We are four weeks into the Iran war and the economic story getting the least attention is the one with the longest consequences.Somewhere in the noise of missile strikes and shipping reroutes, global fertiliser markets have moved in a way that is going to affect what food costs and who
A movement that found its language March and March’s leader, Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, along with her supporters, made no attempt to temper the rhetoric condemning undocumented foreigners’ access to public services, and this includes healthcare. This is not simply fringe politics. It is reflective of a deliberate and increasingly sophisticated repositioning
A light bulb is not something most people would associate with governance. Yet nearly four decades ago, while working in one of the poorest parts of east China’s Fujian Province as the Party chief of Ningde Prefecture, Xi Jinping (https://iol.co.za/tags/xi-jinping/) told local officials that ensuring access to everyday necessities for
Ashraf Patel African nations are currently facing a new triple blow to their development agenda – one more extractive and exploitative that straddles the entire economic value chain and social life of Africans- from minerals to digital data. Despite the laudable communique of ‘Africa’s G20’ in 2025 on Sustainable AI
Dr Jaya Josie The 9th China-South Africa Bi-National Commission meeting between the two countries is taking place in Cape Town on Thursday, 26 March, amidst global trade and energy supply chain disruption. On November 23 last year, South Africa’s Vice-President Paul Mashatile met with China’s Premier Li Qiang and
How should we understand the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s view on governance performance? Watch the video here (https://en.people.cn/n3/2026/0322/c90000-20438531.html). Through three stories shared by Chinese President Xi Jinping, we can grasp the CPC’s original aspiration and mission, and understand that benefiting the people is the greatest governance performance.
BRICS is steadily moving towards the creation of an independent payment system and, potentially, even a new unit for mutual settlements. What might the new financial infrastructure of the group look like, and what is it most likely to be based on? Expert forecasts are presented in the TV BRICS
There is a quiet assumption embedded in most coverage of African technology: that the continent is catching up, slowly and unevenly, to a race already well underway. Egypt’s unveiling of Karnak in February 2026 does not dismantle that assumption entirely, but it does complicate it in ways worth sitting with.
The scoreboard said 1-0 to Senegal. Pape Gueye had just struck one of the most beautiful goals in AFCON history, Édouard Mendy had saved a penalty so weak it was almost an insult, and the Lions of Teranga had become African champions for the second time in four years. That
The Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is once again in the middle of a very familiar but evolving conflict, one where minerals, militias, and geopolitics intersect with renewed intensity. Recent data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) shows a sharp escalation: the highest number of monthly drone