WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on South Africa from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on South African politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Johannesburg, Cape Town, and cultural events.
The U.S. president won’t invite South Africa to the next G20 on American soil and is cutting all funding to the country, accusing it of carrying out a genocide against Afrikaners. Official denials have changed nothing — Donald Trump is continuing to pursue South Africa with his absurd vendetta.
India’s inconsistent stance on Gaza reflects a broader diplomatic drift — from principled leadership to transactional alignment.
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, it was South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who fell victim to the theater of cruelty staged by Donald Trump in the Oval Office. What is the American president seeking by humiliating his visitors? He is orchestrating a performance to glorify himself.
Residents spend as much as 20% of their income on water, yet what comes from their taps is green, dirty and undrinkable. Now, privatization looms, threatening even higher costs.
Donald Trump calls the white Boer minority in South Africa “disadvantaged” and offers them asylum in the U.S. But they want no part of it, as quickly becomes clear on a visit to Orania, the most controversial white settlement in the country.
Piles of Chinese-made plastics are now an inescapable part of Zimbabwe’s landscape, and corruption is making it impossible to clean up the mess.
It is not surprising that many Hindutva groups in the U.S. support Trump’s policies. These align well with their own anti-migrant and anti-reservation stance back home.
Leaving no room for diplomacy, Donald Trump is ramping up aggressive moves toward the rest of the world — tariffs, cutting international aid, threats. But there’s a big risk: playing right into the hands of China, which already has a foothold on every continent.
As Donald Trump prepares for a second term, African nations find themselves at a crossroads. With mixed reactions from leaders across the continent, the implications of his policies raise questions about future U.S.-Africa relations, human rights and climate action.
Mongolia is a signatory to the International Criminal Court treaty and should have arrested Vladimir Putin on his arrival in the capital yesterday. Of course, it didn’t — nobody believed it would. But for international affairs specialist Pierre Haski, this is only a setback for international justice.
Harmless insects are named after nasty dictators, which doesn’t seem to bother zoologists. Botanists, on the other hand, want to banish the offensive word “caffra” from the realm of flora. There is an understandable reason why South Africa has managed to do so, writes correspondent Christian Putsch.
After 30 years in power, South Africa’s leading party ANC has to form a coalition. This is a first for both the party and the country. A partnership with the white-dominated Democratic Alliance is likely to upset the base of both parties. But if they care about the future of South Africa, they have to take this risk.
As South Africa goes to the polls, Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress party is facing disillusionment among its voters, and risks losing its absolute majority in parliament. Corruption, crime and persistent social inequality are at the root of this disenchantment — and the memory of the liberation struggle is fading.
Abductions are one of the main sources of income for terrorists in Africa. Recently a South African paramedic was freed in Mali after being held for more than six years. His release is down to one man who worked tirelessly to secure his freedom.
South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice attempts to turn longstanding international law on its head, writes Kai Ambos, a top expert on international law, for German daily Die Welt.
Following South Africa’s genocide allegations against Israel, Netanyahu’s government now has to defend itself at the International Court of Justice. But the lawsuit does not come as a surprise. For decades, there have been tensions between Israel and South Africa, where there is great sympathy for the Palestinian cause going back to the times of apartheid.
As the Rugby World Cup final approaches, French writer Yves Bourdillon notes that the sport is popular almost exclusively in democratic countries. The reason? Its Anglo-Saxon origins, the complexity of its rules and its values, a miracle of balance between individualism and collective spirit.
Saudi Arabia is set to host non-Western countries to discuss how to initiate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow-based daily Kommersant takes an in-depth look at what the high-level talks, slated for Aug. 5 in Jeddah, mean for Russia — who wasn’t invited to the summit —, Ukraine and the world.
The creation of a new common currency will be one of the main questions on the agenda at the BRICS summit in South Africa in August. But there are still many obstacles to overcome before breaking free from the almighty dollar.
After Beijing’s dubious push to lead negotiations on settling the war in Ukraine, now it’s South Africa’s turn. But its “ambiguous” neutrality on the war — and reports of secret weapons sales to Russia — raise serious skepticism in Kyiv and the West.
The Brazilian president, back in power after more than a decade later, has not lost his vision of a post-Western world in which the BRICS would occupy a central place. Lula’s visit to Beijing puts such a vision front and center on the global agenda.
Russia’s Foreign Minister is in South Africa for the second time in a year. In spite of the West’s best efforts, Vladimir Putin’s delegation is still welcomed in large parts of Africa, which still harbors colonial resentment toward Europe.
Novelists from Africa have been receiving some of the most prestigious literary prizes. But there are still questions around who are the world’s literary gatekeepers and what role writers from the Global South can play, writes Mauritian poet and photographer Umar Timol.
Even as it celebrates this year’s literature prize going to Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah, Africa is again completely absent from the list of Nobel winners in science. In research as elsewhere, money is the key.
A South African researcher of infectious disease sees specific steps that governments should and shouldn’t be taking in light of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron.
As many parts of the continent face a brutal third wave, the urgency to vaccinate is growing. But the obstacles are many, including a stubborn strain of vaccine hesitancy.
The killing of a white farmworker near Senekal is dividing people once again along racial lines, even if most victims of violent crime — and not just in urban areas — are black.
Like the entire story of his life, Nelson Mandela’s release from Victor Verster Prison exactly 30 years ago helped define the 20th century. Having served 27 years for leading the opposition to South Africa’s racist system of Apartheid, his release brought to an end white minority rule. Four years later, Mandela would be elected president as the nation sought to find peace and reconciliation after decades of oppression. But it was his release on February 11, 1990 became the iconic moment marking the change. After nearly three decades behind bars between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison, the […]
At the 150th anniversary of the Indian independence leader and philosopher of non-violence, looking back long line of African-American leaders influenced by his ideas.
Designed in the 1980s to protect against sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, female condoms are now increasingly available throughout Africa. And the world.
Caster Semenya’s case shows that the sport world must have an open debate about intersexuality, and finally step up.
The world is marking the centennial of one of history’s towering figures. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born 100 years ago, on July 18, 1918, in a small village on the eastern cape of South Africa. The man known as “Madiba” would go on to lead the struggle against Apartheid, before being sentenced to life in prison in 1964, on charges of treason and conspiracy. Mandela would wind up spending 27 years at Victor Verster Prison as his writings and the cause of black South Africans slowly began to spread around the world. Mandela’s release on Feb. 11, 1990 was one […]
Africa’s largest museum is set to open in Cape Town next month, backed by a former Puma CEO and designed by a star British architect. It is not without its critics.
ROBERTSDALE — There are few clues that this is the home town of Apple chief executive Tim Cook, the place where he said his “most improbable journey” began and where he forged the beliefs that today put him at the center of a national debate over privacy. His name is not noted on the town’s welcome signs along the main drag, Route 59. There’s nothing in the local chamber’s brochures, and the local paper rarely has anything about him. His old high school keeps a glass case celebrating former NFL running back Joe Childress, Class of 1952, but not the […]
LETAMO GAME FARM — After the depressing outskirts of Johannesburg, with its paved-over shopping centers, garages and the smell of greasy chicken, the countryside isn’t all that much better. At the local gas station, there are men in bush hats and shorts, all khaki and autumn-colored, looking like they’re either going for a friendly day […]
KRUGERSDORP — A group of men are running away on a wasteland adjoining the residential district of Mindalore, in Krugersdorp (25 miles west of Johannesburg). They probably came out of the “Old Jerusalem” mine, opened in 1886, two years after the first nugget was discovered in Johannesburg, the city that gave the world one third […]
A February double murder in the South African city of Soweto illustrates a quiet rise in demon worship among teenagers, influenced in part by American pop culture icons.
War, famine and poaching are taking direct aim at the signature five beasts of Africa’s savannah that Ernest Hemingway once made legendary. What can be done now to save them?
The last of the past century’s ‘counter-history’ leaders, Mandela represented the ultimate triumph over the destructive powers of the notion of racial superiority.
JOHANNESBURG – When Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president 19 years ago, he proclaimed that South Africa was entering “a covenant” to create a society that guaranteed human rights for both blacks and whites, “a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.” Mandela, who died on Thursday at the age of 95, […]