle against apartheid. 
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Jul
10
2020
By The African Mirror
In Burkina Faso, violence and COVID-19 push children out of school and into harm’s way

In Burkina Faso, violence and COVID-19 push children out of school and into harm’s way

EDUCATION
SAM MEDNICK WHEN 13-year-old Martine left her village in northern Burkina Faso for a safer town last year, she hoped to restart an education disrupted by jihadist violence. But, alone without her parents — who stayed behind — new risks soon arose: in December she was dragged from a wedding party and raped by a man three times her age. “If I was living at home, my parents never would have allowed me to go to the wedding alone and this would never have happened,” said Martine, whose surname is being withheld to protect her identity. As jihadist-linked violence surges…
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