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Semafor • 1 week ago

South Africans’ confidence in government leadership grows

A Gallup survey found that 41% of South Africans approve of their country’s leadership, up from 29% in 2022.

Semafor • 1 week ago

Niger completes new major link in fiber optic cable network

The 640-mile fiber optic cable network was completed earlier this month.

Democracy Now • 1 week ago

Climate Deal Excludes Fossil Fuel Phaseout as Wealthy Nations Place Burden "On the Backs of the Poor"

Global negotiations at the annual U.N. climate summit ended Saturday in Belém, Brazil, with a watered-down agreement that does not even mention fossil fuels, let alone offer a roadmap to phase out what are the primary contributors to the climate crisis. The COP30 agreement also makes no new commitments to halt deforestation and does not address global meat consumption, another major driver of global warming. “I’m angry at a really weak outcome. I’m angry at the fossil fuel lobbyists roaming the venue freely, while the Indigenous activists [were] met with militarized repression,” says Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA. “I have a special level of incandescent outrage at … the rich, developed countries of the Global North who come in to these conferences, and they act like they’re the heroes, when, in fact, what they’re doing is shifting the burden of a crisis that they caused onto the backs of the poor.” “The absence of the United States is critical,” adds Jonathan Watts, global environment writer at The Guardian. “The United States under Donald Trump is trying to go backwards to the 20th century in a fossil fuel era, whereas a huge part of the rest of the world wants to move forward into something else.”

Democracy Now • 1 week ago

From Affordability to Genocide, Trump-Mamdani Meeting at White House Was Full of Surprises

After months of mutual animosity, President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met for the first time in a widely anticipated meeting late last week. But after the two discussed Mamdani’s plans to lower the cost of living in New York City, where both men grew up, Trump said that he and Mamdani “agree on a lot more than I would have thought” and promised to work together once Mamdani takes office in January. The newly friendly relationship is likely temporary, but still “remarkable,” says Ross Barkan, who is writing a book about Mamdani’s rapid political rise. “If Trump is less antagonistic towards Mamdani, the idea is to have Trump do as little damage as possible to New York City,” Barkan says of Mamdani’s conciliatory approach to the meeting. “He’s not going to attack. He’s going to try to build coalitions.” Barkan also comments on the brewing intra-party conflict between the Democratic establishment and the more left-wing Democratic Socialists of America — whose members, including Mamdani, typically run for elected office as Democrats — as well as what Trump’s lack of challenge to Mamdani’s assertion that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza says about the shifting discourse on Israel-Palestine in the United States.