Kim Harrisberg

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.

I was not expecting the African Mining Indaba conference to feel like a mass speed dating show that helps mining companies find a mineral match made in heaven.

The 31st Indaba held in Cape Town connects some 11,000 delegates under the expansive roof of the impressive Cape Town International Conference Centre.

President Donald Trump's decision to put a halt to U.S. foreign aid sparked intense and swift panic last month, but a partial U-turn has done little to calm nerves, fuelling a debate about the viability of the global aid system.

Hours after his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump ordered a 90-day pause in foreign aid, including the supply of drugs for HIV treatment under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the world's leading HIV initiative.

Hundreds of informal miners in South Africa faced a stalemate in recent months after police cut off food and water to an illegal goldmine shaft in November: stay and starve, or emerge above ground and face definite arrest.

The move was part of an operation launched by South Africa's police in 2023 to stop illegal mining.

Inconsistent government and corporate climate strategies may see poorer regions left behind in the transition away from polluting industries to green jobs, according to new research.

Wealthier cities like Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg, have more advanced plans to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts than less affluent regions, said the analysis of more than 50 government and corporate entities by South African non-profit SouthSouthNorth (SSN).

Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi has been part of countless demonstrations over the years, but the anti-government protests that hit the country last June and July defied all expectations.

Mwangi said he witnessed something unprecedented - a powerful awakening of the Kenyan youth who leveraged social media to mobilise against a finance bill which proposed a raft of tax hikes.

Most young Africans want the rights of women and refugees to be protected, but only one-third feel the same applies to LGBTQ+ people.

The Africa Youth Survey found the majority of interviewees from 10 out of the 16 countries surveyed do not believe LGBTQ+ rights should be protected. Researchers polled 5,604 Africans between the ages of 18 and 24 from 16 African countries.

Dead elephants, desperate farmers forced to eat leaves, parched fields, dying livestock and failed crops - the worst drought in decades has wreaked havoc across southern Africa where millions of people are going hungry and economies are faltering.

The unprecedented drought has been fuelled by El Niño, a climate phenomenon that can exacerbate drought or storms - weather conditions that are made more likely by climate change.

Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden has less than two months left in the job, but he still squeezed in a last-minute trip to Africa this week - and wants China to take note.

Topping Biden's agenda is the U.S.-backed Lobito railway in Angola, a crucial transport route for high-value minerals such as lithium and cobalt - vital to the world's avowed ambition to swap heavily polluting fuels for cleaner sources of energy.

Young Africans are on the march, with the most recent demonstrations on the streets of Mozambique rounding out a year of protest on the continent that has put ageing leaders on notice they must change - or go.

From Nigeria to Kenya, voters have demonstrated en masse in a youth-led repudiation of politics as usual, accusing the old men at the top of cronyism, bankrupt economics and poll fraud.