Free Republic

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The Trump administration is bringing a small number of white South Africans to the United States as refugees next week in what it says is the start of a larger relocation effort for a minority group who are being persecuted by their Black-led government because of their race.The South Africans’ applications are being fast-tracked by the U.S. after President Donald Trump announced the relocation program in February. The Trump administration has taken an anti-migrant stance, suspending refugee programs and halting arrivals from other parts of the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan and most countries in...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Four days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing almost all U.S. foreign aid, an email landed in Claris Madhuku’s inbox in rural Zimbabwe. Stop all activities immediately, it said. The message confirmed Madhuku’s fears that Trump’s return to office might affect his organization’s efforts to save African girls from child marriages.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The African National Congress party lost its parliamentary majority in a historic election result Saturday that puts South Africa on a new political path for the first time since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule 30 years ago. With more than 99% of votes counted, the once-dominant ANC had received just over 40% in Wednesday’s election, well short of the majority it had held since the famed all-race vote of 1994 that ended apartheid and brought it to power under Nelson Mandela. The final results are still to be formally declared by the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to attend an economic summit in South Africa next month and the country is desperately trying to persuade him to stay away to avoid the legal and diplomatic fallout over his international arrest warrant, South Africa’s deputy president said in an interview with a news website on Friday. As a signatory to the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, South Africa is obliged to arrest Putin on an indictment the court issued against the Russian leader in March for war crimes involving the abduction of children from Ukraine. Moscow has dismissed the warrant. South African...