With South Africa's national elections only days away, the killings of three political workers in KwaZulu-Natal Province this weekend have heightened concerns that a longtime struggle for power there may bubble over into further strife.
But political officials there all but ruled out the prospect of widespread violence like that of the early 1990s, when political warfare claimed thousands of lives -- or even like that just before the 1999 elections, when perhaps 200 died.
The political workers who died -- two from the African National Congress (ANC), one from the rival Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) -- were killed in two separate attacks on Good Friday, a national holiday here. The two ANC workers and two other party workers were abducted as they left a church in Mqedandaba, about 145km northwest of Durban. One man escaped with injuries, and a second remains missing.
One IFP worker was killed in an apparently unrelated incident on Friday elsewhere in the province, the third such death in two weeks.
At least 10 party workers from both parties have died this year in what are widely assumed to be politically motivated attacks.
The ANC is locked in a bitter fight with the IFP for political dominance of KwaZulu-Natal, the only one of South Africa's nine provinces not under ANC control. The IFP has broad support among Zulus in the province's rural areas, while the Xhosa-dominated ANC holds a majority in Durban, the biggest city. With far more money and control of the national government, the ANC has undertaken an all-out effort to dislodge the Inkatha majority, sending President Thabo Mbeki and his Zulu deputy president, Jacob Zuma, to campaign there.
In the province's predominantly Zulu region not far from the scene of Friday's killings of the ANC workers, Mbeki told an ANC rally on Saturday that security would be tightened for Wednesday's vote.
"We must allow everybody in the country to decide who to vote for without fear of being killed or their houses being burned down," he said.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
RSS