Category World News

On Wednesday, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet with US President Donald Trump in an effort to repair deteriorating relations between the two nations.

The recent passing of a land expropriation law in South Africa, which Trump denounced and claimed equates to “persecution” of the country’s wealthy white minority, is a major source of contention between the two leaders.

The first group of white “refugees” arrived in the US last week as part of a larger relocation strategy under the Trump administration. The government of South Africa has refuted reports of “white genocide” or persecution there.

What are the key legal jargons for you:

The Expropriation Law: What Is It?

Due to opposition from the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, a member of the coalition government, President Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Bill into law in January after months of debate in parliament.

The law permits the government to seize land from any private owner, whether white or not, for public purposes and public interests, including infrastructure projects, expanding the scope of public services, environmental protection, land reform, or achieving equitable resource distribution.

The law allows seizures without compensation in some circumstances, but it also provides for fair compensation.

It replaces the 1975 Expropriation Act, which was criticized for being legally unclear and lacked clear compensation plans, in the wake of apartheid.

However, some Afrikaner groups fear property values will decline as a result of the new law’s potential impact on their land, possibly violently. Former member of Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC), the DA is viewed primarily as representing white and Afrikaner interests.

White Afrikaners are primarily descendants of Dutch colonizers, who had a domineering role in the nation’s apartheid system up until 1990, segregating and excluding the Black majority. White farmers and business owners are still a significant percentage of the country’s top business leaders.

Despite a population of just 7 percent, White South Africans also collectively own 70% of the country’s land.

Meanwhile, more than half of Black people fall under the poor category. A small percentage of people have access to land. The new law, according to Ramaphosa’s government, will allow the government to redistribute land to a number of historically underrepresented groups, including Black people, women, and people with disabilities.

Ramaphosa’s office stated in a statement from February that the law was a necessary policy to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth. As punishment, land seizure is a requirement for fisciation.

The recently passed Expropriation Act is not a confiscation tool, but rather a constitutionally mandated legal process that guarantees the public’s right to access land in an equitable and just manner, according to the statement.

According to the office, “South Africa has always had expropriation laws that balance the need for public use of land with the protection of property owners’ rights,” like the United States of America and other nations.

Under the new law, no land had been forcibly taken over by the South African government by the end of May.

What have the law-related opinions of Trump and his supporters?

Trump decreed in February that South Africa’s “unjust racial discrimination” be reduced from US financial aid. Trump cited South Africa’s alleged genocide claim against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 in his ruling in his order.

The Republic of South Africa (South Africa) recently passed the Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act) to allow the country’s government to seize the agricultural property of its ethnic minority Afrikaners without compensation, the order read in the order.

Trump continued, “The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of human rights violations in its country or its undermining American foreign policy, which threatens our nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests,” adding.

Prior to that, the US had sponsored South Africa’s HIV/AIDS program through the PEPFAR initiative, or President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. When Trump stopped US foreign aid on a global scale in January, that aid was already stopped.

Elon Musk, a Trump ally and businessman born in South Africa, has also made a strong argument against the land law, which some experts believe has an impact on how the Trump administration approaches the country.

Musk has claimed that the government of South Africa is failing to stop the “genocide” of white farmers. He has also criticized “racist ownership laws” for Starlink, his satellite internet company,’s failure to launch in the nation. According to South African law, marginalized groups must own a portion of large businesses and those looking for government partnerships.

What other tensions exist between the two nations?

Trump has also brought up allegations made by a group of white South Africans, who claim white farmers are subject to an excessive number of violent assaults on their farms, which they claim amount to a “genocide.”

The government of Ramaphosa denies those claims, saying farmer deaths are a result of a larger crime problem. Due to the rural’s extreme isolation, farm attacks and murders are frequent in the nation. In assault, robbery, and murder cases, both white and black farmers have been the victims. The South African government doesn’t release information about crimes committed against minorities.

Although Magdalena Martinez has lived her entire life along the Indio River, a proposed dam to protect the Panama Canal from drought is now threatening to engulf her home.

The 49-year-old is one of many residents who oppose artificial lakes that would feed the crucial interoceanic waterway.

With her husband and five of her 13 children, Martinez describes the threat she and her husband are facing.

“We are unsure of our destination.”

The small village of Martinez’s family has always been a lush mountain village where the locals depend on raising livestock and growing crops like cassava and maize for their income.

The neighborhood vows to stand up for the multibillion dollar global shipping industry’s benefits and refuse to allow the destruction of its homes.

In a canoe-mounted protest last week against the planned dam, which would force thousands of families to relocate, hundreds of villagers took to the Indio River last week.

The Panama Canal Authority (APC), the autonomous public authority overseeing the waterway, made the decision to build the reservoir to combat severe droughts like the one that caused severe ship traffic cuts in 2023.

The canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is a century-old project that relies on two artificial lakes for drinking water and previous abundant rainfall.

The canal uses a lock system to lift and lower vessels, releasing millions of litres of fresh water each time it transits, primarily for shipping clients from the US, China, and Japan.

The proposed reservoir, which extends over 4,600 hectares (11, 400 acres) to one of the existing lakes, would pass through a tunnel that would span nine kilometers (5, 6 miles).

The ACP’s environmental and social manager, Karina Vergara, said the project “meets a need that was identified a long time ago: it’s the water of the future.”

With an estimated $1.6 billion investment, work on the reservoir is scheduled to start in 2027 and finish in 2032.

About 2,500 people from various villages receive $400 million in compensation and relocation expenses.

Vergara stated that “we have a strong commitment to dialogue and coming to agreements” with the victims.

We’ll regret not building the reservoir, she said, in 15 years.

The project, which has the support of President Jose Raul Mulino, could ultimately affect as many as 12, 000 people, according to civil society organizations. This includes the entire Indio River basin.

The Panama Canal, which spans 80% of the world’s maritime trade, is still vital to Panama’s economy and accounts for 6% of it.

The United States Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to revoke the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) granted to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants, paving the way for their deportation.

The court reverses a San Francisco-based district judge’s March order to block Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to remove temporary protected status from some 348,000 Venezuelans as part of Trump’s crackdown on immigrants.

The Trump administration has justified its deportation over allegations that some of the Venezuelans are members of gangs, although it has not provided any proof to back its claims.

Here is more about what happened.

What is Temporary Protected Status?

TPS grants people living in the US relief from deportation if their home country is affected by extraordinary circumstances such as armed conflict or environmental disasters. An individual who is granted TPS cannot be deported, can obtain an employment authorisation document and may be given travel authorisation. A TPS holder cannot be detained by the US over their immigration status.

The duration of this is granted in increments from six months to 18 months. However, this can be renewed and sometimes has been renewed for up to decades. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary can grant TPS to people from specific countries.

Countries that are currently designated for TPS include: Afghanistan, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma (Myanmar), Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Lebanon, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.

The programme was enacted in the 1990s under President George HW Bush after migrants from El Salvador arrived in the US, fleeing civil war. TPS does not grant a path to US citizenship.

Former President Biden expanded the programme, granting TPS to individuals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Myanmar, Ukraine and Venezuela.

Venezuela was granted TPS in 2021 by the Biden administration. He also expanded the TPS eligibility for people from other countries, including Haiti. In 2020, 10 countries had TPS. By the end of Biden’s time in office, some 17 countries were eligible.

How many people are affected by this?

The Supreme Court decision applies to a group of Venezuelans who arrived in the US in 2023. This means 348,202 Venezuelans living in the US are affected by this, who were registered under former President Biden’s 2023 designation. Close to the end of Biden’s term in office, US officials renewed the status for these individuals until October 2026.

Economic and political turmoil have driven about eight million Venezuelans out of their country since 2014, according to the United Nations. The economic crisis was partly worsened by US sanctions against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

What did the Trump administration do?

There are about 600,000 Venezuelans in the US with TPS. Shortly after Trump took office in February, Noem revoked TPS for 348,202, who were granted TPS in 2021.

Noem justified the revocations due to gang membership and “adverse effects on US workers”. The DHS has, without evidence, said the Biden administration granted TPS to “gang members” and “known terrorists and murderers”.

The remaining nearly 600,000 Venezuelans have TPS, which was granted in 2021 and is due to expire in September. This means that Noem will decide by July whether to revoke their status.

Noem also revoked TPS granted to 521,000 Haitians,14,600 Afghans and 7,900 Cameroonians. Cameroonians will lose protections in June, Afghans in July and Haitians in August. The recent Supreme Court decision does not apply to these individuals.

As a response, seven Venezuelan migrants alongside the nonprofit National TPS Alliance sued the Trump administration in the San Francisco federal court in February, citing racial discrimination and bias. These plaintiffs are represented by the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA’s law school, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

The San Francisco-based court blocked the attempt to strip the protections granted to Venezuelans in March. The judge said characterization of the migrants as criminals by the officials “smacks of racism”.

What did the Supreme Court rule?

On Monday, the Supreme Court granted an emergency application filed by the Trump administration, which argued that it held the sole authority over immigration disputes such as TPS of Venezuelans.

The ruling was unsigned, and the US Supreme Court did not explain why it sided with the Trump administration. Both of these aspects are common when it comes to emergency appeals.

The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The only justice who publicly dissented to the ruling was Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has criticised the attack on judges by Trump. In 2022, Jackson was sworn in as the first Black woman to serve on the US top court.

What were the reactions to this?

“Today’s SCOTUS decision is a win for the American people and the safety of our communities,” the DHS posted on X.

“The Biden Administration exploited Temporary Protected Status to let half a million poorly vetted migrants into this country – from MS-13 gang members to known terrorists and murderers.”

Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of a UCLA immigration law centre and one of the lawyers for Venezuelan migrants, said, “This is the largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern US history. That the Supreme Court authorized it in a two-paragraph order with no reasoning is truly shocking.”

“Venezuelans face extreme oppression, arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings and torture,” Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said in a statement on Monday.

“Poverty levels are surging, and essentials like electricity, water and medical care are scarce. The dire circumstances in Venezuela make it clear that this is exactly the type of situation that requires the government to provide TPS.”