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Has South Africa Truly Defeated Apartheid? U.S.A., 2020 – 63% U.K., 2019 – 62% 60% 49% 40% 20% 1994 2004 2014 2019 Sources: Collette Schulz-Herzenberg, "The South African non-voter: An analysis"; Konrad Adenaur Stiftung, 2020 (South Africa); Pew Research (United States and U.K.)On a continent where coups, autocrats and flawed elections have become common, South Africa is a widely admired exception. −4% −6% Sources: Harvard Growth Lab analysis of World Economic Outlook (South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa) and World Development Indicators (upper-middle-income countries). 50% unemployment rate 40% Black unemployment rate 30% The unemployment gap between Black and white South Africans remains wide. In 2022, about 6 percent of South Africans aged 18 to 29 were enrolled in higher education, according to Statistics South Africa.

Persons: Nelson Mandela, they’ve, Collette Schulz, Konrad Adenaur Stiftung, —, Walter Sisulu, Joao Silva, New York Times Jack Martins, ”, Mandela’s, Wandile Sihlobo, Johann Kirsten, Sihlobo, Kirsten, haven’t, Zinhle Nene, Peter Mokoena, “, Mokoena, Nokuthula Mabe, Mabe, Jacob Zuma, Chrispin Phiri, Cyril Ramaphosa, Israel, Sibusiso Zikode, Zikode, Mr Organizations: African National Congress, Pew Research, Human Sciences Research, World Bank, Black South, Charter, New York Times, University of Cape Town’s Liberty Institute of Strategic Marketing, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Economic Empowerment, South, Harvard, Economic, Government, Black, Mr, Stellenbosch University . White, Statistics, Security, JOHANNESBURG Jobs, JOHANNESBURG Sandton Downtown, West University, Education, Statistics South, General Household Survey, of, Stellenbosch University, Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services, Institute for Security Studies, International Court of Justice Locations: Africa, South Africa, Black, States, Soweto, Kliptown, Johannesburg, South, Saharan Africa, Carletonville, JOHANNESBURG, Downtown Soweto, JOHANNESBURG Sandton, JOHANNESBURG Sandton Downtown Soweto, North, Mahikeng, Botswana, Statistics South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Philippines, African, Germany, Russia, India, China, Ethiopia, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, New York Times South Africa, Gaza, Durban, South Africa’s

☆ South Africa’s 2024 National Election: What to Know
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This year is the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic elections, but millions of people continue to suffer from economic challenges similar to those during apartheid. Most Black South Africans do not earn enough to meet their basic needs. All this has placed the African National Congress, the liberation party that has governed since the start of South Africa’s democracy, under more pressure than ever before as it enters an election on May 29. In the six previous national elections, the party comfortably won an absolute majority in Parliament, allowing it to govern as it wished. The party has also had to work hard to heal its internal divisions and address corruption among its ranks.

Organizations: African National Congress

☆ Zimbabwe, After Expelling U.S. Officials, Accuses Them of Promoting ‘Regime Change’
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-12 | by ( John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The government of the southern African nation of Zimbabwe detained, interrogated and deported officials and contractors working for the United States government last month, and this week accused them publicly of promoting “regime change” in their country. The incident is the latest in the Zimbabwean government’s aggressive efforts to thwart both domestic and international challenges to its authority. The incumbent government claimed victory in a chaotic election last year that several independent observer missions said lacked fairness and credibility. But it also points to a deeper tension over the United States’ proclaimed efforts to promote democracy around the globe. Leaders in Zimbabwe have grown closer in recent years to both China and to Russia, and have supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Persons: United States ’ Organizations: United Locations: Zimbabwe, United States, China, Russia, Ukraine

☆ The Father, the Son and the Fight Over Their King
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-17 | by ( John Eligon | Joao Silva | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The riot police appeared out of nowhere, charging furiously toward the young protesters trying to oust King Mswati III, who has ruled over the nation of Eswatini for 38 years. The pop of gunfire ricocheted through the streets, and the demonstrators started running for their lives. Manqoba Motsa, a college student, and his fellow Communists quickly slipped into disguise, pulling plain T-shirts over their red hammer-and-sickle regalia. They found him splayed on a bed in the emergency room, a bloody bandage around his torso, a tube in his arm. “We can’t stop fighting,” the wounded protester, Mhlonishwa Mtsetfwa, told the dozen red-clad Communist Party members surrounding his hospital bed.

Persons: King Mswati III, Manqoba, Mhlonishwa Mtsetfwa Organizations: Communists, Communist Party Locations: Eswatini

☆ Deadliest Cholera Outbreak in Past Decade Hits Southern Africa
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-13 | by ( John Eligon | Jeffrey Moyo | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Sandra Mwayera wailed as her older brother slouched next to her in the back seat of a car — he had died from cholera as he waited for treatment among dozens of others outside a hospital in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. “My brother! My brother! Come back!”In neighboring Zambia, inside the 60,000-seat National Heroes Stadium in the capital, Lusaka, rows of gray cots lined rooms at a makeshift treatment center where 24-year-old Memory Musonda had died. Her family said they were not informed until four days later — the government buried her, and they have yet to locate her grave.

Persons: Sandra Mwayera wailed, slouched, ”, “, Musonda, Musonda’s, Stanley Mwamba Kafula Organizations: Democratic Locations: Zimbabwe’s, Harare, “, Zambia, Lusaka, Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique

☆ Zuma’s Enduring Appeal Threatens His Old Allies’ Hold on South Africa
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When the African National Congress suspended former President Jacob Zuma this week, a top party official portrayed him as a traitor to the ongoing struggle for Black prosperity in South Africa and a symbol of corruption that the organization is looking to move past. But to Vincent Mthembu, a longtime A.N.C. activist on the local level, Mr. Zuma was the only hope for the party, which has governed South Africa for 30 years, and the country. “He is the people’s president,” Mr. Mthembu, who owns a construction business in Johannesburg, said on Tuesday. “Whatever that he was doing was enriching Black people.”Many countries seem to have their Donald J. Trumps these days — brash, populist leaders who, no matter how many corruption allegations or legal troubles they face, attract fiercely loyal supporters.

Persons: Jacob Zuma, Vincent Mthembu, Zuma, ” Mr, Mthembu, Donald J Organizations: African National Congress Locations: South Africa, Johannesburg

More than 40,000 people have been sheltering in or around the center, according to the U.N. There was no immediate confirmation of the Israeli order by UNRWA. The United Nations did not directly blame Israel. The United Nations said Wednesday’s strike was the third direct hit on that compound. An estimated 1.7 million Gazans have fled their homes during the war, according to the United Nations, many of them displaced multiple times.

Persons: Khan Younis, Philippe Lazzarini, U.N, “, Israel, Wednesday’s, Mr, Lazzarini, Younis, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad Organizations: United Nations, UNRWA, Israeli Authorities Locations: Gaza, Khan, Egypt, Israel

It was time, the witness said, to tell the whole truth about the awful things he had done. Moments before testifying this week at an inquiry into one of South Africa’s deadliest residential fires, he pulled an investigator aside and said he needed to change his story. He was the one, he said, who had started the Aug. 31 blaze that engulfed a five-story building in downtown Johannesburg. After that confession at the inquiry, Mr. Mdlalose was arrested by the police, who are running a parallel criminal investigation into the fire, and charged with 76 counts of murder. While Mr. Mdlalose’s confession at the inquiry is inadmissible, prosecutors said, his confession will bolster the criminal investigation.

Persons: Sithembiso Mdlalose, Mdlalose Locations: Johannesburg

☆ Man Arrested on 77 Counts of Murder in Johannesburg Building Fire
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Lynsey Chutel | John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The South African police have arrested a man who confessed to having caused a fire that killed 77 people in a derelict building in downtown Johannesburg last year after a drug dispute led him to strangle a man and set the body alight, a police spokeswoman and a victims’ advocate said on Wednesday. The man, a 29-year-old whose name has not been released, was arrested on Tuesday on 77 counts of murder and 120 counts of attempted murder, said Col. Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi, a spokeswoman for the police in Gauteng Province, which includes Johannesburg. Colonel Nevhuhulwi initially gave the figure as 76 counts, but then clarified that it was 77. The man made his confession during a hearing of a special commission investigating the fire, which tore through an overcrowded four-story building in the early hours of Aug. 31. The commission was later told that the exact death toll was unclear because of how badly some of the bodies were burned.

Persons: Dimakatso, Nevhuhulwi, incriminated, ”, Andy Chinnah, Norton Rose Fulbright Organizations: South, Norton Rose Locations: Johannesburg, Gauteng Province

☆ Using Dance to Tell the Story of Mozambique’s Struggles
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-15 | by ( Tavares Cebola | John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A soft voice broke into the dark auditorium, lit only by a projection of a globe bearing the outline of Africa on a screen. “Who said empires don’t exist anymore,” the voice said, as dancers dressed in European colonial-era robes slowly emerged on stage, carrying what looked like crosses or swords. They banged on maps of Africa, as if divvying up the continent to their liking. Over the course of the next hour, the performance, in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, grew into a frenetic dance of stomping and jabbing, the movements of warriors in battle, set to the beat of thundering drums. “You’re such a liar that even if you lose, you can still win,” declared a man standing still at the back of the stage, in what seemed a not-so-veiled reference to allegations that Mozambique’s governing party had rigged recent local elections.

Persons: “, ” Locations: Africa, Maputo, Mozambique

Up a stairwell with popcorn walls stained black, he found a hallway ceiling with jumbles of wires for illegal electrical connections. He rounded a corner, and suddenly he and the two men guiding him heard a high-pitched squeal that sounded like a wire whipping through the air. The two guides ducked and ran. Something is happening,” Mr. Hamman said. He took a few steps away, then caught sight of a small flame glowing from one of the wires strung overhead.

Persons: ” Mr, Hamman Locations: Johannesburg

☆ As Truce Appears to Hold, Israeli Leaders Face a Tough Choice
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-28 | by ( Golden Matonga | John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +5 min

Ms. Tamimi comes from a family of prominent Palestinian activists and has protested the Israeli occupation of their village of Nabi Saleh for much of her life. Ms. Tamimi made headlines as a child for physically confronting Israeli forces, who have wounded, imprisoned and killed many of her relatives. A video of one such episode, in which she slapped an Israeli soldier, went viral and transformed Ms. Tamimi into an international symbol of Palestinian resistance. The Israeli military estimates that it has arrested 1,800 people in the occupied West Bank since Oct. 7. “This form of detention has been systematically used by the Israeli authorities to subjugate and silence Palestinians, including writers, for decades,” he added.

Persons: Ahed Tamimi, Nariman, Ahed, Nariman Tamimi, Tamimi, Mahmoud Hassan, ” Mr, Hassan, we’re, Hitler, Nabi Saleh, Bassem, Ofer, “, ”, Mina Thabet Organizations: West Bank, Random, Human Rights, Palestinian Prisoners Society, PEN International Locations: Israel, East, North Africa

☆ Madagascar Votes Amid Violence and Calls for Boycott
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( John Eligon | More About John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After weeks of political violence, voters on the island nation of Madagascar went to the polls on Thursday to elect a president, even though 10 of the 13 candidates called for a boycott, accusing the man they are vying to replace of unfairly tilting the process in his favor. Most of the 30 million residents of this nation off the southeastern coast of Africa live in poverty. A series of weather-related catastrophes in recent years have damaged the country’s agricultural production, its economic mainstay, increasing the humanitarian crisis. Political instability has been a defining feature of Madagascar’s elections over the years, and the 2018 race saw efforts by Russia to influence the outcome through the paramilitary organization the Wagner Group. It is unclear whether Russia has any involvement in this year’s election, or how much.

Persons: “, ”, Andoniaina Ratsimamanga Organizations: Wagner Locations: Madagascar, Africa, Russia

☆ Death of Political Activist in Zimbabwe Increases Fears of Crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( John Eligon | More About John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An activist with Zimbabwe’s main opposition party was found dead on the side of a road in the capital, Harare, the police said on Tuesday. A party spokesman said he had been abducted while campaigning in a local election over the weekend. The death of the activist, Tapfumanei Masaya, is the latest in what opposition and civil society leaders say has been a string of violent episodes fueling a growing political crisis in the southern African nation since national elections were held in August. President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his governing ZANU-PF party maintained power in the August vote, despite doubts raised by regional and international observers about the election’s credibility. Mr. Masaya, 51, a pastor, was campaigning door to door on Saturday to promote a candidate along with other members of the political party Citizens Coalition for Change when multiple S.U.V.s pulled up and attackers jumped out and chased them, said Gift Ostallos Siziba, a spokesman for the party.

Persons: Tapfumanei Masaya, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Masaya, Ostallos Organizations: ZANU, Coalition Locations: Harare

Deadly Fire in Africa’s Richest City Exposed a Secret in Plain SightOfficials blame immigrants and liberal housing laws, but a Times investigation found the entrenched problems that turned downtown Johannesburg into a blighted tinderbox. Nov. 10, 2023Days after the fire, officials in Johannesburg reached for a well-worn script. So instead, they turned their attention to another government-owned property, Vannin Court. It’s an eight-story building where hundreds of people live without running water or power. “When people die in these buildings, it is the city of Johannesburg that gets blamed,” Kenny Kunene, a city official, told TV cameras minutes before the raid began.

Persons: It’s, ” Kenny Kunene, ” Organizations: Africa’s, Albert Locations: Johannesburg

☆ ‘More Than Just Rugby’: Championship Generates Harmony in South Africa
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( John Eligon | More About John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The towering hall thundered with the euphoria of a nation where everyone seemed, for the moment, to have left their differences behind. The celebrants spoke Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, Afrikaans and English. They were Black and white, young and old, mining company managers and restaurant waitresses. They waved South African flags. They wore the same green-and-gold attire of their rugby heroes as they gathered at the Oliver Reginald Tambo airport in Johannesburg on Tuesday to welcome the team home from the championship game in France.

Persons: celebrants, Oliver Reginald Tambo Locations: Johannesburg, France, Tambo

An investigation by the South African government has concluded that weapons were not loaded onto a Russian vessel under American sanctions that docked near Cape Town last year, contradicting accusations by U.S. officials that South Africa had provided arms for the war in Ukraine, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday. “The panel found no evidence that any cargo of weapons was loaded for export on to the ship, Lady R,” Mr. Ramaphosa said in a televised address, after an investigation commissioned by him and led by a retired judge. Mr. Ramaphosa had said that he would not release the entire report to protect classified information, but that a summary would be made public on Monday. It remains to be seen whether the findings will soothe the relationship between South Africa and the United States, which has reached its most tense period in years in large part because of the dispute over what happened when the Lady R, a commercial cargo ship, docked at a South African naval base under cover of night last December.

Persons: Cyril Ramaphosa, Lady R, Mr, Ramaphosa Organizations: South Locations: Russian, Cape Town, South Africa, Ukraine, United States

No one was in the dark about what was happening at 80 Albert Street. “I was really angry,” said Mpho Phalatse, who would go on to serve for just over a year as Johannesburg’s mayor. The building, she said, was “quite frankly, not habitable.”Neighbors were constantly complaining about the crime spilling out of it and the slumlords who had hijacked it. It was a city-owned building that had been essentially abandoned. A 2019 report by city inspectors showed scorched outlets and melted wires in the building’s rooms, clear fire hazards, all adding up to a steady drumbeat of increasingly worrisome signs.

Persons: ”, Mpho Phalatse Organizations: Albert Locations: Johannesburg

☆ Survivor of South Africa Fire Describes a Harrowing Escape
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-01 | by ( John Eligon | More About John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As Tom Mandala leaned out of the fifth-floor window of his burning apartment building in Johannesburg early Thursday, it felt as if the only decision left to make was how to die. He could turn around and dash for the stairs, but he would surely be overcome by the thick smoke and scorching flames, he figured. Or he could leap out of the window and end up splattered on the sidewalk below. The second option, he thought, would be the best way to ensure that his family back in Malawi would be able to recover his body. So, after about five minutes of agonizing deliberation, Mr. Mandala, 26, jumped.

Persons: Tom Mandala Locations: Johannesburg, Malawi

They arrived in desperation, unable to find anything better, safer or cheaper in a city with a severe shortage of affordable housing. They settled in a trash-choked building owned and neglected by the city of Johannesburg, paying “rent” to criminals. Flames devoured a structure that overcrowding, security gates, mounds of garbage and flimsy subdividing had turned into a death trap. Some victims leaped from upper windows of the five-story building rather than burn to death. And these urban squatter camps are routinely “hijacked,” residents say, by organized groups demanding payment.

Persons: Mgcini Locations: Johannesburg, South

It may take time to determine what started an apartment fire in Johannesburg early Thursday morning and why more than 70 people died. But witness accounts, imagery of the blaze and a visit to the site in May indicate that the five-story building had a litany of major safety issues that made it vulnerable to a deadly fire. Preliminary evidence suggests the fire started on the ground floor, a local official said, and trapped many residents behind locked gates as it spread. While precise origin of the fire is unknown, some of the earliest flames were spotted in a courtyard behind the building where people were living.

Locations: Johannesburg

☆ At Least 63 Dead in Building Fire in Johannesburg
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ETA fire tore through a building in downtown Johannesburg early Thursday, killing at least 63 people and injuring dozens of others, city officials said. The authorities were still trying to determine what caused the blaze, which consumed a five-story abandoned building that had been overtaken by squatters and had become a sprawling informal settlement. Mgcini Tshwaku, a Johannesburg city councilman who oversees public safety, said that when he arrived at the scene, the structure was in flames and people were jumping out of it. People often light fires inside these informal settlements to keep warm, Mr. Tshwaku said. Many abandoned buildings in the city have been taken over because of a shortage of affordable housing, he said.

Persons: Tshwaku Organizations: South Locations: Johannesburg, Mgcini, South African

☆ South Africa Fire At Least 63 Dead in Building Fire in Johannesburg
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( John Eligon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ET Aug. 31, 2023, 4:08 a.m. ET Johannesburg bureau chiefA fire tore through a building in downtown Johannesburg early Thursday, killing at least 63 people and injuring dozens of others, city officials said. Mgcini Tshwaku, a Johannesburg city councilman who oversees public safety, said that when he arrived at the scene, the structure was in flames and people were jumping out of it. People often light fires inside these informal settlements to keep warm, Mr. Tshwaku said. Many abandoned buildings in the city have been taken over because of a shortage of affordable housing, he said.

Persons: Tshwaku Organizations: South Locations: Johannesburg, Mgcini, South African

The government, rights activists say, has prioritized building private apartments and student accommodations, which are more profitable than public housing. “People are occupying these buildings because there’s nowhere else where they can access the inner city,” said Khululiwe Bhengu, a senior attorney with the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, a nonprofit. The government, rights activists say, has prioritized the building of private rental units and student accommodations, which are more profitable than the public housing for which poor residents fill long waiting lists. These buildings have slowly filled up with those who could not afford to live elsewhere, she said, as poorer residents found makeshift solutions the government was not providing. “There’s a lack of political will to keep poor people in the inner city,” she said.

Persons: ”, Khululiwe Bhengu, Thami Hukwe, Bhengu Organizations: Economic Rights Institute of Locations: Johannesburg, Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, “, Africa, ”, Gauteng Province

The presidential election in Zimbabwe last week that kept the governing party in power and was widely criticized as dubious is likely to isolate the country further from the United States and other Western nations. But it has also exposed Zimbabwe to increased scrutiny and pressure from a surprising place: its neighbors in southern Africa. Before President Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared the winner of a second term on Saturday, the Southern African Development Community and the African Union publicly questioned the legitimacy of Zimbabwe’s elections for the first time. While Zimbabwe has chalked up criticism from the West as colonial gripes, condemnation from other leaders on the continent may not be so easily brushed off, analysts say, particularly when it comes from countries that have to absorb the effects of Zimbabwe’s economic and social turmoil. On Sunday, speaking for the first time since his victory, Mr. Mnangagwa dismissed his African critics.

Persons: Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mnangagwa Organizations: Southern African Development Community, African Union Locations: Zimbabwe, United States, Africa

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