South Africans reject ANC
The African National Congress has lost its political monopoly over South Africa. Saturday’s election results showed the party failed to win an outright majority for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994.
The ANC received about 40% of the vote, the largest share but a sharp drop from the nearly 58% it received in the last election in 2019. On the shoulders of Nelson Mandela, the ANC – which won international acclaim – had a majority in the parliament that elected the president, and it had two weeks to form a government and elect a president.
Rival parties, however, have derided the ANC as corrupt and vowed never to ally with it. A big question is whether the ANC will form an alliance with its former leader Jacob Zuma, who resigned as president in 2018 amid corruption allegations. A new party he helped found six months ago won nearly 15 percent of the vote.
The Democratic Alliance received the second largest share, nearly 22%. It is a potential ally of the ANC, but some ANC members accuse the DA of pursuing policies that would essentially return the country to apartheid. What might happen next.
Voter Dissatisfaction: South Africa has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, electricity and water shortages and rampant crime. Many view the ANC as something of a relic. “Maybe they have an anti-apartheid plan, but not an economic plan,” one voter said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa: ANC leaders must unite their highly factional party into a coalition. Some may blame him for the devastating defeat and seek new party leadership.
His Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has focused almost entirely on Modi’s popular leadership to overcome rising anti-incumbency sentiment. Despite being hit by arrests and other crackdowns, the opposition has put together its most united front in years, but exit polls show it is struggling to secure a sizable majority for the BJP in parliament.
Biden urges Israel to cease fire
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been put in a difficult position over the past few days by President Joe Biden, who on Friday called for a truce in Gaza and outlined what he said were the broad terms proposed by Israel. “It’s time to end this war,” Biden said.
In response, Netanyahu reiterated on Saturday that Israel would not agree to anything that would not lead to “the destruction of Hamas’s military and governance capabilities.” But it is worth noting that Netanyahu’s often-proclaimed goal of “total victory” over Hamas has not materialized.
During the Russian occupation of Kherson, Ukraine, officials placed dozens of children in foster homes. A year later, my colleagues discovered their photos on a Russian Federation adoption website. Experts say what happened to the children could constitute a war crime.
My colleagues explain more in this video.
Lived:
U Din Oo, who He died at the age of 97. He was the leader of Myanmar’s democracy movement. he He served as defense minister before campaigning against an authoritarian government.
Birubala Rabha objects to the Indian practice of calling women witches. She died at the age of 75.
conversation starter
Starlink arrives on Amazon
The Marubo people have long lived in communal huts scattered along hundreds of miles of the Itui River deep in the Amazon. For hundreds of years, they preserved their way of life through isolation.
But Marubo has had high-speed internet since September, thanks to Elon Musk. The 2,000 members of the Marubo tribe, like hundreds across Brazil, are logging into Starlink, the satellite internet service run by Musk.
Initially, the Internet brought obvious benefits, such as video chatting with distant relatives and seeking help in emergencies. Now they are dealing with challenges that are already familiar to families around the world: Teenagers addicted to cell phones, addictive social networks, online strangers, violent video games, scams, misinformation and underage viewing of pornography.
“People have been paying attention to this problem,” my colleague Jack Nicas, our Brazil bureau chief, explains in the video, “to the point where it’s causing problems for the hunting and farming that’s essential to their way of life. “
