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Members of the armed wing of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress line up waiting to vote in a military base north of Pretoria, on April 26, 1994.
Thirty years ago this weekend, South Africa ushered in its first democratic government.
On April 27, 1994, Black South Africans went to the polls, marking an end to years of white minority rule and the institutionalized racial segregation known as apartheid.
Freedom Day, as that day is commemorated, gave rise to South Africa’s first Black president, Nelson Mandela. The internal protests and violence over apartheid, as well as international sanctions, were relegated to the annals of history, ushering in a new era of promise for racial equality and prosperity.
But three decades later, the “rainbow nation” still faces many challenges, with racial equality and economic development remaining out of reach.
The country struggles with some of the highest inequality levels of any nation worldwide, says Ziyanda Stuurman, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group. “Many young people, in particular, are unemployed and feel despondent about finding work,” she says.
Three main factors have led to persistent inequality. First, South Africa’s unemployment rate is a whopping 32% – the highest globally. Those with secure jobs tend to be non-unionized and, as a result, see lower earnings. And, finally, workers who do well tend to make very high salaries compared to the lower-wage earners, bolstering the poverty gap.
“Due to a lack of economic opportunities and financial inclusion for the majority of Black South Africans,” says Stuurman, “many have not been able to make the most of the expanded political freedoms and opportunities in democratic-era South Africa.”
Since 1994, Mandela’s African National Congress party has been at the helm, but the lack of economic growth and rising inequality may be driving a change of heart among the electorate.
Next month, on May 29, South Africa heads to the polls again for its seventh general election since the end of apartheid. For the first time, polls suggest that the ANC may fail to win 50% of the national vote – which could mean tricky coalition talks or even its exit from power.
Stay tuned to GZERO. We’ll talk more with Stuurman in the coming weeks to gain insights about South Africa’s big election.The view Thursday night from inside the Columbia University campus gate at 116th Street and Amsterdam in New York City.
Special report by Riley Callanan and Alex Kliment
Late Thursday night, the words “New Shafik email drop” rippled through the protest site known as the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Columbia University’s lawns.
The protesters had been waiting to hear whether the New York Police Department was on its way, knowing that the deadline for negotiations with the administration of university President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik was rapidly approaching.
The police would not, in fact, be coming, the email said. Shortly after that news broke, student negotiators returned from talks to report that while there had not been progress on their demands to divest from Israel or give amnesty to the suspended students, they had had a small win: No new deadline to end the protests had been set. The encampment’s leaders continue to demand that Columbia’s endowment divest from any Israeli-related holdings and offer amnesty to students suspended over the protests last week.
The agreement to continue talking, disagreeing, and protesting – without divesting or policing – came in stark contrast to the images of hundreds of students and professors being arrested on several other US college campuses on Thursday.
But what seemed like a de-escalation inside the Columbia campus gates also came after an evening in which tensions were still high outside of them. As in, right outside of them.
Starting around 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, a United for Israel March drew several hundred protesters, and almost all involved were non-students. They came in part because of media and social media coverage of the harassment and attacks that several Jewish students faced last week, in the first days and nights of the pro-Palestinian encampment.
“It’s like 1939 Germany in there,” said Amber Falk, 37, as she handed out free packets of pastel-colored 4x6 inch stickers that said “F*ck Hamas” or “From the River to the Sea, TikTok is not a College Degree!”
That idea echoed comments made the day before by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the atmosphere for Jewish students on American college campuses recalled Nazi-era discrimination. Also on Wednesday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson came to Columbia’s campus to suggest sending in the National Guard “if these threats and intimidation are not stopped.”
“You know, if they don’t handle this, it might be time for us to form a new JDL,” said pro-Israel protester Joey M, 36, of Brooklyn, referring to a violent Jewish extremist group, originally formed to protect Jews in New York in the 1960s. “If the government can’t protect Jews, we have to,” said Joey.
Meanwhile, across campus on Broadway, a different group of non-Columbian protesters in keffiyehs and masks chanted, “There is only one solution! Intifada Revolution!”
There’s no doubt that tensions at Columbia were immensely high last week when Riley reported that “the campus is unraveling into distrust, dysfunction, and fear.” But in the days since – which have seen one round of police arrests, the closure of campus to non-students, and the encampment itself pledging to weed out external agitators – tensions have come down noticeably.
“It's much more calm now,” said David Lederer, a sophomore wearing a kippah and waving a large Israeli flag just inside the gates. If that name rings a bell, it’s because David and his twin brother Jonathan were attacked on campus last week, supercharging concerns about antisemitism on campus.
“People will still say ‘sweep the camp,’ ‘arrest all of them.’ But I'm not like that,” said Lederer. “Free speech is free speech, just don’t harass us. I feel safe walking on campus again. Even if the change is just for the media to see, I appreciate that.”
Whether this new, relative calm can hold is an open question of huge importance – the deadlock between the encampment and the university is testing the respective limits of free speech, safe spaces, and campus rules, all in the eye of a furious national storm.
Pressure from beyond the gates – which remain closed to outsiders – is still immense. At least 10 GOP lawmakers have called for Shafik’s resignation. Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff held talks with Jewish Campus leaders on Thursday. Ilhan Omar, of the “squad” faction of progressive Democrats, has visited the encampment, where her daughter was arrested last week. And adding further fuel to the fire, Hamas itself has expressed support for the student protests.
Meanwhile, as Thursday’s campus arrests elsewhere in the country threatened to inflame protests further, the basic standoff at Columbia remains unresolved.
As the Shafik email drop put it: “We have our demands; they have theirs.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Judge Amy Coney Barrett after she was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S. October 26, 2020.
Should a former president be held accountable for crimes committed while in office? That was the basic, yet incredibly weighty, question before the Supreme Court on Thursday when it began hearing oral arguments in a case related to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump, who doesn’t want to face trial in the federal Jan. 6 case against him before his expected rematch with President Joe Biden on Election Day, has declared that presidents should have absolute immunity. He’s effectively argued that presidents should be above the law.
What happened? Some of the conservative justices (three of whom were appointed by Trump) expressed concern that allowing former presidents to be criminally prosecuted could present a burden to future commanders-in-chief. They seemed skeptical of Trump’s sweeping claims but appeared open to the idea that presidents should have immunity for some actions. There was a great deal of focus on whether a distinction should be established between official acts and private behavior.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, emphasized that the court was “writing a rule for the ages.” But Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another Trump appointee, agreed with the notion that the ex-president’s legal team was pushing a “radical” idea on presidential immunity.
Meanwhile, liberal justices worried that if the court ruled in Trump’s favor, it could open the door for future presidents to commit crimes. “If there’s no threat of criminal prosecution, what prevents the president from just doing whatever he wants?” asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
TLDR: The court might rule that presidents should be granted some, but not absolute, immunity from criminal prosecution. This means the case could be kicked back down to the lower courts.
What’s next? Trump’s Jan. 6 trial was postponed to await the court’s ruling, which could come anytime between now and the end of June. Whether that trial occurs before voters go to the polls in November will depend on the timing and nature of the court’s final ruling.
A Palestinian woman inspects a house that was destroyed after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, April 24, 2024.
As the World Food Programme warns that Gaza is getting closer to famine by the day, US troops are set to begin constructing a floating pier off the northern coast of the enclave to increase the flow of desperately needed aid. The project is expected to be done by early May.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to lay the groundwork for an invasion of Rafah, the southern Gaza city where over a million Palestinians are sheltering. Israel has pummeled Rafah with airstrikes in recent days, and the Israeli military is gathering tanks and armored vehicles near the southern Gaza border ahead of the expected operation.
The Israeli government, which says Rafah is the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza, has rebuffed international opposition to a ground offensive. Israel also says it’s taking steps to help evacuate civilians before invading, and satellite images suggest
Months of unsuccessful efforts to secure a new truce in the war have kept the door open for a Rafah operation. On Wednesday, a top Hamas official said the militant group would lay down its arms if Israel accepted an independent Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders — but there’s virtually no chance of that happening, particularly given the current Israeli government firmly opposes Palestinian statehood.
For now, all eyes are on Rafah. “We are afraid of what will happen in Rafah. The level of alert is very high,” Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday.
Haiti's new interim Prime Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert holds a glass with a drink after a transitional council took power with the aim of returning stability to the country, where gang violence has caused chaos and misery, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti April 25, 2024.
Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry formally resigned on Thursday to be replaced by Finance Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert, who will work with a newly sworn in transitional council. Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been ravaged by gang violence and effectively without a prime minister since March 12.
Get up to speed: Henry agreed to step down last month after gangs blocked his reentry to the country from Kenya, where he was trying to secure a multinational security force to assist him in restoring law and order to the country.
Many of the gangs are led by a man named Jimmy Chérizier, aka Barbecue. They have taken advantage of the power vacuum left by Henry’s absence and are now in control of about 80% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and large swaths of the country. Barbecue said last month he would consider laying down weapons if armed groups were allowed to take part in talks to establish the new government.
Boisvert and thenine-member council, of which seven have voting powers, have a steep climb to tackle the gang violence. The council will appoint a provisional electoral commission, a requirement before elections can take place, and establish a national security council.Hard Numbers: Russia shoots down space resolution, US economy sputters, Nigerian prisoners make slippery escape, Ecuador gets lifeline
A Russian Soyuz rocket is carried to the launching pad at Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on the territory of the former Soviet Kazakhstan on December 18.
13: A UN Security Council resolution reaffirming a long-standing prohibition on arms races in outer space got 13 votes in favor this week, but it was shot down by a single veto from UNSC permanent member Russia. Moscow says it wasn’t necessary to support a resolution that merely reaffirmed a 1967 treaty that Russia is already part of, but the US ambassador to the UN asked, “What could you possibly be hiding?” In recent months, the US has said it believes Russia is developing a new space-based, anti-satellite weapon.
1.6: The US economy expanded by just 1.6% in the first quarter of the year, lagging analyst forecasts by nearly a full percentage point, as consumer spending slowed. Normally that would create momentum for the Fed to cut interest rates to spur growth, but there’s no joy there either: Core inflation (which excludes food and energy) rose 3.7%, higher than economists expectations, limiting the scope for any near-term rate cuts.
118: Authorities in the Nigerian capital of Abuja are on high alert after a rainstorm destroyed a fence at a nearby penitentiary, allowing as many as 118 inmates to escape. A prison service spokesperson blamed “colonial era” facilities. Weak security and run-down buildings contribute to frequent prison-breaks in the West African nation.
4 billion: After months of talks, Ecuador and the IMF agreed to a $4 billion loan agreement meant to help stabilize the small Andean country’s finances as it grapples with a vicious cycle of economic hardship, rising poverty, and skyrocketing homicides. Just days earlier, Ecuadorians had voted yes in a referendum to boost the government’s ability to crack down on drug violence.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives at the Beijing Capital International Airport, in Beijing, China, April 25, 2024.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up concerns over China's support for Russia with his counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Friday, before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Blinken’s visit is largely meant to advance the mutual goal of stabilizing the relationship, and Xi said he wants to be "partners, not rivals" with the United States.
As Blinken landed in Shanghai for the first leg of his trip earlier this week, the Biden administration signed bills providing Taiwan with $8 billion in military aid and starting a process that could result in a ban of the popular video app TikTok in the US unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sells. The day before, the State Department released its annual human rights review, which criticized Chinese treatment of Muslim minorities.
Once he landed, Blinken pressed Shanghai Communist Party Secretary Chen Jining on treating US companies fairly. Meanwhile, he told students at NYU’s Shanghai campus that the cultural ties being built between both countries are of utmost importance.
Despite the many possible pratfalls during the first leg, China’s response has been fairly milquetoast. Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “We hope that the US side will respect the principle of fair competition, abide by WTO rules, and work with China to create favorable [trade] conditions.” Hardly “Wolf Warrior” stuff, and Wang said Friday that ties are “beginning to stabilize.”
Latest
Supreme Court divided over Trump’s absolute immunity claims
Rafah braces for Israeli invasion as famine looms
New chapter for Haiti as Henry steps down
Blinken meets with Xi, but no breakthroughs
Slogans of war
