Latest South Africa News

FILE - In this Saturday, July 22, 2017, file photo, a polar bear stands on the ice in the Franklin Strait in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. In a year of cataclysm, some world leaders at September 2020's annual United Nations meeting are taking the long view, warning: If COVID-19 doesn't kill us, climate change will. With Siberia seeing its warmest temperature on record this year and enormous chunks of ice caps in Greenland and Canada sliding into the sea, countries are acutely aware there's no vaccine for global warming. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

Leaders to UN: If virus doesn't kill us, climate change will

Sep. 27, 2020 2:46 AM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — In a year of cataclysm, some world leaders at this week’s annual United Nations meeting are taking the long view, warning: If COVID-19 doesn't kill us, climate change will. With Siberia seeing its warmest temperature on record this year and enormous chunks of ice caps in...

In this photo provided by the United Nations, Satta Sheriff, Young Leader for the SDGs and Founder and Executive Director of Action for Justice and Human Rights, Liberia, participates in the high-level virtual panel entitled

COVID-19 can't crush human rights, UN gathering declares

Sep. 25, 2020 12:56 PM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — In a diminished spotlight because of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading human rights defenders on Friday urged people in these fractured times to connect through politics — and vote, too. “In many places around the world, participation is being denied and civic space is being...

In this image made from UNTV video, Alassane Ouattara, President of Cote d'Ivoire, speaks in a pre-recorded message which was played during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Thursday Sept. 24, 2020, at UN headquarters, in New York. (UNTV via AP)

At UN, Africa urges fiscal help against virus 'apocalypse'

Sep. 24, 2020 5:53 PM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — African nations came out swinging on the third day of the United Nations annual gathering of world leaders Thursday, calling for dramatic fiscal measures to help economies survive the coronavirus pandemic — which one leader called the “fifth horseman of the...

People celebrate South Africa's Heritage Day by dancing at Zoo Lake park in Johannesburg Thursday Sept. 24, 2020. As the number of worldwide Covid-19 death is nearing the million mark, coronavirus related case numbers and deaths in South Africa hit the lowest in months. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

South Africa lifts spirits with Jerusalema dance amid virus

Sep. 24, 2020 1:15 PM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africans of all walks of life are dancing to “Jerusalema,” a rousing anthem to lift their spirits amid the battle against COVID-19. In response to a call from President Cyril Ramaphosa to mark the country's Heritage Day holiday Thursday, people from townships to posh...

FILE - In this March 16, 2020, file photo, Neal Browning receives a shot at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Many world leaders at this week's virtual U.N. summit hope it will be a vaccine made available and affordable to all countries, rich and poor. But with the U.S., China and Russia opting out of a collaborative effort to develop and distribute a vaccine, and some rich nations striking deals with pharmaceutical companies to secure millions of potential doses, the U.N. pleas are plentiful but likely in vain. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

'Are people to be left to die?' Vaccine pleas fill UN summit

Sep. 24, 2020 9:39 AM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — If the United Nations was created from the ashes of World War II, what will be born from the global crisis of COVID-19? Many world leaders at this week’s virtual U.N. summit hope it will be a vaccine made available and affordable to all countries, rich and poor. But with the...

In this handout photo provided by the World Food Program on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020, a woman collects a monthly food parcel in Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020. The WFP says the escalating extremist insurgency in northern Mozambique has displaced 310,000 people, creating an urgent humanitarian crisis. (Falume Bachir/World Food Program via AP)

Extremist violence causes food shortages in north Mozambique

Sep. 24, 2020 8:44 AM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The escalating extremist insurgency in northern Mozambique has displaced 310,000 people, creating an urgent humanitarian crisis, the World Food Program said Tuesday. The rebels have recently stepped up attacks in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province, seizing the strategic port of...

UN watchdog: 'Staggering' $36M embezzled in South Sudan

Sep. 24, 2020 6:49 AM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The United Nations commission on human rights in South Sudan says “a staggering $36 million” has been misappropriated by government officials and senior politicians since 2016 as widespread corruption continues to drain the world’s youngest nation. “It is...

A baboon, named Kataza by locals, eats from discarded waste from stores in Tokai, Cape Town, South Africa, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020. Kataza was relocated from Kommetjie, on the edges of Cape Town, to a nearby area late last month after city authorities claimed he was responsible for leading other baboons in his troop on raids through the village. One activist says Kataza is now wandering alone in an unfamiliar area and sleeping in a prison yard. (AP Photo/Nardus Engelbrecht)

Troublesome South African baboon evicted for raiding homes

Sep. 24, 2020 5:09 AM EDT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Kataza already had a lengthy rap sheet with Cape Town authorities, so when he organized a band of others to raid a series of suburban homes, he was captured. Now he sleeps at a local prison, although there is a social media campaign for him to be returned to his old stomping...

In this image made from UNTV video, Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria, speaks in a pre-recorded message which was played during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020, at UN headquarters in New York. The U.N.'s first virtual meeting of world leaders started Tuesday with pre-recorded speeches from some of the planet's biggest powers, kept at home by the coronavirus pandemic that will likely be a dominant theme at their video gathering this year. (UNTV via AP)

The Latest: Nigeria urges vaccine to be available to all

Sep. 22, 2020 8:15 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Latest from the U.N. General Assembly (all times EDT): 8:15 p.m. The president of Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, is calling for the “uninhibited supply of safe and effective coronavirus vaccines for all.” African nations have been outspoken in...

FILE - In this Monday, June 29, 2020, file photo, men in face masks walk past a hair product billboard on the street in Soweto, South Africa. The coronavirus pandemic has fractured global relationships as governments act in the interest of their citizens first, but John Nkengasong, Africa's top public health official, has helped to steer the continent's 54 countries into an alliance praised as responding better than some richer nations. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)

As US struggles, Africa's COVID-19 response is praised

Sep. 22, 2020 2:27 PM EDT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — At a lecture to peers this month, John Nkengasong showed images that once dogged Africa, with a magazine cover declaring it “The Hopeless Continent." Then he quoted Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah: “It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems,...

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