Today in History: March 17, white South Africans vote to end apartheid
Today in history:
On March 17, 1992, white South Africans voted 68.7%-31.3% to end over 40 years of apartheid in a national referendum. (Voters of all races were allowed to vote two years later in the general election that resulted in Nelson Mandela becoming president.)
Also on this date:
In 1762, New York held its first St. Patrick's Day parade.
In 1776, the Revolutionary War Siege of Boston ended as British forces evacuated the city.
In 1950, scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new radioactive element they named 'californium.'
In 1969, Golda Meir took power in Israel, beginning a term as prime minister that would last through five crucial years in the nation's history.
In 2003, edging to the brink of war, President George W. Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave his country. Iraq rejected Bush's ultimatum, saying that a U.S. attack to force Saddam from power would be 'a grave mistake.'
In 2010, Michael Jordan became the first ex-player to become a majority owner in the NBA as the league's Board of Governors unanimously approved Jordan's $275 million bid to buy the Charlotte Bobcats from Bob Johnson.
In 2016, finally bowing to years of public pressure, SeaWorld Entertainment said it would stop breeding killer whales and making them perform crowd-pleasing tricks.
In 2023, the International Criminal Court said it issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Ukrainian woman searches for husband lost in action two years ago
By Tom Balmforth CHERNIHIV, Ukraine (Reuters) -When gaunt Ukrainian soldiers dismount from buses as part of prisoner swaps with Russia, Mariia Pylnyk tries to find out anything she can about her missing husband from the freed men, and hopes, just maybe, that he will be among them. Holding up a photograph of Dmytro Pylnyk, lost in action in early 2023, she has many questions. What happened to his unit when it was ambushed by Russian forces? Was he captured by Russia? Could he eventually be released? The mass prisoner swap last month was an opportunity for people like her to ask troops just out of Russian captivity about missing loved ones who they believe, or simply hope, are prisoners of war. The alternative is unthinkable. "I hold out great hope that someone has heard something, seen something," Pylnyk, 29, told Reuters at a recent exchange in May, flanked by other relatives of those missing in action. "My son and I are waiting for (his) dad to come home. Hope dies last. God willing, it'll all be okay and dad will come back." Precise numbers for soldiers missing in action are not made public. For Ukrainians, and for Russians on the other side of the conflict, it can be hard to find out even basic information. Pylnyk says she has written to government agencies and Russian authorities and learned almost nothing. Ukrainian officials say more than 70,000 Ukrainians have been registered missing since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. The majority are from the military but the figure also includes civilians. Another 12,000 have been removed from the list after being identified among the dead or returned in exchanges. Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for the Coordination Council that arranges prisoner swaps from the Ukrainian side, said Russia had never notified Kyiv which soldiers it is holding prisoner. Ukraine collects that data by other means as best it can, he said. Pylnyk and others like her share information in online chat groups and use it to try to piece together what happened. "Misfortune brought us together," she said. "After two years of this, we're like a family." LAST PHONE CALL Dmytro Pylnyk, an electrician by trade, was drafted into the army in late 2022. He phoned home often so that his wife did not worry but last called on their son Artem's third birthday on Feb. 27, 2023. He was deployed from Kharkiv region towards Bakhmut, a small city that later fell to Russian forces after fierce fighting. His unit's convoy was caught in a Russian ambush, Mariia Pylnyk said she had learned. "The guys ran any which way," she said, citing conversations with commanders who told her 41 soldiers were missing in action. Two were captured and have since been released. One, who was freed in an exchange at Easter and had lost both his arms, was unable to share any valuable information, she said. The second refused to talk. The pace of prisoner swaps has increased in the last month. Ukraine and Russia each released 1,000 prisoners in a three-day exchange last month, the only tangible outcome of direct talks in Istanbul. A prisoner swap of under-25s on Monday was the first in a series of exchanges also expected to include each side repatriating the remains of thousands. Mariia Pylnyk has given her son's DNA to the authorities so that if Dmytro is confirmed killed in action they will be notified. "We all understand that this is war and anything is possible. But to this day, I don't believe it and I don't feel that he is dead. I feel like he's alive and God willing he'll return," she said. NO SIGNAL TO CALL She lives with Artem, now five, in Pakul, a village in the northern Chernihiv region that was briefly occupied by Russians. She has not told Artem his father is missing in action. "He knows that dad is a soldier, dad is a good man, dad is at work and just doesn't have any signal to call," she said. She takes comfort from seeing families reunited and never allows herself to cry in front of her son. She used to work in a shop, but Artem has often been ill. The angst of the last two years have taken their toll on her health too. She receives state support. Pylnyk has vowed to find her husband but has often not had time to attend prisoner swaps while looking after their son. "Only a weakling can give up, you know, throw up their hands and say that's it, he's not there," she said, adding that she was very emotional when she attended last month's big exchange. "When I was there, the fighting spirit awoke in me that I needed. I have to do this. Who else will do it but me?"
38 minutes ago
Russia skirts Western sanctions to ramp up its military footprint in Africa
DAKAR, Senegal -- Even as it pounds Ukraine, Russia is expanding its military footprint in Africa, delivering sophisticated weaponry to sub-Saharan conflict zones where a Kremlin-controlled armed force is on the rise. Skirting sanctions imposed by Western nations, Moscow is using cargo ships to send tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and other high-value equipment to West Africa, The Associated Press has found. Relying on satellite imagery and radio signals, AP tracked a convoy of Russian-flagged cargo ships as they made a nearly one-month journey from the Baltic Sea. The ships carried howitzers, radio jamming equipment and other military hardware, according to military officials in Europe who closely monitored them. The deliveries could strengthen Russia's fledgling Africa Corps as Moscow competes with the United States, Europe and China for greater influence across the continent. The two-year-old Africa Corps, which has links to a covert branch of Russia's army, is ascendant at a time when U.S. and European troops have been withdrawing from the region, forced out by sub-Saharan nations turning to Russia for security. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have been battling fighters linked with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group for more than a decade. At first, mercenary groups with an arms-length relationship to the Kremlin entered the fray in Africa. But increasingly, Russia is deploying its military might, and intelligence services, more directly. 'We intend to expand our cooperation with African countries in all spheres, with an emphasis on economic cooperation and investments,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. 'This cooperation includes sensitive areas linked to defense and security.' Russia's 8,800-ton Baltic Leader and 5,800-ton Patria are among hundreds of ships that Western nations have sanctioned to choke off resources for Russia's war in Ukraine. The ships docked and unloaded in Conakry, Guinea, in late May, AP satellite images showed. Other ships made deliveries to the same port in January. They delivered tanks, armored vehicles and other hardware that was then trucked overland to neighboring Mali, according to European military officials and a Malian blogger's video of the long convoy. The military officials spoke to AP about Russian operations on condition of anonymity. The AP verified the blogger's video, geolocating it to the RN5 highway leading into Bamako, the Malian capital. After the latest delivery in Conakry, trucks carrying Russian-made armored vehicles, howitzers and other equipment were again spotted on the overland route to Mali. Malian broadcaster ORTM confirmed that the West African nation's army took delivery of new military equipment. AP analysis of its video and images filmed by the Malian blogger in the same spot as the January delivery identified a broad array of Russian-made hardware, including 152 mm artillery guns and other smaller canons. AP also identified a wheeled, BTR-80 armored troop carrier with radio-jamming equipment, as well as Spartak armored vehicles and other armored carriers, some mounted with guns. The shipment also included at least two semi-inflatable small boats, one with a Russian flag painted on its hull, as well as tanker trucks, some marked 'inflammable' in Russian on their sides. The military officials who spoke to AP said they believe Russia has earmarked the most potent equipment — notably the artillery and jamming equipment — for its Africa Corps, not Malian armed forces. Africa Corps appears to have been given air power, too, with satellites spotting at least one Su-24 fighter-bomber at a Bamako air base in recent months. For years, French forces supported counterinsurgency operations in Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. But France pulled out its troops after coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, in Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023. Russian mercenaries stepped into the vacuum. Wagner Group, the most notable, deployed to Sudan in 2017 and expanded to other African countries, often in exchange for mining concessions. It earned a reputation for brutality, accused by Western countries and U.N. experts of human rights abuses, including in Central African Republic, Libya and Mali. Of 33 African countries in which Russian military contractors were active, the majority were Wagner-controlled, according to U.S. government-sponsored research by RAND. But after Wagner forces mutinied in Russia in 2023 and their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed two months later in a suspicious plane crash, Moscow tightened its grip. Russian military operations in Africa were restructured, with the Kremlin taking greater control through Africa Corps. It is overseen by the commander of Unit 29155, one of the most notorious branches of Russia's shadowy GRU military intelligence service, according to the European Union. Unit 29155 has been accused of covertly attacking Western interests for years, including through sabotage and assassination attempts. The EU in December targeted Unit 29155 Maj. Gen. Andrey Averyanov with sanctions, alleging that he is in charge of Africa Corps operations. 'In many African countries, Russian forces provide security to military juntas that have overthrown legitimate democratic governments, gravely worsening the stability, security and democracy of the countries,' the EU sanctions ruling said. These operations are financed by exploiting the continent's natural resources, the ruling added. The Russian Ministry of Defense didn't immediately respond to questions about Averyanov's role in Africa Corps. Researchers and military officials say the flow of weapons from Russia appears to be speeding Africa Corps' ascendancy over Wagner, helping it win over mercenaries that have remained loyal to the group. Africa Corps is also is recruiting in Russia, offering payments of up to 2.1 million rubles ($26,500), and even plots of land, for signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense, plus more on deployment. Within days of the latest equipment delivery, Wagner announced its withdrawal from Mali, declaring 'mission accomplished" in a Telegram post. Africa Corps said in a separate post that it would remain. The changeover from Wagner to Africa Corps in Mali could be a forerunner for other similar transitions elsewhere on the continent, said Julia Stanyard, a researcher of Russian mercenary activity in Africa. 'Bringing in this sort of brand-new sophisticated weaponry, and new armored vehicles and that sort of thing, is quite a bit of a shift,' said Stanyard, of the Switzerland-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Armed groups in Mali have inflicted heavy losses on Malian troops and Russian mercenaries. The al-Qaida linked group JNIM killed dozens of soldiers in an attack this month on a military base. Insurgents also killed dozens of Wagner mercenaries in northern Mali last July. Some of the latest hardware could have been shipped over specifically in response to such attacks, military officials said. They said the jamming equipment, for example, could help defend against booby traps detonated using phone signals. The latest convoy attracted attention because a Russian Navy warship, the Boykiy, escorted the ships after they set off in April from Russia's Kaliningrad region on the Baltic. Last October, in what's considered a hostile act, the Boykiy's radar systems locked onto a French Navy maritime surveillance plane on patrol against suspected Russian efforts to sabotage underwater cables, according to military officials. The convoy included a third sanctioned Russian cargo ship, the Siyanie Severa. It continued onward as Baltic Leader and Patria unloaded in Conakry, docking in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. Wagner has maintained a strong presence in the nearby Central African Republic.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Unemployment nears four-year high in wake of Reeves tax raid
UK unemployment has hit its highest level in almost four years as businesses shed jobs and freeze hiring in the wake of Rachel Reeves's tax raid. Official figures showed the unemployment rate rose to 4.6pc in the three months to April, up from 4.4pc in the previous three months. This is the highest since the summer of 2021 when Britain was only just emerging from lockdowns. The Chancellor's tax rises came into effect in April, but employers had warned that the Chancellor's £25bn National Insurance tax raid and another inflation-busting minimum wage jump were forcing them to freeze hiring in the months beforehand. Meanwhile, employers put the brakes on hiring with the number of vacancies falling from to 736,000 in the three months to May, compared with 760,000 in the previous quarter, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. Wage growth also slowed, to rise by 5.2pc in the three months to April on a year earlier, the slowest pace in seven months. Andrew Griffith, shadow business secretary, said: 'It is disappointing but no surprise that unemployment is up again. 'Businesses are still absorbing a £25bn jobs tax but things are about to get even worse as Labour's £5bn unemployment bill hits businesses with higher regulation.' Despite the surge in unemployment, jobs in the public sector jumped to the highest level in 14 years as the Chancellor prepares to unveil a £300bn spending spree this week. Almost 6.2m people were employed in the public sector in March, official figures show, 35,000 more than a year earlier. This is the highest number of public sector employees since December 2011. It comes ahead of Ms Reeves's spending review on Wednesday, which is expected to offer big increases to defence and health while squeezing other departments. The Chancellor has raised departmental spending by nearly £400bn since Labour won the election. It comes as economists have warned more tax rises are 'inevitable' in autumn. The figures from the ONS also show that the number of civil servants is the highest since 2006, at 550,000, rising by 6,000 from a year earlier. This helped to push the total figure of central government workers to a record high of 4m, up by 93,000 from a year ago. The ONS said the rise was driven by the NHS, the Civil Service and some local authority schools becoming academies, which changes how their staff are classified in the numbers. Private sector workers experienced slower pay growth than those in the public sector when excluding bonuses, at 5.1pc to 5.6pc in February to April compared with the same period last year. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
