International
South Africa is preparing to invest Ramaphosa for a second term as president
Cyril Ramaphosa will be inaugurated as president of South Africa for a second five-year term, in a solemn ceremony attended by about twenty African leaders and that will begin a new stage in the country’s history with an unprecedented Government of national unity.
“We have the investiture in the year in which we celebrate thirty years of freedom and democracy in our nation, which is a very important milestone,” the interim director general of Communications of the South African Government, Nomonde Mnukwa, told local media on Tuesday.
Under the slogan “Thirty years of democracy, collaboration and growth,” the event will be held at the Union Buildings, the headquarters of the Executive in Pretoria, and will be attended by 18 heads of state and government, as well as former presidents and delegations from many countries, according to the authorities.
Among the countries that will send high-level representatives are Namibia, Angola, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Esuatini (former Swaziland), Uganda, Nigeria, Burundi and Egypt, but also China and Cuba, whose vice president, Salvador Mesa, has already arrived in the country.
Representatives of organizations such as the African Union (AU), the UN and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), in addition to Palestine, whose cause has historically been supported by South Africa, will also attend.
After the beginning of the day with a program of cultural events starring local artists, the ceremony will take place in which Ramaphosa will be sworn in before the head of the South African Judiciary, magistrate Raymond Zondo.
During the event, for which the streets surrounding the enclosure will be cut, the National Defense Forces of South Africa (SADF) will carry out a greeting of 21 cannon salvos, accompanied by an Air Force flight, in addition to an inspection and a parade of troops.
Although it is a working day, buses will be chartered so that residents of different provinces can attend the ceremony, who will have to go through strict security controls.
The investiture will be the culmination of a process marked by uncertainty, after the African National Congress (CNA), in power since the establishment of democracy and the end of the racist ‘apartheid’ regime in 1994, lost for the first time the absolute majority in the elections of last May 29.
In those elections, the seventh generals of the country, the CNA achieved 40.18% of the votes, which translates into 159 of the 400 seats in the National Assembly (Lower House of Parliament), an insufficient victory that forced for the first time the historic formation to approach other parties to be able to govern.
That approach was felt last Friday in a marathon first session of the National Assembly after the elections, in which Ramaphosa was elected by 283 votes.
Hours before that election, John Steenhuisen, leader of the Democratic Alliance (AD, liberal center-right), until now the first force of the opposition, announced that he had reached an agreement with the ANC to form a “Government of national unity (GUN)”.
That formula was previously used by the country’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, when he came to power in 1994, when his party enjoyed an absolute majority and started from a position of strength, unlike the current weakness, which prevents him from forming a government alone.
As confirmed by the CNA on Monday, three other political forces have also agreed to join the government alliance: the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP, conservative and nationalist of the Zulu ethnic group), GOOD (social democrat) and Patriotic Alliance (AP, extreme right).
Thus, the investiture will be the starting signal for the formation of a Cabinet that should include members of the other parties of the coalition, although Ramaphosa, 71 years old and fifth president of the country, has not yet revealed the composition of the Executive.
After playing an important role in the negotiations that allowed the dismantling of ‘apartheid’, being a trade union leader and prospering in the private sector, Ramaphosa arrived in 2018 with the promise of change to end the corruption that tarnished the mandate of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma (2009-2018).
However, its popularity decreased due to the persistence of problems such as high unemployment (32.9%), crime, the energy crisis with constant blackouts and the extreme inequality that still weighs on the black population.
International
The Sudanese Army takes a Khartum neighborhood in an offensive to recover the capital
The Sudanese Army announced on Sunday the capture of a residential neighborhood located in northwestern Khartum as part of a large-scale offensive to recover the capital of Sudan, in the hands of the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (FAR) since the outbreak of the conflict in April 2023.
“The Sudanese Armed Forces Armored Corps, which operates from the Al Shajara military zone, has successfully taken control of the Al Ruwad residential complex,” the military institution announced in a brief statement published on its official Facebook account.
During the offensive, Army soldiers and fighters of allied armed groups “inflicted great losses” on the FAR, although the Armed Forces indicated that they respected “international law and its rules of intervention to guarantee the security of private and public property.”
The advance of the Army in northern Khartoum comes one day after the military regained control of the strategic city of Wad Madani, the capital of the central state of Al Yazira located south of the capital of Sudan and which had been under the control of the FAR since December 18, 2023.
The recovery of Wad Madani, the second largest city in Sudan in terms of population, was possible after four months of army offensive in the state of Al Yazira and after the withdrawal of the paramilitaries from the city, where hardly any fighting was recorded after the entry of government troops on Saturday.
This is an important development for the Sudan war and for the Army’s plans to “liberate” Khartum, where it is carrying out an offensive from the north and will now be able to advance to the Sudanese capital from the south after the capture of Wad Madani.
The leader of the Sudanese Army, Abdelfatah al Burhan, said on Sunday that his forces will recover “every inch” of Sudan, while the head of the paramilitaries, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – alias Hemedti – has promised that his fighters can continue fighting for more than two decades if necessary.
The war in Sudan has caused tens of thousands of deaths and forced more than 14 million to flee their homes, which has made the country the scene of the worst displaced persons crisis on the planet, according to the United Nations.
International
SpaceX postpones the seventh test of its powerful Starship rocket for Wednesday
SpaceX postponed to Wednesday the next test flight of its powerful Starship rocket, whose launch was initially scheduled for Monday afternoon from its base in southern Texas (USA).
According to Elon Musk’s signature on Saturday night, the Starship will take off at 16:00 local time (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday, from Starbase, the firm’s space center located in the Texas town of Boca Chica.
For this test, the mission will transport ten replicas of the latest generation of Starlinks, which will be put on a suborbital trajectory, which is where the rocket will move.
This operation is crucial, because SpaceX plans to use the Starship in the future to put into orbit the next generation of its popular broadband internet satellites, which will be larger and heavier than the current ones.
On the seventh flight, the mission engineers will again try to catch the powerful first stage of the Starship, called Super Heavy, which in the previous test carried out last November could not be carried out.
Once separated from the second stage, that is, the Starship as such, if the weather allows it is expected that the Super Heavy will arrive at a Starbase platform, where it will be captured by mechanical arms, as already happened successfully in the fifth test.
International
Trump describes politicians in charge of the fires in Los Angeles as “incompetent”
The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, called this Sunday “incompetent” the politicians and local officials in charge of the fight against the fires in Los Angeles, in Southern California (USA), which have so far left 16 people dead.
“Fires continue to roat Los Angeles. Incompetent politicians have no idea how to turn them off,” Trump said early this Sunday morning on his social network Truth, a comment that continues to fuel the dispute he has with the governor of California, the Democrat Gavin Newsom.
The governor has previously accused the Republican of politicizing the tragedy and has even extended an invitation to Trump to visit the area, devastated after the forest fires that broke out since last Tuesday.
“Thousands of magnificent houses have disappeared and many more will soon be lost. There is death everywhere. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our country. They just can’t put out fires. What’s wrong with them?” Trump questioned himself, who on January 20 will assume his second term as president of the United States.
The number of deaths from the fires that broke out earlier this week in the Los Angeles area, in Southern California (USA), has risen to 16, according to the local forensic doctor’s office.
According to the latest update made by the forensic doctor of Los Angeles County, 11 of those deaths have occurred due to the Eaton fire, located northeast and near the cities of Pasadena and Altadena.
The other five correspond to the Palisades fire, the largest and largest so far, contained in only 11%.
The fires have devastated at least 15,000 hectares, destroyed about 12,000 structures, including cars, and are responsible for the disappearance of about thirteen people, among which some of those reported as dead could be, according to Los Angeles County sheriff Robert Luna.
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