Post-apartheid South Africa is the world’s most unequal country

JOHANNESBURG — Perhaps nowhere in today’s South Africa is the country’s inequality on more dramatic display than in the neighboring Johannesburg suburbs of Sandton and Alexandra.

With its gleaming high-rises and lush estates, Sandton is known as Africa’s richest square mile. Alexandra, a onetime home to Nelson Mandela, is a squalid, cramped and crime-infested black township. Many of its residents stream into Sandton every day on a bridge over a highway to work in upscale shops or homes.

Angry protests flared in Alexandra last month, stoked in part by campaigning for Wednesday’s national election but mostly by the frustration that South Africa should look far different than the country of haves and have-nots that it has become. Many voters believe the ruling African National Congress has lost its way since Mandela won the first post-apartheid presidential election in 1994, and that belief threatens the ANC’s absolute majority grip on power.

The ANC has been shaken by widespread allegations of corruption that saw former President Jacob Zuma forced out a year ago, and many South Africans feel the party can no longer coast on its legacy of fighting the brutal system of apartheid.

Unemployment in the country of 56 million people soars past 25 percent. There are tire-burning protests almost every day over the lack of basic services like working toilets in mostly black neighborhoods. Whites still hold much of the wealth and private levers of power, while blacks trim their lawns and clean their homes.

“We find virtually no whites living below the middle class,” Fazila Farouk and Murray Leibbrandt with the Southern Africa Labor and Development Research Unit wrote last year. “Whites have, in fact, comfortably improved their economic status in post-apartheid South Africa because our economy channels such a big share of national income to the top 10 percent.”

Half of South Africans are in households with per capita income of 1,149 rand ($90) or less a month, they wrote, with little chance to change their fortunes despite working hard as maids or security guards.

“Put bluntly, they’re stuck,” Farouk and Leibbrandt concluded. ContinueReading

Thailand crowns its king in a gilded spectacle rarely seen in the modern era

- Installed on a golden throne under a nine-tiered, white-and-gold umbrella resembling a wedding cake, Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn was crowned Saturday as ruler of one of the world’s most enduring monarchies in solemn, elaborate ceremonies that sought to unite a fractured nation under gilded pageantry and centuries-old ritual.

The long awaited coronation — the first in Thailand in nearly seven decades — melded ancient spirituality with imperial traditions as the 66-year-old king was anointed with water consecrated by Hindu Brahmin priests and blessed by the incantations of saffron-clad Buddhist monks.

Then, inside a long hall lined with murals at Bangkok’s Grand Palace, Vajiralongkorn was handed a collection of royal regalia: a scepter, gold-embroidered slippers, a legendary sword that belonged to his 18th century ancestors and a 16-pound pointed crown encrusted with diamonds that he fastened at his chin like a bike helmet.

In his first royal command, Vajiralongkorn, who will rule as King Rama X, the 10th monarch of the 237-year-old Chakri dynasty, pledged to “forever reign with righteousness, for the benefit and happiness of the people.”

Ebola outbreak deaths top 1,000 in Congo amid clinic attacks

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — More than 1,000 people have died from Ebola in eastern Congo since August, the country’s health minister said Friday as hostility toward health workers continues to hamper efforts to contain the second-deadliest outbreak of the virus.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga told The Associated Press that four deaths in the outbreak’s epicenter of Katwa helped push the death toll to 1,008. Two more deaths were reported in the city of Butembo.

The outbreak declared almost nine months ago already had caused the most deaths behind the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa’s Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia that killed more than 11,000 people.

A volatile security situation and deep community mistrust have hampered efforts to control the epidemic in eastern Congo. Ebola treatment centers have come under repeated attack, leaving government health officials to staff clinics in the hotspots of Butembo and Katwa.

International aid organizations stopped their work in the two communities because of the violence. A Cameroonian epidemiologist working with WHO was killed last month during an assault on a hospital in Butembo.

Insecurity has become a “major impediment” to controlling the Ebola outbreak, Michael Ryan, WHO’s health emergencies chief, told reporters in Geneva earlier Friday.

He said 119 attacks have been recorded since January, 42 of them directed at health facilities, while 85 health workers have been wounded or killed. Dozens of rebel groups operate in the region, and political rivalries in part drive’s community rejection of health personnel.

“Every time we have managed to regain control over the virus and contain its spread, we have suffered major, major security events,” Ryan said. “We are anticipating a scenario of continued intense transmission” of the disease.

WHO has said the most recent Ebola outbreak remained contained to eastern Congo even as the number of cases rises in a dense, highly mobile population near the border with Uganda and Rwanda.

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India prepares for 'extremely severe' Bay of Bengal cyclone

NEW DELHI — Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated along India's eastern coast on Thursday as authorities braced for a cyclone moving through the Bay of Bengal that was forecast to bring extremely severe wind and rain.

The India Meteorological Department in New Delhi said Cyclone Fani was expected to make landfall on Friday with gale-force winds of up to 124 mph likely starting Thursday night. It warned of "extremely heavy falls" over parts of the state of Odisha and its southern neighbor Andhra Pradesh.

India's National Disaster Management Authority forecast "high to phenomenal" sea conditions for most of the Indian states along the Bay of Bengal. Fishermen were advised not to venture into deep waters. A 4.9-foot storm surge was expected to inundate low-lying areas.

Fearing that Fani could be the worst storm since 1999, when a cyclone killed around 10,000 people and devastated large parts of Odisha, Indian officials put the navy, air force, army and coast guard on high alert, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Cabinet ministers and weather and disaster-response officials for a briefing on the measures being taken.

The Meteorological Department projected "total destruction" of thatched-roof huts, flooding of farmland and orchards, and the uprooting of telephone poles.

Odisha's special relief commissioner, Bishnupada Sethi, said that preparations for Fani included the country's largest evacuation operation, of around 880,000 people.

More than 800 shelters were opened and around 100,000 dry food packets were ready to be airdropped.

"We've been preparing plans for the last few days to ensure that all the people who are vulnerable will be shifted to our cyclone centers," Sethi said.

Tourists were provided special trains to leave the popular beach town of Puri in Odisha on Thursday, according to Indian media reports. ContinueReading

Maine becomes the first state to ban Styrofoam

(CNN)Food containers made of Styrofoam, also known as polystyrene, will be officially banned from businesses in Maine after governor Janet Mills signed a bill into law Tuesday.

The law, which will go into effect January 1, 2021, prohibits restaurants, caterers, coffee shops and grocery stores from using the to-go foam containers because they cannot be recycled in Maine.
Maine has become the first state to take such a step as debate about banning plastic bags or other disposable products is spreading across the nation.

While states like New York and California have banned single-use plastic bags, others such as Tennessee and Florida have made it illegal for local municipalities to regulate them. ContinueReading