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In Britain, lightning causes an average of two deaths a year; in South Africa, it can be well over 200. Near Pretoria over the Christmas break, more than 150 people were injured by what some call in Zulu ‘ukufa ngomlilo’: lethal fire. Yet little is being done to keep the public safe in a country
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Johannesburg, the wealthiest city in Africa and home to more than 12,000 millionaires is about to become a ghost town. Just over a week before Christmas, there’s a lull in the traffic as homes in both the suburbs and the sprawling black townships empty out. On 16 December, the Day of Reconciliation marks 187 years
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Next time you bite into a bar of chocolate, spare a thought for Ivory Coast. As the world’s largest supplier of cocoa, chances are the beans in your slab came from there. Elections, alas, have not been so sweet and with one due on Saturday 25 October, there are worries the protests, killings and all-out civil war
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Sir Keir Starmer will recognise Palestine as a country despite objections from both the US and Israel. Yet when it came to independence for Scotland, the three main parties at Westminster were against the idea at the 2014 referendum, and none have called for a similar vote in Wales. How, then, to decide which ‘two-state
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There’s a joke in South Africa that it’s so easy to claim asylum here, even the Swiss could do so. It’s easy to believe. At our local shopping centre in Johannesburg, the security guards hail from various safe African countries – Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi. All are on refugee permits that are renewed every few
Keir Starmer says British ties with the US are ‘vital to our shared security’
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Johannesburg It’s called the ‘Reverse Jive’, retracing your steps to where your journey began, and you’ll hear it talked about all over Johannesburg, especially now, with an election next Wednesday and immigration such a hot-button issue. South Africa has a huge informal sector where the poor can at least scratch a living In Pretoria, the
The fantasy persists that black people want and are stealing vast tracts of farmland
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For urban South Africans – now 70 per cent of the country’s population – there’s much to celebrate this Easter because, in addition to the four-day weekend, there are two more breaks within a fortnight. On Monday 28 April, we remember the first democratic election in 1994, and in the same week is International Labour Day on 1 May, marking
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It’s 38C outside and I’m in a Johannesburg hypermarket owned by the Pick n Pay chain, one of the biggest in South Africa. Despite the heat, their music system has a woman singing ‘Let it snow!’ and songs themed around winter and chestnuts roasting on the fire. In rural areas, the scotch cart is common,
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There’s been a momentous election in Africa, Botswana to be exact. Not heard about it? Don’t be surprised. The British and US media have all but ignored the story or got it wrong in the run-up. Even the BBC barely mentioned it though they bang on about Israel to such a degree you’d think the war
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Beginning in the year 2000, Robert Mugabe began snatching white-owned farms for ‘redistribution’ and giving them to the black majority in Zimbabwe. The best properties were given to ministers, generals and retired ambassadors. Many used them as weekend retreats from the city. Mugabe’s wife, Grace, took a vast citrus estate east of the capital, Harare.
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More than 30 years after the Berlin Wall came down, leaders of the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s long-time ruling party, still refer to each other as ‘comrade’. Unless, that is, you’re seen as a problem. ‘Comrade Cyril Ramaphosa will be here,’ ANC secretary general Fikile Mbabula told journalists on Sunday morning as he
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From the start, it didn’t look good this time round for the African National Congress (ANC), which has ruled South Africa since Nelson Mandela came to power in the first democratic elections 30 years ago. Since mid-2023, polls for the ANC have ranged from 38 per cent to the high-40s, a long way down from the 57
The country is one of America’s staunchest allies in the war on terror and the world’s most enslaved nation
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Johannesburg For a decade to 1973, Jacob Zuma – or JZ as he is known – was an inmate of Robben Island, the infamous prison built on a 1,300-acre slab of rock four miles off the South African coast. A fellow inmate was Nelson Mandela, also inside for treason. Both went on to become presidents
It’s been a boon for conservation
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Kigali is, for now, one of Africa’s safest cities. Walk down a street in the Rwandan capital after dark and there are lights everywhere, police are on the beat and tourists and locals are strolling back to their lodgings or dining al-fresco. There are no potholes where you might twist your ankle and the city
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Is a crime against humanity at risk of unfolding in South Africa? Elon Musk, the Pretoria-born billionaire who owns X (Twitter) and Tesla, fears that there might be. Earlier this year, he wrote that he’d heard of calls for ‘a genocide of white people’ in his former homeland. Musk isn’t alone in his concerns. Steve
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Snake rescuers like me always get asked the same question: have you ever been bitten? I’ve dealt with mambas, giant pythons, cobras – some of the world’s deadliest snakes – and, thankfully, the answer is no. But why do people always assume the worst about these wonderful creatures? People love to hate snakes. They are
