Former liberation movement’s share of national vote almost 14 percentage points below 2021 result

The African National Congress is on course to suffer a bruising defeat in South Africa’s local elections, with the once dominant party of Nelson Mandela falling to under a third of the vote nationally with more than 80% of ballots counted.

Wednesday’s fragmented vote marks another stage in the decline of the ANC, which has led national governments since the end of white minority apartheid rule in 1994. High unemployment, crime, corruption and poor local service delivery have all contributed to voters turning away from the party.

Party expected to get less than a third of the vote amid frustration over water outages and power cuts

The African National Congress is on course for a bruising result in South Africa’s local elections on Wednesday as voters go to the polls amid deep discontent over water outages, power cuts and crumbling infrastructure.

The former liberation movement, which Nelson Mandela led to power in 1994 at the end of apartheid as South Africa’s first black president, is still likely to be the largest party. However, polls show it getting less than a third of the vote, down from 45.6% at the last municipal elections in 2021 and 40.2% in 2024’s national elections.

The problems run deep in South Africa’s largest city. Will voters punish the ANC in next week’s local elections?

One week before the local elections in South Africa, the pavements and roads of the Johannesburg township Alexandra were filled with piles of rubbish, rotting in the heat. At the Jukskei River, its banks choked with rubble and litter, foul-smelling brown water flowed out of a culvert.

“We’ve got way too many challenges,” said Semadi Manganye, the chief executive of Alexandra Water Warriors, an environmental NGO that organises clean-ups of the river and plants trees on its banks. “If it’s not electricity, it’s water. If it’s not water, it’s waste.”

There is no end in sight for the drivers of illegal mining, while police action appears ineffective

Cora Bailey has been encountering illegal miners ever since she first started treating injured animals in the townships around Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg, in 1991. But as the price of gold has soared, so too has activity in the abandoned mine shafts that mark the area.

In late September, dozens of zama zamas – the name given to illegal miners in South Africa, meaning roughly “to take a chance” in Zulu – arrived to dig for gold across the dirt road from her charity, Claw (Community Led Animal Welfare).

Slavery was integral to the country’s wine industry. Now a handful of wineries are addressing its legacy and righting the wrongs of the past

At Groot Constantia, the oldest wine farm in South Africa, the 450,000 visitors who pass through its gates annually can admire the picturesque vineyards sloping towards a bay ringed by mountains or enjoy a glass of sweet Grand Constance, reputed to have been Napoleon’s favourite wine.

Unusually among the region’s old vineyards, there is also a museum that includes the history of slavery, run by state body Iziko Museums. Panels display information about enslaved people – about 30 of whom lived on the estate at any given time from its founding in 1685 until slavery was abolished in 1834 by the British colonial government – detailing everything from their work to what they ate.

Article in Atlantic claims The Blue Fighter was artificially generated, days after it won Caine prize for African writers

The Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using AI to write a prize-winning short story after an article in the Atlantic said software had flagged it as almost completely AI-generated.

Kundizeza’s story The Blue Fighter was announced as the winner of the prestigious Caine prize for African writers on 6 October. Five days later, The Atlantic published an article by the author and journalist Vauhini Vara titled: “Yet Another Literary prize winner Seems to Be AI.”

Committee recognises work of South African who chaired UN commission that concluded Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza

The Nobel peace prize has been awarded to Navi Pillay, the South African former UN human rights chief who chaired the UN commission that concluded Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza.

The Norwegian Nobel committee said Pillay, who is serving as a judge at the international court of justice (ICJ), has “shown that legal measures can help prevent acts of war and violence”.

Government forces’ attack raises risk of internal conflict in Ethiopia that could trigger regional war

Eritrean troops who crossed into Ethiopia’s Tigray region have come under drone attack from government forces, raising the risk that renewed internal conflict in Ethiopia could trigger an all-out regional war between the neighbouring countries.

Military vehicles carrying soldiers drove across Eritrea’s southern border into Tigray on Wednesday, reaching the town of Adigrat 25 miles (40km) south, according to civilian witnesses, a militia commander and the conflict monitoring group Acled.

President announces measures amid anger at authorities over recent murders of women

South Africa’s president has called on men to take more responsibility for violence against women as he announced measures to tackle the problem, amid anger at authorities over a recent wave of murders.

Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that not enough had been done to protect women. He said police would be reviewing unsolved murders, attempted murders and serious sexual offences against women and children, as well as producing a funded plan to reduce the forensic backlog for such cases, both within 60 days.

Seventeen people killed near Johannesburg in suspected ‘illegal goldmining turf war’, as 10 killed in separate incident at barbecue venue near Cape Town

Two separate mass shootings near South Africa’s two biggest cities killed at least 27 people, as the country grapples with one of the world’s highest murder rates amid investigations into corruption and criminality within the police.

The South African police service said on Sunday that 17 people were killed on Saturday night when eight suspects armed with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols opened fire at a bar in Wedela township, about 50 miles south-west of central Johannesburg. At least 15 other people sustained gunshot injuries in that attack, police said.

At Roland Garros airport on Réunion island, the ceiling design funnels a light tropical breeze into the terminal

At the arrivals terminal at Roland Garros airport on Réunion island, visitors are greeted by floor-to-ceiling windows framing the lush green mountains of the French Indian Ocean territory.

What they may have also expected was the icy chill of air conditioning; this island just off Madagascar sits in the tropical zone to the south of the equator. But instead, the terminal is cooled by a light tropical breeze, the result of natural ventilation built into its unique design.

Arrest of Shadrack Sibiya comes as country reels from cases of femicide and alleged police corruption and criminality

One of South Africa’s most senior police officers has been charged with raping an 18-year-old woman and grooming a 16-year-old girl, as the country’s police face allegations of corruption and failing to tackle violence against women and girls.

Shadrack Sibiya, who was already suspended from his role as deputy national police commissioner over allegations he interfered with political killings investigations, was arrested on Monday. He is facing charges of rape, people trafficking, promoting the sexual grooming of a child and two counts of grooming a child.

A week after Elizabeth ‘Tsontso’ Moselakgomo’s body was found, runners took part in a morning run to honour her name and demand more protection

The runners smiled and laughed, congratulating each other on finishing their 5km or 10km Saturday run, their foreheads glistening with sweat in the early morning sun. They helped themselves to water, instant coffee and sugary snacks, provided by waiting volunteers on the lawn outside a gated community of modern apartment blocks, and then stretched out together.

But there were sombre moments too, as they mourned one of their own, who had lit up their Saturday runs around Sandton, an upmarket area of Johannesburg. Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo’s body had been found a week earlier, on Saturday 12 September. The 38-year-old went missing three days earlier, after going out for a run alone after work.

Four of Nurat Osman’s alleged abductors were killed during rescue after she was taken from outside her home last week

A British woman kidnapped in Malawi last week has been rescued by police after a shootout in which four of her alleged abductors were killed.

Nusrat Osman was abducted outside her home in the southern city of Blantyre on 11 September at about 12.30pm. Police had offered a reward of 30m Malawi kwacha (£12,950) for information leading to her rescue and the arrest of the perpetrators.

Announcement of visa restrictions follows Trump’s false claims of ‘white genocide’ taking place in South Africa

The US has announced visa restrictions on some South Africans as Donald Trump’s administration continues to claim that South Africa’s government racially discriminates against white minority Afrikaners.

The announcement did not specify individuals who were barred from the US. Trump has spent his second term falsely claiming there is a “white genocide” in South Africa and railing against its affirmative action policies.

String of female murder victims found near Johannesburg’s international airport, including five in the past week

The discovery of the bodies of seven women around Johannesburg’s international airport, including five in the past week, has prompted an outpouring of fear, grief and anger over a lack of progress in tackling femicide.

When Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo did not return after going for a run on 9 September, her eight-year-old daughter alerted relatives, who contacted police. The 38-year-old’s body was found on Saturday and identified by relatives on Monday. The news of her disappearance had gone viral.

Drive to save thousands of Afrikaners from false claims of ‘white genocide’ appears to show signs of slowing

When Donald Trump announced in February 2025 that the US would accept Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees, many white South Africans who believed that they were victims of racism in their country thought that their prayers had been answered.

However, in the past few months, dozens of applicants to the refugee programme have been rejected, with many left dismayed and confused as to why they would be left to face what Trump has falsely claimed is a “white genocide” in South Africa.

Claim relating to 1960 attack on hundreds of protesters part of wave of litigation over apartheid crimes in South Africa

The day dawned brightly on 21 March 1960, as residents of the South African township of Sharpeville gathered to protest against pass laws, which forced “Black, Indian and Coloured” South Africans to carry documents at all times specifying where they were allowed to be.

Abraham Mofokeng joined the march, one of dozens organised nationwide by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a breakaway group from the African National Congress (ANC). “The weather was very nice, the sun was out. You could not have suspected that the day would go so horribly,” said Mofokeng, who was then a 20-year-old factory worker.

More traumatised civilians are arriving every day at ‘shockingly overcrowded’ El Obeid and camps on its outskirts

Humanitarian conditions in the Sudanese city of El Obeid and two camps on its outskirts are dire and deteriorating, according to people on the ground, as civilians displaced by fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia continue to pour in from the surrounding countryside.

The UN says more than 15,000 families have arrived since mid-July, joining more than 200,000 people who arrived in the first half of the year, according to government figures cited by Save the Children.

Bird eggs intercepted in homemade incubators at Johannesburg airport as officials try to halt wildlife trafficking

South African police have arrested two Thai nationals in separate incidents for allegedly attempting to smuggle endangered parrot eggs out of the country as authorities try to stem the tide of wildlife trafficking.

A 50-year-old Thai national was arrested at OR Tambo international airport in Johannesburg on 20 August, carrying 50 bird eggs in a homemade incubator in a hand-luggage bag, South Africa’s environment ministry said in a statement.