South African election: Cape Town’s squatters expect more ’empty promises’ as country heads to the polls
When we arrived in Egoli, a squatter settlement in the Cape Flats in South Africa, the dark tar marks of tyres burnt in protest still blackened the road.
Initial glares of suspicion only faded when we were greeted and welcomed by community leader Abraham Fransman.
“Me and my community have been living in this informal settlement for the past 28 years with little basic service.
“This doesn’t let us feel good with the politicians because right from 1994 – when the first election was out – they were saying a better life for all.
“But still, after 28 years, there’s no better life.” says 59-year-old Abraham.
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As we spoke, women gathered branches and scraps of wood to make fires to cook and heat their homes.
The community had tapped into the power grid illegally and been disconnected.
Their shacks sit on private land cut off from city infrastructure and basic services.
They have been handed eviction notice after eviction notice since 2000, as ownership of the property changes hands.
“We mustn’t vote because it doesn’t count. We don’t see democracy. We don’t see freedom. We see nothing. We only see suffering more suffering and more suffering.”
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Uncollected rubbish in Nyanga township
The elections are days away but there are few party posters here.
One lonely sign for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party and none for the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), that runs the province and city.
The DA slogan “Western Cape Works” would stick out like a sore thumb – nothing here works.
“You can’t bring change. No party, not even a new party or a party you see for many years,” says Chevonne, a mother of five.
“This is the only time they come out with empty promises and as soon as they get your cross (on the ballot), they’re gone.”
In Nyanga, one of the oldest black townships in Cape Town, people are approaching the wet winter months with more fear than any post-election political upheaval.
The damage from past winter rain still marks the walls of many homes.
“We are not happy about the voting – the voting can come. But we’re not happy about it because look, I’m staying in a hole, ” says 63-year-old Younes pointing to her sunken house.
“When it’s raining, all the water is coming in here.”
As we stood in Nyanga’s streets, janitors that work for private contractors hired by the city to deliver sanitation services blast music as they empty out bucket toilets.
One of the janitors is a 22-year-old called Phuthuma.
She says life is hard and children do not have open spaces to play.
I ask her how she feels when she goes to the centre of Cape Town.
A janitor empties a bucket toilet in Nyanga
There is a silence before she reveals that she has never been.
In the distance, a cloud covers that part of Cape Town nestled in Table Mountain.
The postcard perfection that people travel thousands of miles from all over the world to visit, but the city’s own residents cannot access.
Table Mountain
Some people in Nyanga are too poor to have visited central Cape Town
“Cape Town is historically so beautiful and working-class people do not enjoy this,” longtime community activist and independent MP candidate Zackie Achmat tells us in the Company’s Garden.
It is the oldest garden in South Africa and a heritage site in the heart of Cape Town with an astonishing view of Table Mountain.
“The mountain looks different from different parts of the city. It looks further and further away as you move further away, and it looks impossible to get to and it is impossible to get to because there’s no transport. The cost of living is so high. The cost of transport is phenomenal.
“Spatial injustice has grown under the ANC in every way and under the Democratic Alliance in the city.”
World
Biden adding ‘fuel to fire’, Kremlin says – as Ukraine allowed to fire US missiles into Russia
The Kremlin has criticised President Joe Biden for adding “fuel to the fire” after giving Ukraine permission to launch US missiles into Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to… continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict.”
Russia‘s Foreign Ministry added that the action by Mr Biden‘s administration would fundamentally alter the nature of the war and trigger “an adequate and tangible” response.
The UK has refused to reveal if it plans to follow suit, for example extending the use of British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles by Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia.
Follow latest: Ukraine war live updates
Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey told the House of Commons commenting would “compromise operations and security”, adding that he will speak with the US and Ukrainian defence secretaries on Monday evening.
At the G20 Summit in Brazil, Sir Keir Starmer gave a similar response: “I’m not going to get into operational details because the only winner, if we were to do that, is [Vladimir] Putin, and I’m not prepared to do that.”
For over a year Ukraine has been calling on America changes its policy on the use of long-range missiles.
Joe Biden attends the G20 Summit. Pic: AP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has given a muted response to Mr Biden’s decision to expand the use of the American-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).
“Strikes are not made with words… the missiles will speak for themselves,” he said.
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‘The missiles will speak for themselves’
Biden risks triggering ‘World War Three’
The US has eased restrictions on the use of ATACMS, which has a range of up to 190 miles, after Russia began deploying North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces in the conflict.
Donald Trump Jr, the son of president-elect Donald Trump, suggested in a post on X that Mr Biden was risking a third world war “before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives”.
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The use of tactical missile systems for Ukraine
Hungary: Policy is ‘astonishingly dangerous’
There has been a strong, but mixed, reaction across Europe to America’s change of policy.
Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said the decision was “astonishingly dangerous” – although the country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has a close and often sympathetic relationship with Moscow.
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Why has US let Ukraine use its missiles?
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Slovakia’s leader Robert Fico, who has also fostered a stronger relationship with his Russian counterpart, said it was an “unprecedented escalation of tensions” and “a decision that thwarts hopes for the start of any peace talks”.
But other countries have been more positive.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said: “This decision was very necessary… Russia sees that Ukraine enjoys strong support and that the West’s position is unyielding and determined.”
Meanwhile, Estonia’s foreign minister Margus Tsahkna was equally positive. He said easing restrictions on Ukraine was “a good thing”, adding: “We have been saying that from the beginning – that no restrictions must be put on the military support [for Ukraine].”
Missiles are ‘not a game changer’
Former British ambassador to Russia Sir Toby Brenton has told Sky News: “Nobody is really expecting this to be a game changer.
“They’re expecting it to make life more difficult for the Russians, slow the Russian advance down, but… from all the stories I’m hearing, there are not actually that many of these missiles available to be used.”
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A Russian missile strike on Odesa killed 10 people on Monday. Pic: Ukrainian Emergency Services/Reuters
A residential building damaged by a Russian missile strike in Sumy. Pic: Reuters
On Monday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions killed 11 people in a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine.
Another missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.
Meanwhile, Tuesday marks 1,000 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Barely anyone speaks – there is virtual silence apart from the sounds of passing vehicles and the wind whipping through flags and photographs commemorating the dead in a war that started 1,000 days ago when Russia invaded.
What is really striking is the sheer number of people who have died, and this memorial in Kyiv’s Maidan Square represents just some of those who gave their lives defending their country.
Soldiers in camouflage fatigues pause to pay their respects to comrades, civilians stop and stare, heads often bowed.
At the same time, on mobile phones, news alerts announce another missile strike on Ukraine. This time in the port city of Odessa.
More dead, more injured, it never stops here.
As this war grinds on, with Russia making significant gains in the east, it says something about the Ukrainian people’s resolve to keep going.
For months the Ukrainian government has been pleading with the United States and its western partners for permission to use long range weapons to attack deep inside Russia.
A ruined building in Odessa
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These weapons would allow Ukraine to target airfields and bases where drones and missiles are launched against Ukraine, and to attack supply routes and military camps. In effect – to take the fight to Russia.
Time and again civilians and soldiers alike tell me the West and the United States are scared of annoying or provoking Russia. Wrongly or rightly, most believe the West is happy for Ukraine to hold the line but not beat Russia.
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Ukraine allowed to use US long-range missiles in Russia
News that President Biden, in the twilight of his time in office, has changed his position allowing American missiles to be fired into Russia, has been greeted with euphoria.
Although it’s tempered by his decision to allow them to be used only in the Kursk region of Russia, where North Korean troops are augmenting the Russian military.
MP Lesia Vasylenko
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I met Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko in the capital, she heard the news as she arrived back in Ukraine from a trip abroad.
She says the decision has “lifted spirits here” and calls the move “extremely significant” but says it needs to go further.
“As members of parliament we have been echoing the president in every single meeting we have abroad, asking for the permission to strike inside Russia’s territory, what this means is permission to liquidate 16 airbases from which Russia on a daily and nightly bases sends airplanes carrying missiles that are hitting Ukrainian homes, Ukrainian infrastructure, and basically making civilian life impossible in the country,” she told me.
She continued: “Having permission to strike inside of all of Russia would really change things round for the people of Ukraine first and foremost, but also on the battlefield.”
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She told me that despite the war dragging on, the Ukrainian people remain resolute and united.
“The resilience is still there, for us this resilience equals survival, if Ukraine stops fighting there will be no Ukraine, there will be no us as Ukrainians, there will be no housing, we would not be allowed to live under the Ukrainian flag, so the only option here is to make sure that Russia stops fighting and that Russia can never fight again.”
Over the past almost two weeks I have driven from the west to the east of this huge country.
It strikes me that you can barely pass a town or a village cemetery without the blue and gold colours of the Ukrainian flag punctuating the grey skies – marking the graves of the war dead.
Flags mark the graves of Ukraine’s war dead across the country
A thousand days since the Russian invasion began, soldiers and civilians alike are still dying, but Ukraine is still fighting.
A thousand days ago, few thought that was likely.
An undersea fibre optic cable between Germany and Finland has stopped working and might have been deliberately cut by an unknown party, according to authorities.
The 729 mile (1,173km) C-Lion1 cable under the Baltic Sea from Helsinki to Rostock went offline just after 2am GMT on Monday.
The outage was reported by Finnish state-controlled cyber security and telecoms company Cinia.
A physical inspection has not yet been done but the abrupt nature suggests it was completely severed by an outside force, said chief executive Ari-Jussi Knaapila.
Germany and Finland‘s foreign ministers said they were “deeply concerned” and it “immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage”.
A joint statement said: “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.
“Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies.”
Cinia said “corrective measures” were under way and a repair ship was being prepared.
The damage to the fibre optic cable could take around five to 15 days to fix, Mr Knaapila told reporters.
The pipe runs under the Baltic Sea between Helsinki and Rostock
He said the damage occurred near the southern tip of Sweden’s Oland island and that Cinia was working with authorities to investigate.
The cable links central European telecoms networks to Finland, other Nordic countries and Asia.
A Chinese ship was blamed for damaging another cable, the Balticconnector gas pipeline, last year. Pic: Finnish Border Guard/Reuters
Another submerged gas line and several telecoms cables were seriously damaged last year in the Baltic Sea.
A Chinese container ship dragging its anchor was named as prime suspect by Finnish police. However, they have not said if they think the damage was intentional.
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Two years ago, a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany – the Nord Steam – was also damaged by explosions.
Many suspected Moscow of foul play but German authorities are still investigating the case.
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