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South Africa's Inflation Hits Two-Year High as Fuel Costs Surge Amid Middle East Tensions

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CAPE TOWN-South Africa's annual consumer inflation accelerated to 5.0% in June 2026, up from 4.5% in May, marking the highest reading since June 2024 . In my opinion, this number is a fairly clean illustration of how little control a country like South Africa actually has over its own cost of living. A woman uses a trolley as she shops at a Pick n Pay store at the Dobson Point Shopping Centre, in Soweto, South Africa, March 19, 2024.  Fuel Is Doing Most of the Damage Statistics South Africa said transport was by far the biggest driver of the increase, with the annual transport inflation rate accelerating to 12.7% in June from 9.4% in May. Fuel prices themselves climbed 34.3% over the past year, driven by a 50.8% jump in diesel prices and a 31.7% rise in petrol prices . From my perspective, that surge into passenger transport inflation, up 8.1% in June alone, is the part of this story that matters most, since minibus taxi fares jumped 11.5% and that's the mode of transport mos...
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International Condemnation Mounts as Port Sudan Authorities Face Scrutiny Over Chemical Weapons

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The international community has intensified its rebuke of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) following firm determinations regarding the deployment of prohibited munitions. Official evaluations conclude that the military leadership under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan utilized chemical weapons in clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention . Despite dismissive responses and rejections from Port Sudan authorities, global oversight bodies and diplomatic offices have stood firm on the necessity of accountability, transparency, and strict adherence to international humanitarian law. Sudanese army soldiers celebrate in Salha, south of Omdurman, two days after the Sudanese army recaptured it from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), on May 22, 2025. Defying International Conventions and Global Norms The core of the current international crisis centers on compliance with foundational treaties designed to protect humanity from the horrific impacts of toxic warfare. The U.S. State Departme...
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West Africa Is Drowning. Scientists Say Climate Change Made It Worse.

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Between June 20 and 22, 2026, more than 140 millimetres of rain fell in parts of Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, and Nigeria within a single 24-hour period overwhelming drainage systems, submerging roads, and triggering flash floods from Lagos to Monrovia. At least 34 people died in Ghana, where June rainfall reached its highest level since 1995, while Côte d'Ivoire recorded 59 deaths since the rainy season began in May . In Accra, emergency teams rescued more than 400 people in a single day as floodwaters entered homes across the capital. Residents walk in a flooded area during rescue operations in Maiduguri, northern Borno state, Nigeria September 12, 2024. What the Science Found A World Weather Attribution study published in July 2026 found that human-induced climate change significantly increased the likelihood and intensity of the extreme rainfall event that triggered the June flooding across the Gulf of Guinea coast . The research, conducted by scientists from Côte d'Ivo...
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Competing Weapons, Collapsing Ceasefires: How Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt Are Writing Sudan's Humanitarian Catastrophe

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There is a number that puts everything else in context: 70 percent. By January 2026, it was estimated that 70 percent of Sudan's population approximately 35 million people urgently needed humanitarian assistance , making Sudan the most catastrophic active humanitarian crisis on earth. That number did not emerge from a natural disaster. It was produced by a civil war whose duration, intensity, and resistance to resolution has been systematically prolonged by four regional powers Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt whose overlapping interventions have made every ceasefire attempt structurally impossible to sustain. A Sudanese girl who fled the conflict in Darfur, where she had lived as a displaced person, moves past makeshift shelters near the border of Sudan and Chad. Turkey: Weapons to Both Sides, Accountability to Neither Turkey's involvement in Sudan has evolved into one of the most legally and strategically significant external interventions in the conflict . Turkish fir...
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Kenyan Court Dismisses Rastafarian Bid to Legalise Cannabis for Religious Use

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  NAIROBI, Kenya Kenya's High Court on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, dismissed a petition by the Rastafari Society of Kenya seeking to legalize cannabis for religious purposes, ruling that the community had failed to prove the country's drug laws violate its constitutional right to freedom of religion. A Rastafarian smokes as they gather outside Milimani Law Courts, after the high court dismisses a Rastafarian case seeking to legalize marijuana, in Nairobi, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. What the Court Ruled Justice Bahati Mwamuye said Kenya's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act does not unconstitutionally infringe on Rastafarians' religious freedom, and that granting an exemption would require a firmer constitutional and legal foundation than the petitioners presented. The judge noted that while all witnesses agreed cannabis functions as a sacrament in Rastafarian worship, they could not agree on whether its use is essential or merely preferred a distin...
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The Infrastructure Behind Abu Dhabi's AI Government Ambition Is Already Being Built. Here Is Who Is Building It.

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A government strategy is only as credible as the infrastructure behind it. Abu Dhabi's $3.54 billion commitment to become the world's first AI-native government by 2027 has attracted attention for its ambition. What has attracted less attention is the specific, documented, and already-operational infrastructure architecture that makes the target more than a press release. The delivery chain behind the DGE's Government Digital Strategy for 2025-2027 involves Microsoft, G42, OpenAI, Oracle, NVIDIA, SoftBank, and Cisco and it is already being built. Omar Al Olama, the UAE's Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Working making a speech on Dubai increasingly becoming a global centre for artificial intelligence. Stargate UAE: Nation-Scale Compute Stargate UAE, a one-gigawatt compute cluster being built by G42 and operated by OpenAI and Oracle, with NVIDIA supplying Grace Blackwell GB300 systems, SoftBank as a strategic partner, and Cisco providing zero-trust se...
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Nigeria's Ghost Agency Got an Office, a Bank Account, and Nearly $1 Million in the National Budget. Nobody Noticed for Over a Year.

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It started with a forged letter. It ended with a fictitious government council securing office space at Nigeria's Federal Secretariat, opening bank accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria, appearing in the 2026 national budget with an allocation of ₦1.3 billion approximately $944,300 and operating for over a year before anyone in the government formally raised an alarm. The story of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council is not just a tale of individual fraud. It is a forensic map of exactly how Nigeria's institutional oversight fails. Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew, PFIPC's director general. The Man Behind the Council Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi Matthew presented himself as the Director-General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, claiming the agency had been established in 2024 to attract foreign investment to Nigeria . To support that claim, he produced an appointment letter bearing the name of Chief of Staff to the President Femi Gba...
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