World
Anger rises over South Africa making millions in US benefits while cozying up to Iran, Russia and Hamas
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa is under fire for spending millions of dollars talking to terror group Hamas and sending delegations for cozy negotiations with U.S. adversaries Russia and Iran. Some critics say the money would be better spent tackling the “chaos” back home.
South Africa has the highest unemployment rate in the world, rampant crime and widespread corruption, which has led to large parts of Johannesburg having no water for 10 out of the past 11 days, and, nationally, power blackouts between four and 11 hours a day.
The U.S. helps South Africa gain billions of dollars a year in trade benefits through the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA. Orde Kittrie, law professor at Arizona State University and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital it’s time for South Africa to be thrown out of the program.
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Russia’s President Vladimir Putin speaks with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the first plenary session as part of the 2019 Russia-Africa Summit at the Sirius Park of Science and Art in Sochi, Russia, Oct. 24, 2019. (Sergei Chirikov/Pool via REUTERS)
“The ANC-led South African government has, in its relations with both Russia and Hamas, violated the requirement that AGOA beneficiaries not undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy and, with regard to Hamas, violated the requirement that AGOA beneficiaries not “provide support for acts of international terrorism,” said Kittrie, who also served as a State Department attorney and policy officiaL
“The AGOA law’s requirements really leave the Biden administration no choice but to terminate South Africa’s AGOA benefits unless such activities cease.”
South Africa continually makes controversial diplomatic moves, including allowing Russian ships to play war games just off the coast and permitting a Russian arms ship, the Lady R, to dock at a South African military base. This has attracted the attention of Sen. Tim Scott, the ranking Republican member of the Senate subcommittee on Africa and a member of the Senate subcommittee on banking.
“South Africa has harbored sanctioned Russian ships, expanded relations with Iran and issued statements against Israel’s right to defend itself following Hamas’ recent terror attacks,” Scott said in a recent statement.
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Also, according to the USAID dashboard, Washington gave South Africa $660 million in aid in 2023.
Herman Mashaba, president of the relatively new political party ActionSA, told Fox News Digital, “The ruling party prioritizes Cold War-era alliances above the interests of the South African people. Our close relationship with Russia has jeopardized investment into the country, which cost jobs which South Africa cannot risk losing.”
Public hearings in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel begins at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, Jan. 11, 2024. (Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“At the same time, 86 people are killed in South Africa per day,” Mashaba continued. “Every 11 minutes, a woman is raped in this country. The ruling party has in 30 years been unable to address these crises and instead pays attention to everything except finding solutions to these issues.”
The State Department weighed in.
“Russia is waging a brutal war against the people of Ukraine, and we are constantly working to cut off support and funding for Putin’s war machine and to undercut Russia’s ability to carry out this conflict,” a department spokesperson said. “We have strongly urged countries not to support Russia’s war.”
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On Tehran, the State Department spokesperson noted, “Iran is an adversary and the leading state sponsor of terrorism. It seeks to sow instability in the Middle East and around the world.
“We call on all countries to condemn Hamas, as Hamas is a designated terrorist organization and deserves condemnation”.
J. Brooks Spector, a former U.S. diplomat and associate editor of The Daily Maverick, spoke of his concerns to Fox News Digital:
“South Africa has rarely supported America internationally in grave crises such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Members of the Economic Freedom Fighters protest on the street in Tsakane township, east of Johannesburg, South Africa, March 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
“Beyond AGOA eligibility, South Africa might find itself at risk of seeing the major American contributions of PEPFAR funds combating HIV/AIDS begin to lessen or even end, as funds are shifted to other nations.”
This would be disastrous. Even with support from the U.S., South Africa has the largest HIV epidemic in the world, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Part of the challenge for South Africa, going forward, is its desire for a foreign policy strategy that seeks to be a visible player in resolving international disputes far afield from its home continent such as Ukraine and Gaza, while largely ignoring equally urgent issues nearer to home,” Spector said.
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Firemen spray water on flames erupting from a building at South Africa’s Parliament in Cape Town Jan. 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
South Africa has “a completely chaotic approach to foreign policy in recent years,” Emma Louise Powell told Fox News Digital. Powell is shadow minister for international relations for the country’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, or DA.
Powell criticized the government for getting involved in talks on the Israel-Hamas war, “given the bloodbath unfolding in South Africa’s backyard, on the African continent, in countries such as Sudan, the DRC and across West Africa. This is not to mention the political and economic crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe.
“South Africa has not even condemned Russia’s illegal invasion. This is intellectually dishonest, given the funding the ANC is receiving from Russian-linked oligarchs and companies, and we see that this position is leading to South Africa’s increasing isolation.”
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Senator Tim Scott has criticized the South African government over its dealings with US adversaries, and the country’s corruption problems. (Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) (Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images))
Spector added, “Such a mix of behaviors means South Africa risks becoming increasingly irrelevant internationally, both as a country with real political heft and as a valuable investment and trade partner with anyone besides China.”
Then there’s the systemic corruption. Two years ago, hundreds of senior politicians and businessmen, mostly linked to the ruling African National Congress, or ANC, were accused in the 5,000-page State Capture report for links to corruption, yet very few have been prosecuted.
“Many Washington foreign policy insiders are now for the first time seeing the ANC for what it has, sadly, become since (President Nelson) Mandela’s retirement, a party whose rampant financial corruption has impoverished South Africa’s people and led it to ally itself with America’s enemies including Russia, Iran and Hamas,” FDD’s Kittrie warned.
South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor addresses reporters after a session of the International Court of Justice, or World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Jan. 26. (AP)
Earlier this week, Sen. Tim Scott tweeted, “The U.S. cannot continue to simply look the other way when it comes to corruption in South Africa. As we consider AGOA reauthorization, it’s important that we take steps to ensure the program’s eligibility requirements are actually enforced.”
The State Department is so concerned about corruption in South Africa it sent Fox News Digital an additional statement that some analysts say contains a veiled threat.
“The fight against corruption is a core U.S. national security interest,” the statement said. “The United States considers the use of several foreign policy tools for countering corruption, including but not limited to financial sanctions. Beyond this, it is the policy of the United States to not comment on internal deliberations regarding the use of sanctions or to preview potential actions.”
Kittrie added, “U.S. officials are noticing that the ANC is not itself holding its corrupt officials accountable, with the ANC-led South African government reportedly making no significant progress in prosecuting South African officials who were bribed and, most recently, the ANC placing several corruption-tainted officials on its list for re-election.”
Pinkie Sebitlo cooks using a coal stove during frequent power outages caused by South African utility Eskom’s aging coal-fired plants in Soweto, South Africa, June 23, 2022. (REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko)
Action SA’s Mashaba added “it is unacceptable that two years after the State Capture Report was submitted, not a single high-profile individual has successfully been prosecuted”
Last week, the South African Foreign Minister, Naledi Pandor, announced any South Africans with dual nationality who are fighting for Israel in Gaza will be arrested when they return.
“We are ready. When you come home, we will arrest you,” the minister said, referencing a long-standing law that South Africans may not fight in wars for other countries. Yet, when the Iraqi ambassador here claimed as many as 300 South Africans had left to take up arms for the terror group Islamic State in Syria in 2015, there were no such public threats of arrests for returning fighters.
Analysts predict Foreign Minister Pandor could face some tough questions during her visit to Washington, scheduled for this week.
The ANC government is likely to lose sole and majority power of South Africa in elections coming in May. Last week’s latest poll by the Brenthurst Foundation predicts the ANC will only get 39% of the vote. The party is likely to go into coalition, with analysts predicting this probably will be with the “revolutionary” EFF, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
A man brandishes a toy gun during a pro-Palestinian demonstration organized by the South African opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters in front of the Israeli Embassy in Pretoria Oct. 23, 2023. (Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images)
The EFF wants to grab White-owned farmland with no compensation, according to its election manifesto.
“As the EFF, we have never promised [White people] that we will not take the land. We don’t owe them anything,” EFF leader Julius Malema told cheering crowds at the manifesto’s launch.
And the China-leaning EFF warned the 600 U.S. companies operating in South Africa that if the Americans working for them don’t like the EFF’s policies, “they can leave with immediate effect.”
Fox News Digital reached out to both the South African Foreign Ministry and the ANC but did not receive a response.
NEW YORK (AP) — Alex Verdugo hit a tiebreaking single in the seventh inning and saved at least one run with a sliding catch along the left-field line, boosting the New York Yankees over the Kansas City Royals 6-5 on Saturday night in their AL Division Series opener.
New York’s Gleyber Torres and Kansas City’s MJ Melendez hit two-run homers in a back-and-forth game in which the Royals wasted leads of 1-0, 3-2 and 5-4 and the Yankees failed to hold 2-1 and 4-3 margins. It was the first postseason game with five lead changes, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Kansas City pitchers tied their season high with eight walks, forcing in a pair of runs in the fifth inning. The Yankees were just 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position before Verdugo lined a single off loser Michael Lorenzen.
Verdugo’s hit scored Jazz Chisholm Jr., who singled leading off and stole second on a play allowed to stand following a video review. Yankees manager Aaron Boone started Verdugo in left over rookie Jasson Domínguez in a defense-influenced decision. Verdugo entered the game in a 2-for-34 skid at the plate
With the Yankees trailing 3-2, Verdugo made a sliding catch on Michael Massey’s fourth-inning fly just inside the line to strand two runners. The ball hit Verdugo’s right wrist just below his glove and bounced off his chest before he grabbed it with his bare left hand.
Chisholm, playing third base this year for the first time after the Yankees acquired him from Miami at the July trade deadline, made three fine defensive plays, two with the help of first baseman Oswaldo Cabrera, starting because of Anthony Rizzo’s fractured fingers.
Four Yankees relievers combined to allow only an unearned run over four innings after ace Gerrit Cole came out, unhappy with his performance. Clay Holmes, dropped from his closer’s job last month, worked 1 2/3 innings for the win. Luke Weaver got four straight outs for the save in his postseason debut.
Yankees star Aaron Judge went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts, and Royals standout Bobby Witt Jr. was 0 for 5, barking at plate umpire Adam Hamari after a called third strike in the ninth.
Juan Soto went 3 for 5 and threw out Salvador Perez in the second inning trying to score from second on Melendez’s single to right. Kansas City first baseman Yuli Gurriel threw out runners at the plate on grounders in the first and fifth.
After a day off between Games 1 and 2, the series between the AL-best Yankees and wild-card Royals resumes Monday night. These teams met in four playoffs from 1976-80, with the Yankees winning the first three and getting swept in the last.
Cole allowed four runs — three earned — and seven hits in five-plus innings. Royals starter Michael Wacha gave up three runs, four hits and three walks in four-plus innings.
Tommy Pham hit a second-inning sacrifice fly, and Torres put the Yankees ahead 2-1 in the third with a 339-foot home run just over the right-field short porch.
Melendez’s two-run homer in the fourth gave Kansas City a 3-2 lead, but Royals pitchers issued four seven-pitch walks in the fifth, forcing in runs with walks by Angel Zerpa to Austin Wells and by John Schreiber to Anthony Volpe. The Yankees had not gotten a pair of bases-loaded walks in a postseason game since Bullet Joe Bush and Joe Dugan against the New York Giants’ Rosy Ryan in Game 6 of the 1923 World Series.
Volpe’s throwing error at shortstop set up pinch-hitter Garrett Hampson’s two-run, sixth-inning single through a drawn-in infield that put the Royals ahead 5-4. Wells’ two-out RBI single off Lorenzen tied the score in the bottom half.
UP NEXT
New York’s Carlos Rodón (16-9, 3.96 ERA) starts against the Royals’ Cole Ragans (11-9, 3.14) in a matchup of left-handers. Rodón made a pair of postseason appearances for the Chicago White Sox, in relief against Oakland in 2020 and a start against Houston in 2021 which he pitched 2 2/3 innings, allowing Carlos Correa’s go-ahead, two-run double. Ragans won the Wild Card Series opener at Baltimore on Tuesday with six scoreless innings of four-hit ball.
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
World
Netanyahu calls Macron, other Western leaders who support arms embargo against Israel a ‘disgrace’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed French President Emmanuel Macron and other Western leaders on Saturday who he said had called for an arms embargo on Israel over its airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza.
“As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilized countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side, yet President Macron and other western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. Shame on them, “Netanyahu said in a statement.
He continued, “Is Iran imposing an arms embargo on Hezbollah, on the Houthis, on Hamas and on its other proxies? Of course not. This axis of terror stands together, but countries who supposedly oppose this terror axis call for an arms embargo on Israel.”
Netanyahu called their stance a “disgrace,” adding that Israel would win “with or without their support, but their shame will continue long after the war is won.”
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, slammed French President Macron and other Western leaders on Saturday who he said had called for an arms embargo on Israel over its airstrikes against Hamas. (Reuters)
He said, “in defending ourselves against this barbarism, Israel is defending civilization against those who seek to impose a dark age of fanaticism on all of us. Rest assured, Israel will fight until the battle is won – for our sake and for the sake of peace and security in the world.”
Netanyahu noted that Israel is defending itself on seven different fronts, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, terrorists in Judea and Samaria and Iran.
On Saturday, Macron said France would no longer supply arms to Israel, although the country will continue to send missile defense equipment.
“I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza,” Macron said in an interview, according to Euro News.
On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had raided and dismantled a Hezbollah underground command complex. (Israeli Defense Forces)
Also on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had raided and dismantled a Hezbollah underground command complex in Lebanon.
“The troops entered a terror tunnel about 250 meters long, located about 300 meters from the border and not crossing into Israeli territory,” IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a press conference.
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He said a kitchenette and rooms that allowed for extended stays underground along with weapons and command rooms were found inside the complex.
“These compounds were intended to be used by Hezbollah terrorists in an attack on the communities of the Galilee,” he said. “This tunnel did not cross into our territory, and yesterday we destroyed it.”
The Israel Defense Forces dismantle a terror tunnel in Lebanon. (Israel Defense Forces)
The U.S. continues to supply Israel with arms, although President Biden has spoken out against the country’s approach to its war with Gaza where tens of thousands of civilians have died.
“I think what he’s doing is a mistake,” Biden said in August, while continuing to call for a cease-fire. “I don’t agree with his approach.”
This week in a surprise appearance at a White House press briefing, Biden, in answering a reporter, said he wasn’t sure if Netanyahu was holding off on a cease-fire to influence the November election.
“Whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know – but I’m not counting on that,” Biden said. “No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None, none, none, and I think he should remember that.”
The vaccine will first be given to health workers and those with existing health issues.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has launched its first vaccination campaign against mpox in the eastern city of Goma, which was hit the hardest by an outbreak.
Vaccines were first administered to hospital staff on Saturday, with the wider vaccine drive due to start on Monday in the east of the country, where the current outbreak began last year.
On Friday, the DRC Ministry of Public Health warned that the vaccine campaign would be limited due to few resources. So far, only 265,000 doses are available.
“As you can imagine, in a country of 100 million people, we’re not going to solve the problem with 265,000 doses,” Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba told a news conference on Friday.
He added that the aim of the drive was to target priority groups, including those with existing health issues and health workers.
More doses of the vaccine are expected to arrive from France, Japan and the United States.
Last month, US President Joe Biden said Washington plans to donate one million doses of the mpox vaccine to African nations.
World Health Organization’s Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement that the vaccine rollout marks “an important step in limiting the spread of the virus and ensuring the safety of families and communities”.
Since the start of 2024, the DRC has reported more than 30,000 suspected and confirmed cases of mpox, and 900 deaths, the World Health Organization said.
The virus can spread through close contact with an infected person or animal. Once contracted, the virus typically causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body.
In August, the WHO declared mpox a public health emergency after discovering a new, more infectious variant, named clade Ib.
According to the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, mpox has been detected in 16 African countries so far this year.
On Friday, the WHO announced that it had approved a PCR test to detect mpox by swabbing skin lesions.
Kamba said the WHO pledged about 4,500 tests for the DRC but did not provide an arrival date.
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