Tag: Africa

South Africa Looks to China to Shed Light on Power Crisis

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Johannesburg —  South Africa’s worst ever energy crisis has the country reeling amid daily blackouts, but new Minister for Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is hoping China can provide a light in the darkness. Ramokgopa said earlier this month that he’d soon be announcing details of a “major grant” from China of equipment like solar panels and generators, following Beijing’s offer to help South Africa with its energy woes by providing renewable energy equipment and expertise. Following Ramokgopa’s one-week visit to China, details of any concrete deals remain scant, with the minister’s…

What will life after globalisation look like? The Venice Biennale may hold the answer | Lorenzo Marsili

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This year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, titled Laboratory for the Future, was inaugurated on the same day that the leaders of the G7 industrialised nations met in Hiroshima. As different as these events appeared, both signalled the end of globalisation. Both also displayed the promise and perils of a fragmenting world. Of all the arts, architecture is the most globally homogenising. Erecting tropical copycats of Paris and London was a staple of European colonial policy. Today, the same glass-and-steel tower blocks dot interchangeable financial capitals the world over. But the 2023…

South African Police Receive Chinese Training

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johannesburg, south africa —  South Africa’s police minister, Bheki Cele, and a delegation of senior police officials recently returned from a visit to China, where they discussed strengthening law enforcement collaboration. “The ministry is confident that the country’s crime problems can be better dealt with when we also step up smart policing. This is why the country is exploring all avenues in this regard including cooperation with Chinese law enforcement to assist in technological advancement,” police ministry spokesperson Lirandzu Themba told VOA. According to a police statement, the delegation’s five-day…

South Africa President Briefs Xi on African Russia-Ukraine Peace Plan

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South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has briefed Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the upcoming visit by African leaders to Russia and Ukraine in a bid to end hostilities, the South African presidency said Saturday. Chinese state broadcaster reported that the two leaders had a phone call Friday. In a statement, South Africa’s presidency said Ramaphosa told Xi he noted the peace plan proposed by China and affirmed African leaders’ support for initiatives aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict. “President Xi Jinping commended the initiative by the African continent…

From Peril to Paradise: A South African Pangolin Gets a New Start

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Pangolins – a type of anteater – have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries, but the demand for their scales is putting some pangolin species at high risk of extinction. Officials in South Africa are trying to ensure the animal’s survival, cracking down on the illegal trade and rehabilitating rescued animals. Kate Bartlett reports from Lapalala Wilderness Reserve, Limpopo, South Africa. Camera and edit: Zaheer Cassim Voice of America

Whether DRC-China Mining Deal Will Be Restructured Remains Uncertain

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Johannesburg —  Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi faces an uphill battle in his promise to overhaul what he says is an unfair minerals-for-infrastructure deal with China before the resource-rich but conflict-plagued country’s December elections, analysts said after the African leader’s visit to Beijing the past week. While Tshisekedi’s spokesman told reporters that negotiations over the restructuring of the deal went “wonderfully” when Tshisekedi met with counterpart Xi Jinping, and a revised agreement should be complete by the end of the year, nothing concrete was actually mentioned in a post-meeting press release.…

China Seeks Stronger Ties With Sudan Amid Regional, International Tug-of-War

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CAIRO —  China has been a major investment partner in Sudan’s energy, agriculture and transport sectors in recent years, pumping nearly $6 billion in investments into the country since 2005. Its interests in Sudan date back to 1959, but China began to flourish on a broader level after the U.S. placed the country under economic sanctions in 1998. And now, as nations work to extend a shaky cease-fire between rival forces, China is looking to maintain a neutral stance and advance its own interests as well. China played a key…

Your Tuesday Briefing: Uganda Enacts an Anti-Gay Law

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Uganda’s harsh new anti-gay law The president of Uganda signed a punitive anti-gay bill yesterday that includes the death penalty as a punishment, enshrining into law an intensifying crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. people in the conservative East African nation. It calls for life imprisonment for anyone who engages in gay sex. Anyone who tries to have same-sex relations could be liable for up to a decade in prison. The law also decrees the death penalty for anyone convicted of “aggravated homosexuality,” which is partially defined as acts of same-sex relations with…

Poachers Pluck South Africa’s ‘Succulent’ Plants for Chinese Market

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The Little Karoo, Western Cape, South Africa —  South African customs officials recently became suspicious when they noticed that shipments of “Made in China” children’s toys were being sent, oddly, back to China. On closer inspection, the packages did not contain toys at all but were filled with poached contraband. Chinese criminal syndicates, often the very same ones that already have established smuggling routes in South Africa for illegal abalone or rhinoceros horns, have now moved on to trafficking in elephant’s foot. But elephant’s foot is not what you think.…

Kissinger at 100: Statesman or war criminal? His troubled legacy – in pictures

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Kissinger with the founding father of Kenya, President Jomo Kenyatta, during his whirlwind tour of Africa in 1976. Over two weeks in April, Kissinger visited six countries, also meeting presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, William Tolbert of Liberia, and Senegal’s Léopold Senghor. Despite these visits, critics said Kissinger was more interested in white minorities in southern Africa, with whom he had more sympathy. Photograph: World Politics Archive/Alamy The Guardian