Ramaphosa Accused of ‘Double Standard' by Key Coalition Partner
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa fired a deputy minister from the second-largest party in the ruling coalition on Thursday, a move that renews strain on the stability of his administration.
Ramaphosa dismissed Deputy Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Andrew Whitfield of the Democratic Alliance, without providing reasons for his removal. The president 'has not indicated any intention to conduct a wholesale cabinet reshuffle,' his office said in a statement.
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31 minutes ago
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Self-Taught Ethiopian Developer Raises $5M For ‘The Best Authentication Tool' Better Auth
Ethiopian startup Better Auth is being labeled the 'best authentication tool' after its creator, Bereket Engida, raised roughly $5 million in seed funding from top investors, TechCrunch reports. Better Auth is an app providing an open-source framework, committed to simplifying how developers manage user authentication. Engida, a self-taught developer from the African nation, raised the hefty amount for his startup from Peak XV, formerly known as Sequoia India and Southeast Asia, Y Combinator, P1 Ventures, and Chapter One. The beauty behind Engida's genius is that the app was created in Ethiopia before he set foot in the U.S. It all started at 18, when he began programming after a friend declined to assist him in building an e-commerce search app. However, after landing numerous software jobs and building a web analytics platform that enables developers to monitor website user behavior, he continued to notice that authentication was a problem. In the world of apps, each one has to be able to manage how users sign in and out of the system and reset passwords. After realizing that existing tools had extensive limitations or were too expensive to scale, allowing administrators to handle permissions and user roles, Engida took matters into his own hands. 'I remember needing an organization feature. It's a very common use case for most SaaS applications, but it wasn't available from these providers,' the developer said. 'So I had to build it from scratch. It took me about two weeks, and I remember thinking, 'This is crazy; there has to be a better way to solve this.'' Engida and Co-Founder Kinfe Michael Tariku believed from the start that developers should be able to own their authentication systems rather than being committed to expensive platforms. It's one of the various reasons why investors are celebrating it. The Addis Ababa native started working on a TypeScript-based authentication framework, making it fool-proof for developers to build secure login, verification, and session management workflows without overthinking efforts, according to Addis Insight. Peak XV partner Arnav Sahu said the product is the 'next generation of AI startups.' With their investment, Better Auth is the firm's first direct investment from an African founder. 'We first heard about the product from numerous startups we've worked with,' Sahu, who is a former principal at Y Combinator, said. 'Their auth product has seen phenomenal adoption among the next generation of AI startups.' As a recent graduate of YC's spring batch of startups, Engida is still thinking of ways to improve the free app. With Better Auth being the third Ethiopian startup to pass through the accelerator, the developer is focusing on ways to improve its core features and implement a paid enterprise infrastructure to plug into the open-source base. He also wants to scale the startup without getting rid of the community-built feel of the product. Building a team is also on the radar, as Engida is currently writing most of the code himself. 'Building this feels important not just because people love the product, but because of what it represents,' he said. 'There aren't many Ethiopian founders building global products. For many, it feels almost impossible. So seeing that traction gives hope for other people to try to be more ambitious.' RELATED CONTENT:
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an hour ago
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Botswana court clears Bridgette Motsepe-Radebe of corruption claims
Botswana's High Court ruled corruption claims against Bridgette Motsepe were false and defamatory. Ex-investigator Jako Hubona was ordered to retract and apologise for linking her to money laundering. Motsepe, linked to SA's first family, was cleared in a 2020 UK-led probe into the allegations. Botswana's High Court ruled on Friday that a former government investigator's claims of corruption against mining executive Bridgette Motsepe-Radebe were false and ordered an apology. Motsepe-Radebe is the sister of South Africa's first lady, Tshepo Motsepe, and billionaire Patrice Motsepe. She was caught up in claims in 2019 that she conspired with Botswana's former president Ian Khama to launder billions of dollars to be used to stoke political unrest and overthrow the stable southern African country's government. The allegations were judged in 2020 to be baseless in an investigation by a British law firm. Friday's High Court ruling was against an investigator with the government's anti-corruption agency, Jako Hubona, who had repeated the claims, according to details released by the court. READ | Motsepe-Radebe caught up in fresh fraud and money laundering scandal The court order said Hubona must retract a statement he made in 2019 that Motsepe-Radebe was a 'co-signatory to bank accounts in which funds allegedly stolen from the Bank of Botswana were laundered and implicated her in financing terrorism'. The statements were 'unlawful, false and defamatory', the ruling said, giving Hubona seven days to publish a notice that 'unconditionally retracts and apologises' for the claims, it said. Banks in South Africa also said at the time that it was not true that Motsepe-Radebe, founder and chief executive of Mmakau Mining, was a co-signatory on the alleged bank account. Khama ruled Botswana for 10 years from 2008 and later fell out with his handpicked successor, Mokgweetsi Masisi, whom he accused of authoritarianism. In 2024, Masisi lost power in a landslide win for President Duma Boko, ending nearly six decades in power for the Botswana Democratic Party.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Congo and Rwanda will sign a US-mediated peace deal to end the conflict in eastern Congo
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda are set to sign a peace deal facilitated by the U.S. to help end the decades-long deadly fighting in eastern Congo. The deal, which is due to be signed in Washington on Friday afternoon, would also help the U.S. government and American companies gain access to critical minerals in the region. The Central African nation of Congo has been ripped apart by conflict with more than 100 armed groups. The most prominent is the M23 rebel group, backed by neighboring Rwanda, whose major advance early this year left bodies littered on the streets. With 7 million people displaced in Congo, the United Nations has called it 'one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.' Lauded by U.S. President Donald Trump last week as 'a Great Day for Africa and ... for the World,' the crucial deal comes as part of other ongoing peace talks to end the conflict, including ones mediated by the African Union and Qatar. The agreement involves provisions on respect for territorial integrity, a prohibition of hostilities as well as the disengagement, disarmament and conditional integration of non-state armed groups, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott told reporters on Thursday. U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric also said on Thursday that such a deal is welcomed, adding: 'We talk almost every day about … the horrific suffering of civilians, the hunger, the sexual violence, the constant fear, the constant displacement' in eastern Congo. Peace deal not likely to quickly end the conflict Congo hopes the U.S. will provide it with the security support needed to fight the rebels and possibly get them to withdraw from the key cities of Goma and Bukavu, and from the entire region where Rwanda is estimated to have up to 4,000 troops. Rwanda has said that it's defending its territorial interests and not supporting M23. But M23 rebels have suggested that the agreement won't be binding on them. The rebel group hasn't been directly involved in the planned peace deal, although it has been part of other ongoing peace talks. Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance — known by its French acronym AFC — that includes M23, told The Associated Press in March that direct peace talks with Congo can only be held if the country acknowledges their grievances and that 'anything regarding us which are done without us, it's against us.' An M23 spokesman, Oscar Balinda, also echoed those thoughts in an interview with the AP this week, saying the U.S.-facilitated deal doesn't concern the rebels. Rwanda has also been accused of exploiting eastern Congo's minerals, a trend analysts say might make it difficult for Rwanda to not be involved in any way in the region. A team of U.N. experts alleged in a December report that "fraudulent extraction, trade and export to Rwanda of (Congo) minerals benefited both AFC/M23 and the Rwandan economy.' Rwanda has denied any involvement in Congo's minerals. The deal is also at the heart of the U.S. government's push to counter China in Africa. Chinese companies have been for many years one of the key players in Congo's minerals sector. Chinese cobalt refineries, which account for a majority of the global supply, rely heavily on Congo. U.S. role in ending the conflict Analysts say the U.S. government's commitment might depend on how much access it has to the minerals being discussed under separate negotiations between the American and Congolese government. The mostly untapped minerals — estimated to be worth as much as $24 trillion by the U.S. Department of Commerce — are critical to much of the world's technology. Christian Moleka, a political scientist at the Congolese think tank Dypol, called the planned deal a 'major turning point' in the decades-long conflict, but that the signing could "in no way eliminate all the issues of the conflict.' 'The current draft agreement ignores war crimes and justice for victims by imposing a partnership between the victim and the aggressor,' he said. 'This seems like a trigger-happy proposition and cannot establish lasting peace without justice and reparation.' In Congo's North Kivu province, the hardest hit by the fighting, some believe that the peace deal will help resolve the violence, but warn justice must still be served for an enduring peace to take hold. 'I don't think the Americans should be trusted 100%,' said Hope Muhinuka, an activist from the province. 'It is up to us to capitalize on all we have now as an opportunity.' ___ Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Justin Kabumba in Goma, Congo, Ignatius Ssuuna in Kigali, Rwanda, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. Chinedu Asadu, The Associated Press
