Mr G 🇿🇼🇿🇦🇺🇸

Tech junkie | F.I.R.E| Proud hubby + daddy of 2| Global citizen| My views are my own| Cold beer over warm

[Fadzayi Mahere🇿🇼 @advocatemahere]

🔸Your Excellency, the uncomfortable truth we cannot shy away from is that, for as long as the political crisis in Zimbabwe remains unresolved, people will continue to run away. Very little will be able to stop them. This must be top most in your minds when you prop up the regime that is causing mass suffering. These are the side effects of mollycoddling and making friends with corrupt dictatorships.

We need new leaders.🇿🇼

[Redi Tlhabi @RediTlhabi]

You allowed this to happen for too long. From taxi drivers deciding that e-hailing drivers, friends and relatives could not transport people, to this. Videos of non-state actors "enforcing" their jungle law on South African streets have been circulating for so long. These actors were proud of their "law enforcement" and actually recorded it. You and your government were spectators. It is a sign that you were absent or too scared to face the backlash should you act against South Africans breaking the law. It doesn't matter how valid grievances are, NO STATE should quietly watch a parallel state emerge, with non-state actors deciding who belongs snd who doesn't, who must live or die. Your government, led by you, did that.

[Bianca van Wyk @BiancavanWyk16]

Peet Viljoen in the US begging to be deported back to South Africa after making several videos about how white people in South Africa were being persecuted because of the colour of their skin in South Africa. 🤡

He was granted a deportation order.

[Hopewell Chin’ono @daddyhope]

Well done to Kristen Welker @kwelkernbc, you completely dismantled this bully. Imagine if he were an African dictator, he would have thrown you into jail for pushing back against his pathetic lies.

That is the difference between democracy and authoritarianism, in a democracy journalists can challenge those in power without fear of imprisonment, while dictators fear scrutiny because the truth exposes them. This wanna be dictator is such an embarrassment!

[Mary L Trump @MaryLTrump]

Donald had a temper tantrum on national television and walked out of an interview simply because Kristen Welker presented him with a basic fact.

Note to other journalists: now is the time to pile on. He won't be able to handle it.

[💙Brittney💙 @AZ_Brittney]

Trump completely lost it on Kristen Welker.

He said she was crooked, stupid and walked out of the interview!

I stand with Kristen Welker and all of the journalists Trump has attacked over the years.

Who is with me? ✋

[𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐙𝐖 @CrimeWatchZW]

PLEASE SHARE 🙏 | Help us find Kizito Munashe Chari (22) from Hunters Rest, Ruwa. He was last seen on Wednesday, 3 June 2026, at around 3pm. He had travelled from Ruwa to Harare CBD to collect rent from a tenant. He collected the money (US$450), but never returned home.

He was wearing black cargo pants, a black and grey long-sleeve jersey, and black shoes.

Anyone with helpful information is kindly requested to contact his family on the numbers below:
0772887637
O775939282
0714605674
0772705034

@PoliceZimbabwe

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

I’m glad that FIFA decided to reverse this policy and allow water bottles to be brought into World Cup games.

No one should have to fear being priced out of being hydrated, especially fans who are often waiting for hours before a game in extreme heat.

[Antifa_Ultras @ultras_antifaa]

Iraqi footballer Aymen Hussein issued a statement after being detained and questioned for seven hours upon entering the United States:

“If America is so hostile towards foreign nationals, why is it hosting the #2026WorldCup?”

[Fadzayi Mahere🇿🇼 @advocatemahere]

🔸We actually wish you all the best. Go shine. Hating fellow Africans isn’t part of who we are.

We need new leaders.🇿🇼

[Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 @CyrilRamaphosa]

I must make it clear that only the authorised government officials may act against violations of the law, including violation of our immigration laws.

No other person is allowed, for example, to confront someone in the street to demand proof of nationality.

https://t.co/E5bWVf4pTq

[Adam Schiff @SenAdamSchiff]

Donald Trump would rather call a reporter crooked and stupid and run out of an interview than admit that he is simply lying about California’s elections.

[James Hall @hallaboutafrica]

Player. Today in 1841, Sahle Selassie, the King of the Shewa in Ethiopia, signed a treaty of friendship with Great Britain seeking to modernise his country. He signed an identical treaty with France 5 months later. By playing two European powers off each other, he avoided Ethiopia's colonisation, which will never happen. Italy would conquer Ethiopia in 1936 but never successfully colonize the entire country, and be expelled in 1941.

[Mmusi Maimane MP @MmusiMaimane]

@maphanga_T We must not endorse rigged elections and we must not support repression in SADC be it Eswatini, Zimbabwe or Mozambique.

We have a moral duty to push back on the regimes which are doing these things in SADC.

[Hopewell Chin’ono @daddyhope]

This post was inspired by a discussion I had last night in a WhatsApp group with a colleague about housing.

Houses in Cape Town are now out of reach for many ordinary South Africans because of wealthy Europeans and Americans who have made the city their retirement home. You now find houses in prime Cape Town areas that were selling for around R4 million in 2008 selling for R20 million or more today.

The same phenomenon is happening in Harare. Houses that were selling for around US$60,000 in 2001 or 2002 are now selling for around US$600,000 or more in some areas. In Harare, part of this has been driven by the Chinese factor.

Chinese buyers have been snapping up houses in the capital, and the phenomenon has become so big that some major estate agents now advertise on Harare billboards in Mandarin (Chinese). Chinese buyers pay cash and there is no chain of waiting for them to sell another property.

Ordinary Zimbabweans have been priced out of the market, except for those in big business or those with access to serious foreign currency.

The same thing happened in London with Russians and wealthy Arabs from the Middle East. They snapped up properties and pushed prices beyond the reach of many ordinary Londoners. For some of them, London property was not even a home, it was simply a place to store money.
A property that was worth around £500,000 in 2000 can easily be worth £2 million or more today, depending on the area, while prime London homes have risen even more sharply.

Canada saw the same phenomenon with mainly Indian buyers and acted. The Canadian government introduced a ban stopping non-Canadians from buying residential property in many parts of the country. The law came into effect on 1 January 2023 and was later extended to 1 January 2027.

It applies to people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents, and to some companies controlled by non-Canadians. Canada decided that homes should be used to house people who live there, not simply as storage units for foreign money.

While Canada chose to restrict foreign purchases of residential property, Britain took a different approach. Rather than banning foreign buyers, it increased the taxes they pay. Foreign buyers in England pay a surcharge on top of the standard Stamp Duty Land Tax rates, and those purchasing additional properties or second homes face further surcharges.

The result is that overseas investors and second-home buyers contribute significantly more tax when acquiring property.

Britain also requires many large housing developments to include affordable housing as part of the planning process, it is called social housing. Through planning obligations, developers are required to set aside a proportion of new homes for people who cannot afford market prices.
The exact percentage varies from one local authority to another, but the principle is that private development should also help meet social housing needs.

Perhaps African countries affected by this can study the British approach. Rather than banning foreign buyers outright as Canada did, governments could impose higher taxes on foreign purchasers and luxury property acquisitions, then ring-fence those revenues for affordable housing programmes.

In that way, foreign investment would still be welcomed, but part of the wealth it generates would be used to help ordinary Africans access decent housing.

[Freeman @freemanchari]

Ideally we would love to be having more organizing meetings in Zimbabwe but police has denied us 67 times so far. We have resorted to doing night organizing across the country. We are not crying. We have been engaging on a diplomatic offensive which has seen teams being deployed regionally to South Africa, Zambia & Botswana. TB had a Chatham House engagement on Thursday in UK. This enabled him the opportunity today to meet with our UK Federation who did a wonderful job on short notice!!!

Again, our goal remains to build a a train that everyone can ride on some day. It would be unforgivable that on the day Zimbabwe is ready for the journey, they go to the station and realize there is not transport for them...

Gwendo gwurefu!!!!

[Hopewell Chin’ono @daddyhope]

I agree with Trevor Noah’s analysis of the immigration debate in South Africa, and I also agree with Julius Malema’s noble desire for Africa to be one.

From the outset, I must be clear that the biggest obstacle to African unity has been African leadership. Some of our countries have been independent for more than 60 years, yet we are still far from achieving the level of integration many Pan-Africanists envisioned. The failure to get there is fundamentally a leadership issue.

I want to focus on what Julius Malema has said. He is one of the continent’s most outspoken Pan-Africanists, and his vision of a more united Africa is both admirable and inspiring. Unfortunately, because of the dysfunctionality of leadership across much of the continent, Pan-Africanism has, in some circles in South Africa, become a dirty word.

That is a tragedy because the principle itself is not the problem. The problem is that many African leaders have failed to create the political, economic, and institutional conditions necessary to make that vision a reality.

So let us look carefully at what Julius Malema is saying.

I have great respect for Julius Malema when it comes to his Pan-African outlook, but I am afraid to say that the idea of an Africa with one passport, one currency, and a fully integrated political and economic system is unlikely to happen within our lifetime.

It is good to dream and to idealise the kind of Africa we would like to see, but in its current political and economic format, the continent is nowhere near achieving that goal. I am 55 years old, so when I talk about a lifetime, I am talking about the next 25 years. If I live to 80, that would be wonderful, but I do not believe Africa will achieve that level of integration within that timeframe.

The reason is quite simple. If you look at the European Union, countries do not simply join because they want to. They must first meet a long list of requirements and benchmarks. These include economic standards, institutional capacity, governance standards, judicial independence, and human rights protections.

Even if we set aside the human rights question in Africa, because we know that remains a long journey, the economic question alone presents a major obstacle. A truly united continent can only emerge if its member states are led by competent, educated, and trustworthy leaders who build functioning economies capable of providing opportunities for their own citizens.

The current xenophobic, Afrophobic, and anti-immigration discourse taking place in South Africa is often crude and sometimes ugly. However, stripped of the crudeness, there is an important point being raised that cannot simply be ignored. For Africans to unite successfully, they cannot first unite in one country. They must first unite across the continent by creating broadly comparable economic opportunities and living standards.

For example, a Ghanaian should be able to travel to Zimbabwe visa-free. That is largely a political decision. But if that Ghanaian wants to relocate permanently to Zimbabwe, then the economies of Ghana and Zimbabwe should have a reasonable degree of parity. People should not be compelled to migrate primarily because one country is functioning while another is failing.

The same applies across the continent. Someone should not feel forced to leave the Democratic Republic of Congo for South Africa purely because of economic collapse at home. If integration is driven solely by economics, then the countries that are relatively well managed will inevitably carry the burden of those that are not.
This is an intellectual discussion that Africa cannot avoid.

Resource competition is often what inflames tensions. If someone moves from a poor community in Mozambique to a poor community in South Africa, both groups are competing for the same clinics, schools, housing, jobs, and social services. That is where tensions arise.

Interestingly, illegal immigrants from Europe are rarely part of the immigration debate in South Africa. Many people immediately attribute this to race, but there is another factor that deserves consideration. Wealthy immigrants generally live in affluent communities where there is little or no competition for scarce public resources.

Take Chatunga Mugabe, for example. He lived in Hyde Park, drove expensive cars, and socialised in Sandton. Nobody was concerned about his immigration status. Likewise, where I live in South Africa, there are immigrants from the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Kenya, and elsewhere. They are largely affluent people. The South Africans living there are often excited when newcomers arrive. When I moved from Zimbabwe and bought a house on my road, both black and white South Africans invited me into their homes for dinner and wine. There was no hostility because there was no competition for resources. That reality matters.

If Africa is ever going to have one passport and one currency, we must first deal with the economic fundamentals. Most Africans do not realise that this is not primarily a political project. It is an economic one.

Turkey, for example, has spent decades seeking membership of the European Union but has not been admitted because it has not met all the requirements. Countries such as Bulgaria and Romania had to meet strict standards before joining. Their judicial systems, governance structures, healthcare systems, and institutions had to reach certain benchmarks. The same logic applies to Africa.

If every African citizen were suddenly free to seek healthcare anywhere on the continent, countries with stronger healthcare systems such as South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia would immediately face enormous pressure from people seeking treatment, including specialised care for conditions such as cancer.

That is why this discussion is important. We must have it honestly and without slogans. We must discuss it not only in universities and intellectual circles but also in townships, villages, and communities across Africa.

The dream of one Africa is a noble one. I support it. But before we get there, we must first address the economic, institutional, and governance realities that stand in the way. Until those challenges are resolved, the vision Julius Malema speaks about will remain an aspiration rather than a practical reality.

The tragedy we face today is that we are focusing on the sideshows created by tribalists and rogue political actors who are taking advantage of a genuine problem that exists in South Africa and, indeed, in other parts of Africa as well. We amplify their voices and focus on what they are saying instead of focusing on the real issue.

We should be asking ourselves a simple question. Julius Malema is right about the ideal he is advocating, but why are we not getting to where he wants us to get? Once we ask that question honestly, we are forced to examine the root causes.

There can be no economic harmony, political harmony, or any other form of harmony between countries that are operating at vastly different levels of development and functionality. Take Zimbabwe and South Africa as an example.
Zimbabwe has not had a working radiotherapy machine in its public healthcare system for more than four years. The country’s largest hospital has only one maternity theatre, built in 1977. Then look at South Africa. Its public healthcare system has some problems and could be much better, but by African standards it remains among the most advanced on the continent.

If those two countries stand side by side, as they physically do, how do you integrate them when one is dysfunctional and the other remains a functioning state? These are the root causes we need to confront.

This discussion must be held in a comprehensive and honest manner, not in fragments. We can speak about the noble aspirations of Pan-Africanism, and we can also discuss the obstacles that stand in its way. Both conversations must be held together. Only then can we identify what needs to be done and begin serious scenario planning around how to get there.

Instead, we often get beautiful speeches delivered at the African Union, one of the most ineffective continental organisations in the world. People make grand declarations, earn generous salaries, and then nothing happens. Great speeches have been delivered since the days of the Organisation of African Unity. One of those speeches was even immortalised by Bob Marley in his song War. Yet more than 60 years later, many of the same challenges remain unresolved.

That is an indictment not only of African leaders but also of African elites. Too many are content to make money while ignoring the underlying governance failures that hold the continent back.

Consider Aliko Dangote, the richest black man in the world and Africa’s most successful entrepreneur. He requires 34 visas to enter dozens of African countries. Yet if I hold a British passport, my movement across much of Africa can often be easier than his. How can Africa speak seriously about integration when one of its own leading business figures faces such barriers within the continent?

Until influential African business leaders such as Aliko Dangote, Strive Masiyiwa, Patrice Motsepe, and others begin speaking more forcefully about governance, corruption, economic mismanagement, and state dysfunction, progress will remain slow. As long as these issues are accommodated because money can still be made, Africa will continue to talk about unity without creating the conditions necessary to achieve it.

So, back in the townships of South Africa, there is a crisis.

I have always said that Zimbabwe is no longer a foreign policy issue. It is a domestic issue because the South African government must deal with its consequences in hospitals, social services, employment, housing, education, and many other facets of daily life.

If the South African government does not have the courage to stand up to leaders such as Emmerson Mnangagwa and Mozambique’s President, Daniel Chapo, and say, “The way you are running your economies is creating problems for us,” then the situation will continue to deteriorate.

The tragedy is that it is always the poor, the ordinary, and those living in abject poverty who end up fighting amongst themselves. Yet the root causes of these tensions are often created at the highest levels of political leadership.
The people competing for jobs, housing, healthcare, and other scarce resources did not create the conditions that led to mass migration. Those conditions were created by policy failures, corruption, poor governance, and economic mismanagement.

I would go even further and say that this is also an indictment of South African leadership. SADC already has protocols, principles, and governance frameworks that were specifically designed to prevent member states from becoming dysfunctional and destabilising their neighbours. The problem is not the absence of rules. The problem is the absence of enforcement.

Those protocols exist on paper, but too often they are ignored in practice. When governance standards are violated, when economies collapse, when democratic institutions are weakened, and when corruption flourishes, there is rarely any meaningful consequence from the region.

As a result, the effects spill across borders and eventually become someone else’s problem.

That is why the immigration debate cannot be separated from the governance debate. They are two sides of the same coin. If African leaders are serious about reducing migration pressures, they must first address the political and economic failures that are pushing people to leave their countries in the first place.

We all know why that conversation is avoided.

So, coming back to Trevor Noah’s analogy, it is ultimately a human analogy. It reflects a reality that has existed throughout history and even in nature itself.

If lions have abundant access to zebras and other prey, there is very little competition between lions, leopards, and other predators. But when food becomes scarce, competition intensifies. The struggle is no longer about identity. It becomes a struggle over limited resources.

The same principle applies in human societies. When jobs are plentiful, when healthcare functions, when housing is available, and when opportunities are expanding, people are generally more tolerant and welcoming. But the moment resources become scarce, tensions rise. People begin competing for the same opportunities, and that competition often manifests itself through politics, nationalism, tribalism, xenophobia, or other forms of social conflict.

This is not unique to South Africa. It is not unique to Africa. It is part of the human condition.

In many ways, what we are witnessing is both a human story and an animal kingdom story. The underlying dynamic is remarkably similar. Scarcity creates competition. Competition creates tension. Tension creates conflict.

That is why discussions about immigration cannot be separated from discussions about governance, economic growth, service delivery, and opportunity. If we focus only on the symptoms while ignoring the underlying causes, we will never solve the problem.

The real challenge is not merely getting people to live together. The real challenge is creating societies and economies that produce enough opportunity for people to live together peacefully.

[Thuso van Zyl 🇿🇦 @Thuso1Africa]

So, the South African Police fabricated a lie, lied to the nation, implicated someone else’s child, and told a grieving mother that Nhlamulo, her child was a criminal, just to protect Jacinta and her march and march thugs! No guys, this is wrong!!

[Africa First @AfricaFirsts]

It is rare to see Black female PhDs in Applied Data Science, making this achievement even more remarkable.

Meet Dr Khensani Xivuri, the first and only Black female to receive a PhD in Applied Data Science from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa 🇿🇦.

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

This week, my amendment to ban billionaire-funded super PACs received unanimous support from my Democratic colleagues.

The momentum is growing. It’s time to repeal Citizens United, ban super PACs and move to the public funding of elections NOW.