½: About half of Johannesburg’s 5.5 million residents have suffered water shortages, or even full outages, over the past several weeks. This is a major political problem for the African National Congress, which has led South Africa’s government since the end of apartheid in 1994 and now faces a national election next month.
6: Chinese manufacturing activity grew in March for the first time in six months. News of a possible economic upturn will be welcomed by many around the world because China’s weakness has been a major drag on global economic expectations in recent months.
11: A nonprofit information watchdog says the British Museum should return 11 sacred Ethiopian altar tablets looted by British soldiers following the Battle of Maqdala in 1868. Over more than 150 years in the museum’s collection, the wood and stone tablets have never been displayed publicly, and internal debates over their future have remained secret. For more on the debate about “Who Owns Art?”, see our recent GZERO Reports piece, which begins with an Egyptian obelisk in a snowstorm.
