PrairiePundit

 Daily Signal: When President Donald Trump interrupted his Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to play a video evidencing widespread persecution against white South Africans in May, the left-wing media called it an “ambush.” Which only leaves one to wonder what the media would call what happened to the Heunis family the night of Oct. 1, 2016. Two intruders, one armed with a shotgun, raided the home of Johann and Mariandra Heunis, then pregnant with their fourth child. The intruders, Mariandra later told Fox News , demanded money, but when the couple said they did not keep cash in the house, one intruder “just started shooting.” Johann was shot five times. “They stormed at me and grabbed me up from the couch, demanding that I go with them downstairs,” Heunis recalled. “My little girl then put her hand up and offered them her piggy bank,” and “at that moment, my husband got up for the last time. He pleaded. I pleaded. They shot him execution style in the...

  Red State: President Trump is not your average politician. One of the things that sets him apart from almost all of his predecessors is that he's not a politician, and he doesn't tap-dance around sensitive issues, like the treatment of Boers (white farmers) in South Africa. In fact, during Wednesday's Oval Office visit with the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African leader faced more than a few uncomfortable moments - and that's not a bad thing. The American government has accepted a small group of Boer farmers as refugees into the United States; these are people who, in South Africa, were facing the prospect of having their lands stolen. They were facing murder. These families, we should note, have in many cases been in South Africa for hundreds of years, and they grow many of the crops that feed South Africans of all races. During that visit, President Trump gobsmacked President Ramaphosa with a video of political rallies in South Africa, includ...

 Headline USA: US to Accept White South African Refugees 'What’s happening in South Africa fits the textbook definition of why the refugee program was created...' ... ... White South Africans are descendants of formerly British subjects. South Africa was formerly a British colony.

 Noa Tishby: In 1944, a Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin , a refugee from Nazi-controlled Poland, documented the crimes being perpetrated against his people in his book, " Axis Rule in Occupied Europe ." In this volume, Lemkin introduced a new word into the English language: genocide, which he defined as “the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group.” Later, while serving on the American legal team at the Nuremberg trials, he was able to get the word “genocide,” not yet a crime, included in the indictment against Nazi leadership − even as he learned of the Nazi murder of 49 members of his family, including his parents. The biggest massacre of Jews since the slaughter of World War II was perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 . More than 1,200 innocents were murdered, including over 300 young people attending a nature peace music festival. About 240 people were taken captive to Gaza. Not only were civilians targeted for killing and capture, but they were subjected ...

  Epoch Times; South African Study: Omicron May Signal End of Acute Pandemic Phase The study found a significant decline in the infection phase. 

  Washington Examiner: Biden's South Africa travel ban compared to Trump COVID restrictions he denounced ...   "We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus," Biden tweeted early last year while still a candidate. "We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency." ... They would have also called Trump racist if he banned travel from southern African countries.  It is more evidence of how dishonest Democrat politicians are.  

  Epoch Times: New CCP Virus Variant Detected in South Africa Sparks Travel Bans by Israel, UK ...   Scientists say the new variant is a concern because it has a high number of mutations and spreads rapidly among young people in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province, he said at an online press briefing. “Over the last four or five days, there has been more of an exponential rise [in new infections],” he said of South Africa’s case numbers of the CCP virus. ... They do not seem to have a handle on it yet.  Thus the travel bans.  See, also: WHO meets to discuss new, ‘heavily mutated’ COVID-19 variant   Variant seems to be most heavily mutated so far in outbreak Scientists describe it as "horrific." 

  Who knew?

Forbes: South Africa Land Seizures Begin, Economic Decline Accelerates By abandoning a market-based economy South Africa loses the benefits of some US programs and the value of its currency immediately dropped.  South Africa is making the same mistake Zimbabwe made with similar land seizures.

Telegraph: South Africa’s land grab will end in economic disaster It is the same policy that turned Zimbabwe from the breadbasket of Africa into an economic basket case of starvation.   It is what caused massive starvation in Russia and China after the communist took over.  Doing it for racists reasons is even less intelligent.

Washington Post: After years of drought, Cape Town is about to run out of water The combination of a lack of rainfall and an explosion of urban growth has pushed the city’s reservoirs to their limits and is forcing officials to consider turning off the taps. If that happens, residents will be limited to 25 liters of water a day, the equivalent to a three-minute shower or three toilet flushes. The Israelis have years of success at managing a shortage of water.  They also have developed a process of converting sea water to fresh water.  South Africa lacks the talent to do the same thing and its government also lacks the will to ask the Israelis for help.  The South African government has been plagued by corruption and incompetence.

Washington Times: In a move that blindsided both the guest and the host, a South African court Sunday issued an order barring Sudanese President Lt. Gen. Omar Bashir from leaving South Africa after attending a summit of African leaders in Johannesburg because he faces an arrest warrant as a war criminal. The order was issued a day after the International Criminal Court asked South African officials to comply with a 2009 warrant issued at The Hague for Gen. Bashir ’s arrest, a request the government said it would not honor. The issue sheds a new spotlight on the Darfur legal case and on the reach of the ICC , which has struggled for legitimacy in recent years as it takes on a slate of more controversial cases. Gen. Bashir , 71, in power since 1989, became the first sitting leader to be indicted as a war criminal. The warrant relates to a five-year counterinsurgency campaign in Sudan ’s Darfur region by the Khartoum government from 2003. The United Nations said the campai...

Daily Mail: Madiba is at rest: World mourns passing of Nelson Mandela, the man who freed his country and became an inspiration to billions A man who showed grace and forgiveness more than hardly anyone in public life, led his country better than many could have hoped for.  It is too bad that those who followed him have not been as effective.

CNN: Oscar Pistorius has claimed in a court hearing that when he heard noises in his home, he mistook his girlfriend for an intruder and accidentally shot her with his 9 mm pistol. Plausible? The courts will decide. In the meantime, the killing has highlighted South Africa's history of gun violence and high crime. And it's shown the world that many South Africans live with a palpable, almost paranoid, fear of having their homes broken into. In the past year, more than 50% of South Africans told the country's police force that they're afraid. The number of home burglaries across the country of 50 million have more than doubled. They totaled 9,063 in a 12-month period spanning 2002/2003; seven years later, it was up 18,786. And in a similar period ending in 2012, reported break-ins dipped to 16,766, according to South Africa's crime reporting body, the Institute for Security Studies . The international group Gunpolicy.org reports that there are about 6 million li...

Daily Mail: British engineer who 'fell in love' with South Africa is hacked to death on his remote farmstead by machete-wielding thieves who only took cell phones South Africa is suffering from a breakdown of law and order.  In the cities people have to turn their homes into fortresses with bars on the entrances.  It is not as bad as Zimbabwe, but that is faint praise.

BBC: In pictures: Rare snow in Johannesburg When rare snow hits South African cities is that just weather or proof of global cooling?  I have noticed that the henny penny chorus of globo warmers has been chirping a lot of late.  They are unlikely to highlight this event.

Washington Post: David Plouffe , a senior White House adviser who was President Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, accepted a $100,000 speaking fee in 2010 from an affiliate of a company doing business with Iran’s government.  A subsidiary of MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company, paid Plouffe for two speeches he made in Nigeria in December 2010, about a month before he  joined the White House staff .  Since Plouffe’s speeches, MTN Group has come under intensified scrutiny from U.S. authorities because of its activities in Iran and Syria, which are under international sanctions intended to limit the countries’ access to sensitive technology. At the time of Plouffe’s speeches, MTN had been in a widely reported partnership for five years with a state- owned Iranian telecommunications firm.  There were no legal or ethical restrictions on Plouffe being paid to speak to the MTN subsidiary as a private citizen. But for a close Obama aide to have ac...

BBC: South African rights groups have expressed shock at a decision to charge a 15-year-old alleged gang-rape victim with having underage sex. The girl was charged with statutory rape along with her alleged rapists, who are aged 14 and 16. The alleged rape happened earlier this month in a school east of Johannesburg in front of other pupils who filmed the incident on their phones. Prosecutors said rape charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence. However, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said it had decided all three could be charged under South Africa's Sexual Offences Act, which outlaws consensual sex with a minor. ... This obviously does not make any sense. They say there is a lack of evidence when they have a video of the crime and presumably the victim's statement. That should be a basis for charges right there. The act they are considering using to charge the victim is for consensual sex. Rape is the opposite of consent. I think this may b...

Image via Wikipedia BBC: The failure of a South African school to respond to an alleged gang-rape of a pupil on school grounds has angered rights groups and ministers. The alleged attack, during school hours last Thursday, was reportedly filmed by three teenage boys on their phones. The Commission for Gender Equality said the school was more worried about upsetting the boys during exams than the rights of the alleged victim. Earlier, the children's minister said she was shocked by the inaction. "The Children's Act requires all people in positions of authority who suspect that child abuse may be taking place to report such incidents, and this includes teachers," the South African Press Association quotes Lulu Xingwana , minister for women , children and persons with disabilities, as saying. South Africa has one of the highest incidences of rape in the world. ... "The three boys were not arrested as they alleged that they did not want to...

NY Times: The sheriff arrived at the factory here to shut it down, part of a national enforcement drive against clothing manufacturers who violate the minimum wage. But women working on the factory floor — the supposed beneficiaries of the crackdown — clambered atop cutting tables and ironing boards to raise anguished cries against it. “Why? Why?” shouted Nokuthula Masango, 25, after the authorities carted away bolts of gaily colored fabric. She made just $36 a week, $21 less than the minimum wage, but needed the meager pay to help support a large extended family that includes her five unemployed siblings and their children. The women’s spontaneous protest is just one sign of how acute South Africa’s long-running unemployment crisis has become. With their own industry in ruinous decline, the victim of low-wage competition from China, and too few unskilled jobs being created in South Africa, the women feared being out of work more than getting stuck in poorly paid jobs. ... Th...