Africa

Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher told the UN Security Council that South Sudan is at risk of slipping into ‘full-scale famine and collapse’ as fighting intensifies and the UN peacekeeping mission is cut back.

Magistrate hands the opposition figure five-year term, that his lawyers say will be appealed.

South African opposition politician Julius Malema has been sentenced to prison time for firing a rifle in ⁠the air at a party rally.

Malema, the leader of the far-left opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), was handed a five-year sentence on Thursday by Magistrate Twanet Olivier.

Malema, who is one of South Africa’s most prominent politicians, was convicted last year of charges, including unlawful possession of a ⁠firearm and discharging a weapon in a public place over the 2018 incident at a stadium in the Eastern Cape province.

The 45-year-old leader of the fourth-biggest party in parliament had pleaded not guilty, arguing the gun was a toy.

“It wasn’t … an impulsive act,” the magistrate said. “It was the event of the evening.”

Malema’s defence said the shots were only intended to be celebratory.

His lawyers applied for leave to appeal the magistrate’s decision within ⁠minutes of it being ⁠read out in a court in KuGompo City, formerly East London, on Thursday.

Outside the court, hundreds of Malema’s red-clad EFF supporters gathered for the sentencing in the politically charged case.

The EFF – a small but vocal party – says the case is an attempt to silence its outspoken leader, who is known for fiery speeches.

Party supporters have threatened protests should their leader be jailed.

The magistrate stressed it “is not a political party who has been convicted here … it is a person, an individual.”

The maximum time was a 15-year prison sentence. If confirmed after all appeals, the five-year sentence would bar Malema from serving as a lawmaker.

That would be a major setback to the EFF, which has strong support among young South Africans frustrated by the racial inequality that has persisted since the end of white minority rule in 1994.

Huge crowds have greeted Pope Leo in Cameroon, returning to a country he visited 20 years ago as ‘Father Bob’. Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque was there, and explains how the Roman Catholic leader is transforming the church as congregations shrink in Europe but expand in Africa.

Roelf Meyer will replace the South African ambassador who was expelled from the US by President Donald Trump in 2025.

South Africa has appointed Roelf Meyer, who helped negotiate the end of white minority rule in his country in the 1990s, as the next ambassador to the United States, according to local media.

Meyer’s appointment is seen as a sign that Pretoria is aiming to improve its relations with Washington following a “turbulent year”, according to the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

South Africa has gone without diplomatic representation in Washington, DC, since March 2025, when US President Donald Trump expelled Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool for his criticism of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

Posting on social media at the time, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician” who hates the US and Trump.

Rubio’s post linked to a story by US conservative news site Breitbart that reported on a talk Rasool gave on a webinar organised by a South African think tank. Rasool had spoken in academic terms of the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity and equity programmes, as well as immigration, and mentioned the possibility of a future US where white people would no longer be in the majority.

Trump last year also issued an executive order freezing most foreign assistance to South Africa amid the country’s legal action at the International Court of Justice over Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the passage of a controversial South African law aimed at correcting historic racial disparities in land ownership.

Tensions escalated further when Trump then launched a refugee programme for white South Africans, whom the US president claims face government-led persecution in their home country.

Meyer, 78, is a seasoned negotiator with experience working under pressure. As a member of South Africa’s white Afrikaans minority, he once served as a minister under the apartheid Nationalist Party government.

He rose to prominence in the 1990s, during the final days of apartheid, as the Nationalist Party held talks with the African National Congress (ANC) to end segregation and white minority rule. The talks paved the way for South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.

As the chief negotiator, Ralph had become acquainted with South Africa’s current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who was then an ANC negotiator.

Meyer himself later joined the ANC in 2006.

He is set to take up the post as US ambassador once all protocols are complete in Washington, DC, according to Ramaphosa’s office.