Kim Harrisberg

A short walk from their university classes, four South African students traded textbooks for gumboots as they collected and analysed water samples from the Wilgespruit river in Johannesburg.

They are part of a growing movement of citizen scientists collecting water samples across the country to monitor pollution and brainstorm about what can be done about it.

At a tense meeting in Nigeria's capital Abuja, health workers poured over drug registers and testing records to gauge whether U.S. aid cuts would unravel years of painstaking work against tuberculosis in one of Africa's hardest hit countries.

For several days in May, they brainstormed ways to limit the fallout from a halt to U.S. funding for the TB Local Network (TB LON), which delivers screening, diagnosis and treatment.

Beth Hyland thought she had met the love of her life on Tinder. 

In reality, the Michigan-based administrative assistant had been manipulated by an online scam artist who posed as a French man named 'Richard', used deepfake video on Skype calls and posted photos of another man to pull off his con.

Alongside forests, soil and wetlands, another powerful natural carbon absorber critical to tackling climate change lies hidden beneath the ocean surface: seagrass.

The loss of these underwater meadows, also known as blue carbon, could hobble efforts to tackle climate change, both financially and environmentally, a new study has found.

The U.S. aid funding cuts have sent high-profile shockwaves across world health care access and humanitarian relief efforts, but another vital sector has also been hit: energy access in Africa.

On a continent where 600 million people lack reliable access to electricity, the U.S.-led Power Africa initiative sought to improve power supplies in sub-Saharan Africa for schools, clinics, households, farms and businesses.

Tarryn Lokotsch can see the U.S. aid money she desperately needs to help South African rape survivors sitting in her organisation's bank account, but she cannot touch a cent of it.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump froze funds under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in January, even the donor-funded cars Lokotsch and her colleagues use to visit rape victims have sat idle.

When COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in March 2020,  the international community had dire predictions for Africa: the region's underfunded and poorly equipped health facilities would crumble and millions of people could die.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa said in April 2020 that up to 3.3 million Africans could lose their lives as a direct result of COVID-19.

South African-born billionaire Elon Musk has taken to his social media platform X to criticise his country of birth more than once, targeting a land law and now internet licensing requirements that aim to tackle post-apartheid inequality.

Part of a U.S. administration that has dismantled diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, Musk appears irked by similar policies in South Africa. The world's richest man last month accused his birth nation of having "racist ownership laws" over recent land reform legislation.  

First U.S. President Donald Trump cut funding to South Africa over its land reform policies, now a critical trade agreement is under threat.

One thing is clear Trump is not pleased with South Africa.

Thirty years after the end of white minority rule in South Africa and land ownership remains a hot topic in one of the world's least equal nations.

Now it is a hot topic in Washington too.