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Africa
A Zimbabwean farmer addresses a meeting of white commercial farmers in the capital Harare, at one of a series of meetings that led to a 2020 accord on compensation for white forced off of their lands in 2000-2001.
3 million: This week, the government of Zimbabwe announced an initial payout of $3 million to white farmers who were forced off their lands in 2000-01. A compensation agreement signed in 2020 between the state and thousands of white farmers committed Zimbabwe to distribute a total of about $3.5 billion for seized farmland.
209: Longtime US politics-watcher Larry Sabato has issued his first election ratings report for the midterm election in November 2026, and it shows a tiny lead for Democrats in the lower House. “Our initial House ratings,” reads the report, “reflect a small House map, with Democrats narrowly ahead209-207 in the seats that at least lean to one party or the other, with 19 Toss-ups.”
85: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s chief prosecutor has chargedmore than 85 of Russia’s largest businesses with allegedly helping the West to undermine Russia’s economy. As a result, the Russian government has netted nearly $28 billion from the confiscation and sale of assets belonging to these companies. Critics say the actions merely benefit Vladimir Putin’s war machine and his wealthy state capitalist friends.
62: US producers of shale oil -- petroleum trapped in hard-to-reach rock formations -- are bracing for a "bloody mess" if falling oil prices dip below $62 per barrel, the level at which most of them break even. Shale oil, which accounts for more than a third of US output, was a major technological breakthrough that helped the US to become the world's leading oil producer over the past decade. The drawback is that shale production is expensive. Now a double whammy is driving down prices: increased Saudi production, and fears that Donald Trump's trade wars will drive the world into recession.
7: At least seven Turkish journalists are facing jail time for their coverage of the mass demonstrations that erupted after the March 19 arrest of Istanbul’s mayor, a leading opponent of strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Prosecutors say the journalists were participating in illegal demonstrations rather than simply reporting on them. Critics say these changes are political.
South Sudan's president Salva Kiir, earlier this month. His recent moves against the opposition pushed the country towards civil war, but now the opposition itself is in crisis.
Amid lingering fears of another civil war in South Sudan, the Upper Nile state’s main opposition party is now mired in its own internal conflict.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition ousted its imprisoned leader Riek Machar and replaced him with Peacebuilding Minister Stephen Kuol Par on an interim basis.
But that irked many in the party who see Kuol Par as too close with the country’s president, Salva Kiir. Some members boycotted the party meeting, while others have left the country.
Civil war fears. South Sudan’s civil war ended eight years ago, but Kiir’s recent detention of Machar, his vice president, threatened to reignite tensions in the world’s most recently recognized country.
Below Par. The new opposition leader renewed calls for Kiir to release Machar, but the president’s past record suggests he won’t back down easily. If Machar is released, however, it could set up a fresh fight over control of the opposition.
But there’s a bigger risk afoot, particularly as the 2018 peace agreement that ended the civil war still hasn’t been fully implemented, according to Kate Johnston, a regional expert at the Center for a New American Security.
“The increasing splits within the SPLM-IO cannot be good for the implementation of that peace agreement," she says, "or for bringing the parties back together to discuss how they move forward.”
A pair of wolf cubs explore their surroundings in Dallas, Texas, on April 7, 2025.
5: Five years ago, President Donald Trump suggested firing missiles into Mexico as a way to curtail drug cartels, according to former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir. While that never happened, the commander-in-chief is exploring something similar, but this time with drones. Plans are still in their early stages, but American forces have already started reconnaissance flights – with Mexico’s approval – in a bid to acquire more information about the cartels.
35: Last week’s special elections in Florida appear to have House Democrats all giddy, as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of the House Democratic Caucus, released a list of 35 Republican-held seats that it plans to target in next year’s midterms. Some are realistic, others less so: Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) is on the list, despite winning reelection last year by 26 points.
98: At least 98 people have died and scores more were injured in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, after the roof of the Jet Set nightclub collapsed early Tuesday. The authorities reported that rescuers made 134 trips to the hospital, sometimes carrying two to three patients at a time due to the overwhelming number of casualties. One video captured the extent of the damage.
40: Environmental think-tank Ember found that electricity generated from low-carbon sources – solar, wind, hydropower, nuclear – exceeded 40% in 2024, the first time it has crossed this threshold since the 1940s. The fast rise of solar underscored this milestone, but the report also had some sobering news for environmentalists: Carbon dioxide emissions reached an all-time high last year.
35,000: The Trump administration’s expansive new tariffs are a sour fruit to swallow for South Africa’s citrus industry, as the new 31% duty on imports from the Rainbow Nation could spoil some 35,000 jobs, according to the Citrus Growers' Association of Southern Africa. Pretoria exports $100 million worth of citrus to the United States each year.
>10,000: Over 10,000 years since dire wolves went extinct, Biotech firm Colossal claims to have effectively brought them back from the dead. Using preserved DNA, Colossal scientists rewrote the code of a common gray wolf and used domestic dogs to birth three dire-like wolves, called Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. The species became a feature of public consciousness after they starred in the hit show “Game of Thrones.” Experts are skeptical about how closely these three pups resemble the dire wolf; one paleogeneticist suggested that these lupine creatures are grey wolves with dire wolf-like characteristics.
Members of the M23 rebel group stand guard as people attend a rally addressed by Corneille Nangaa, Congolese rebel leader and coordinator of the AFC-M23 movement, in Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 27, 2025.
Representatives of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the M23 rebel group held peace talks in Doha, Qatar, last week to resolve the armed conflict that has engulfed eastern DRC since January. Qatari mediators began facilitating private discussions ahead of the first formal meeting between the two groups, planned for April 9. It is the second such attempt since March, and a source close to the negotiations described the talks as “positive,” as evidenced by the M23’s withdrawal from the town of Walikale as a gesture of goodwill.
What’s behind the conflict? Hostilities stem from the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and competition for the DRC’s extensive mineral resources. The M23, an ethnic Tutsi-led rebel group formed in 2012, is allegedly funded by Rwanda – a charge Kigali denies.
There were supposed to be peace talks in Angola three weeks ago, but those collapsed after the European Commission sanctioned Rwandan officials for plundering mineral wealth in the DRC. The decision prompted Rwanda to expel Belgian diplomats and raised fears of a greater regional war.
Over 7,000 people have died in the DRC since January, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced, including 35,000 people who have fled to Burundi and 487,000 who have sought refuge in Uganda, straining resources in neighbouring states – an outcome next week’s talks are designed to head off.
African National Congress (ANC) members of parliament react after South African lawmakers passed the budget's fiscal framework in Cape Town, South Africa, April 2, 2025.
The second largest party in South Africa’s coalition, the business-friendly Democratic Alliance, launched a legal challenge on Thursday to block a 0.5% VAT increase in the country’s new budget, raising concerns that the fragile government could collapse.
The background: Absent the support of their coalition partner, the ruling African National Congress on Wednesday relied instead on support from smaller parties to narrowly pass a budget framework.
The ANC and the center-right DA, historical rivals, agreed to work together after last year’s elections, when the ANC failed to win a majority for the first time since it entered government in 1994, after the fall of apartheid.
Your call, DA. The lawsuit is unlikely to derail the budget, so the party must decide if it wants to stay in government despite its misgivings. Without the DA, the ANC would hold exactly half of the legislature’s 400 seats. Investors view the DA as a key source of market-friendly policy discipline.
It’s a dilemma. Experts say that if the DA bolts, it will lose the chance to shape key legislation, such as the controversial Expropriation Act, a land reform bill, but staying would mean facing political humiliation after they voted against the budget.
South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, pictured here addressing the press in 2020.
Alarm bells are ringing ever more loudly in South Sudan, as Vice President Riek Machar — chief rival to Prime Minister Salva Kiir — was arrested late Wednesday in an operation involving 20 armored vehicles at his compound in Juba. He was placed under house arrest, a move that is fueling fears that the country will soon descend into civil war.
“We strongly condemn the unconstitutional actions taken today by the Minister of Defense and the Chief of National Security,” Machar’s SPLM-IO party said. The ex-rebel group added that the arrest effectively annulled the 2018 power-sharing deal that brought peace to the nascent nation — it withdrew from the security aspects of the agreement last week.
The public is reportedly in a state of panic, with violent clashes this week displacing some 50,000 people from their homes. Kiir pledged on Wednesday not to return the Upper Nile state to war, while SPLM-IO deputy leader Oyet Nathaniel Pierino urged the public to remain calm.
Wishful thinking: But calls for calm may reflect more hope than expectation. Kate Johnston, an associate fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a regional expert, called the arrest “a pretty fundamental undermining of the peace agreement” and warned of the dangers of civil war for the sub-Saharan state.
“Seventy-five percent of the population is already on food aid,” said Johnston. “A civil war would be catastrophic for the population.”
Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan gestures to soldiers inside the presidential palace after the Sudanese army said it had taken control of the building in the capital Khartoum, Sudan, on March 26, 2025.
The Sudanese Army says it has captured full control of Khartoum from the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group it has been battling in a brutal civil war for over two years. The army has seized key locations, including the presidential palace and the airport.
Regaining control of the capital marks a major triumph for the army and could provide a strategic advantage in the ongoing conflict.
Since the war began in April 2023, the RSF had held most of Khartoum but has steadily lost ground to the Sudanese Armed Forces in recent months. A military spokesperson confirmed that the army has now secured Manshiya Bridge — the last bridge previously under RSF control — as well as a military camp in Jebel Awliya, the group’s main stronghold in southern Khartoum.
Is this the nail in the coffin for the RSF? Not quite. The war is far from over. Although the RSF is retreating from Khartoum, it still maintains control over nearly all of the Darfur region in western Sudan. Meanwhile, foreign powers continue to supply both sides with weapons, fueling the conflict, while international efforts to broker peace have failed.