Latest news with #landseizures
Reuters
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
A check of Trump's false claims about white genocide in South Africa
U.S. President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday (May 22) with explosive false claims of white genocide and land seizures during a tense White House meeting. Here are some of his claims contradicted by evidence. Kristy Kilburn reports.
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Focus on Africa President Trump confronts President Ramaphosa
The US President Donald Trump, confronted South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa with false claims of white genocide and land seizures during a tense White House meeting. It was reminiscent of the US President's ambush of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier this year. At a time when diplomacy means everything, how did the South African President fare and what next for the US/South Africa relationship? Also, who will the next President of the African Development Bank be? And we find out more about the former Mauritanian president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who has been jailed for 15 years. Presenter: Richard Kagoe Producers: Sunita Nahar, Bella Hassan and Tom Kavanagh Technical Producer: Francesca Dunne Senior Journalist: Karnie Sharp Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
Khaleej Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
Dim lights, TV 'evidence': Watch how Trump ambushed Ramaphosa with false claims of white genocide
US President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday with explosive false claims of white genocide and land seizures during a tense White House meeting that was reminiscent of his February ambush of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy. South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, but the overwhelming majority of victims are Black. Ramaphosa had hoped to use Wednesday's meeting to reset his country's relationship with the US, after Trump canceled much-needed aid to South Africa, offered refuge to white minority Afrikaners, expelled the country's ambassador and criticised its genocide court case against Israel. The South African president arrived prepared for an aggressive reception, bringing popular white South African golfers as part of his delegation and saying he wanted to discuss trade. The US is South Africa's second-biggest trading partner, and the country is facing a 30 per cent tariff under Trump's currently suspended raft of import taxes. But in a carefully choreographed Oval Office onslaught, Trump pounced, moving quickly to a list of concerns about the treatment of white South Africans, which he punctuated by playing a video and leafing through a stack of printed news articles that he said proved his allegations. Watch the video, by Reuters, here: With the lights turned down at Trump's request, the video – played on a television that is not normally set up in the Oval Office – showed white crosses, which Trump asserted were the graves of white people, and opposition leaders making incendiary speeches. Trump suggested one of them, Julius Malema, should be arrested. The video was made in September 2020 during a protest after two people were killed on their farm a week earlier. The crosses did not mark actual graves. An organiser of the protest told South Africa's public broadcaster at the time that they represented farmers who had been killed over the years. "We have many people that feel they're being persecuted, and they're coming to the United States," Trump said. "So we take from many ... locations, if we feel there's persecution or genocide going on," he added, referring specifically to white farmers. "People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety. Their land is being confiscated, and in many cases, they're being killed," the president added, echoing a once-fringe conspiracy theory that has circulated in global far-right chat rooms for at least a decade with the vocal support of Trump's ally, South African-born Elon Musk, who was in the Oval Office during the meeting. South Africa, which endured centuries of draconian discrimination against Black people during colonialism and apartheid before becoming a multi-party democracy in 1994 under Nelson Mandela, rejects Trump's allegations. A new land reform law, aimed at redressing the injustices of apartheid, allows for expropriations without compensation when in the public interest, for example if land is lying fallow. No such expropriation has taken place, and any order can be challenged in court. South African police recorded 26,232 murders nationwide in 2024, with 44 linked to farming communities. Eight of those victims were farmers. Ramaphosa, sitting in a chair next to Trump and remaining poised, pushed back against his claims. "If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentlemen would not be here," Ramaphosa said, referring to golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen and billionaire Johann Rupert, all white, who were present in the room. That did not satisfy Trump. "We have thousands of stories talking about it, and we have documentaries, we have news stories," Trump said. "It has to be responded to." Land reform and Israel Ramaphosa mostly sat expressionless during the video presentation, occasionally craning his neck to look at the screen. He said he had not seen the material before and that he would like to find out the location. Trump then displayed printed copies of articles that he said showed white South Africans who had been killed, saying "death, death" as he flipped through them, eventually handing them to his counterpart. Ramaphosa said there was crime in South Africa, and the majority of victims were Black. Trump cut him off and said: "The farmers are not Black." Ramaphosa responded: "These are concerns we are willing to talk to you about." The South African president cited Mandela's example as a peacemaker, but that did not move the US president, whose political base includes white nationalists. The myth of white genocide in South Africa has become a rallying point for the far right in the United States and elsewhere. "I will say: apartheid, terrible," Trump noted. "This is sort of the opposite of apartheid." Unlike Zelenskiy, who sparred with Trump and Vice President JD Vance during their White House meeting and ended up leaving early, the South African leader kept his calm, praising Trump's decor – the president has outfitted the Oval Office with gold accessories – and saying he looked forward to handing over the presidency of the Group of 20 next year. Trump declined to say whether he would attend the G20 meeting in South Africa in November. Later in the meeting, Rupert, the business tycoon, stepped in to back up Ramaphosa, saying that crime was a problem across the board and many Black people were dying too. He nodded to Musk by saying that his Starlink telecoms systems were needed in every South African police station to combat crime. Following the meeting, Ramaphosa sought to focus on trade, telling reporters the two countries had agreed to discuss critical minerals in South Africa. His trade minister said the government had submitted a trade and investment proposal that included buying liquefied natural gas from the US. But the president also flatly denied Trump's allegations about a wave of racial violence against white farmers. "There is just no genocide in South Africa," he said.
Free Malaysia Today
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Trump confronts S. Africa's Ramaphosa with false claims of white genocide
President Donald Trump speaks with President Cyril Ramaphosa (left) during his visit to the White House in Washington. (EPA Images pic) WASHINGTON : US President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday with explosive false claims of white genocide and land seizures during a tense White House meeting that was reminiscent of his February ambush of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky. South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, but the overwhelming majority of victims are black. Ramaphosa had hoped to use Wednesday's meeting to reset his country's relationship with the US, after Trump cancelled much-needed aid to South Africa, offered refuge to white minority Afrikaners, expelled the country's ambassador and criticised its genocide court case against Israel. The South African president arrived prepared for an aggressive reception, bringing popular white South African golfers as part of his delegation and saying he wanted to discuss trade. The US is South Africa's second-biggest trading partner, and the country is facing a 30% tariff under Trump's currently suspended raft of import taxes. But in a carefully choreographed Oval Office onslaught, Trump pounced, moving quickly to a list of concerns about the treatment of white South Africans, which he punctuated by playing a video and leafing through a stack of printed news articles that he said proved his allegations. With the lights turned down at Trump's request, the video – played on a television that is not normally set up in the Oval Office – showed white crosses, which Trump asserted were the graves of white people, and opposition leaders making incendiary speeches. Trump suggested one of them, Julius Malema, should be arrested. The video was made in September 2020 during a protest after two people were killed on their farm a week earlier. The crosses did not mark actual graves. An organiser of the protest told South Africa's public broadcaster at the time that they represented farmers who had been killed over the years. 'We have many people that feel they're being persecuted, and they're coming to the US,' Trump said. 'So we take from many … locations, if we feel there's persecution or genocide going on,' he added, referring specifically to white farmers. 'People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety. Their land is being confiscated, and in many cases, they're being killed,' the president added, echoing a once-fringe conspiracy theory that has circulated in global far-right chat rooms for at least a decade with the vocal support of Trump's ally, South African-born Elon Musk, who was in the Oval Office during the meeting. South Africa, which endured centuries of draconian discrimination against black people during colonialism and apartheid before becoming a multi-party democracy in 1994 under Nelson Mandela, rejects Trump's allegations. A new land reform law, aimed at redressing the injustices of apartheid, allows for expropriations without compensation when in the public interest, for example if land is lying fallow. No such expropriation has taken place, and any order can be challenged in court. South African police recorded 26,232 murders nationwide in 2024, with 44 linked to farming communities. Eight of those victims were farmers. Ramaphosa, sitting in a chair next to Trump and remaining poised, pushed back against his claims. 'If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentlemen would not be here,' Ramaphosa said, referring to golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen and billionaire Johann Rupert, all white, who were present in the room. That did not satisfy Trump. 'We have thousands of stories talking about it, and we have documentaries, we have news stories,' Trump said. 'It has to be responded to.' 'There is no genocide' Ramaphosa mostly sat expressionless during the video presentation, occasionally craning his neck to look at the screen. He said he had not seen the material before and that he would like to find out the location. Trump then displayed printed copies of articles that he said showed white South Africans who had been killed, saying 'death, death' as he flipped through them, eventually handing them to his counterpart. Ramaphosa said there was crime in South Africa, and the majority of victims were black. Trump cut him off and said: 'The farmers are not black.' Ramaphosa responded: 'These are concerns we are willing to talk to you about.' The South African president cited Mandela's example as a peacemaker, but that did not move the US president, whose political base includes white nationalists. The myth of white genocide in South Africa has become a rallying point for the far right in the US and elsewhere. 'I will say: apartheid, terrible,' Trump noted. 'This is sort of the opposite of apartheid.' The extraordinary exchange, three months after Trump and vice president JD Vance upbraided Ukraine's Zelensky inside the same Oval Office, could prompt foreign leaders to think twice about accepting Trump's invitations and risk public embarrassment. Unlike Zelensky, who sparred with Trump and ended up leaving early, the South African leader kept his calm, praising Trump's decor – the president has outfitted the Oval Office with gold accessories – and saying he looked forward to handing over the presidency of the Group of 20 next year. Trump declined to say whether he would attend the G20 meeting in South Africa in November. Later in the meeting, Rupert, the business tycoon, stepped in to back up Ramaphosa, saying that crime was a problem across the board and many black people were dying too. Following the meeting, Ramaphosa sought to focus on trade, telling reporters the two countries had agreed to discuss critical minerals in South Africa. His trade minister said the government had submitted a trade and investment proposal that included buying liquefied natural gas from the US. But the president also flatly denied Trump's allegations about a wave of racial violence against white farmers. 'There is just no genocide in South Africa,' he said.
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Clashed With South Africa's President
President Trump's sit-down today with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa briefly resembled Oval Office meetings of an earlier era. The leaders exchanged a handshake and cordial pleasantries. Ramaphosa even brought along a couple of pro golfers whom he knew the American leader would like. But Trump and his aides had prepared an extraordinary ambush. In front of the television cameras, the president dimmed the lights and played a video that he cited as evidence of racial persecution of white South Africans. Trump then went on to repeatedly make claims of land seizures and mass killings of white farmers in Ramaphosa's country. With the stunned South African president looking on, Trump flipped through printouts that he said proved his narrative: 'Death, death, death,' the president said. Trump's claims were false. Police statistics show that white South Africans are not killed at a higher rate than others in the country. South Africa approved a plan similar to eminent domain in the U.S., which Trump has used to take land. Ramaphosa tried to gently explain the situation in South Africa to the president, but Trump was unmoved. Our White House correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs said it 'was a stark example of a foreign leader essentially trying to give a reality check to Trump, who instead amplified fringe theories.' For context: The meeting came about a week after the Trump administration welcomed as refugees a group of white South Africans who claimed they had been persecuted in their home country. Zolan and John Eligon, our Johannesburg bureau chief, explained in this video what led to this moment. For more: Sign up for our On Politics newsletter. My colleague Jess Bidgood will have inside details from the remarkable meeting later tonight. Judge said U.S. had violated court order with deportations A federal judge in Boston said today that the Trump administration had violated a court order by giving a group of eight migrants little more than 24 hours' notice before deporting them to a country that most of them were not from. Lawyers for the migrants said the men had been told they were being sent to South Sudan, a violence-plagued country that the U.S. advises against visiting. For now, their flight has landed in the east African nation of Djibouti. The judge, a Biden appointee, said the short notice was 'plainly insufficient' in allowing the men an opportunity to object to their removal. In one of the strongest judicial rebukes the administration has faced, he asked for a list of names of people involved so he could notify them that they might face criminal contempt penalties. Justice Dept. ended oversight of local police in several cities The Trump administration said today that it was planning to abandon efforts to force police reforms in several cities, including Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky. Justice Department officials said the federal oversight, which the cities had agreed to after incidents of police violence, cost too much and lasted too long. In other news from Washington: OpenAI united with the designer of the iPhone OpenAI, the world's leading artificial intelligence lab, announced today that it was paying $6.5 billion to buy IO, a 1-year-old start-up created by Jony Ive, the former Apple executive who designed the iPhone. After the deal, OpenAI's largest to date, Ive and his team will be tasked with making hardware that helps people better interact with A.I. More top news A Times investigation found that, for years, Russia had been using Brazil as a launchpad for its most elite spies, known as illegals. To build the perfect cover, the intelligence officers would shed their Russian pasts and assume Brazilian identities. They started businesses, made friends and had love affairs. Read the full investigation, and see texts between two deep-cover spies we obtained. Morgan Wallen's new album is a despondent self-portrait It seems as if the more melancholy the country superstar Morgan Wallen becomes, the more successful he gets, our critic Jon Caramanica wrote. The singer's new album, 'I'm the Problem,' is almost unrelentingly tragic. And it's already on track to become one of the most commercially successful releases of the year. The album is mostly without the playful hip-hop-informed tunes of earlier Wallen releases. Instead, a new generation of singers — you could call them Wallen's protégés — have used that framework with repeated success. A chocolate cake with an added bonus Deservingly or not, vegan desserts often have a bad reputation: dry, dense and unexciting. That can make switching to a more climate-friendly, plant-based diet hard. But Nora Taylor, a Portland-area baker, showed that it doesn't have to be that way. Her vegan chocolate cake recipe, which uses applesauce and apple cider vinegar, has fans across the country. It even helped convince my colleague Cara Buckley to commit to plant-based eating. Dinner table topics Cook: This harissa Bolognese is made from start to finish in one roasting pan. Snack: Sausage rolls, England's favorite pastries, are better than ever. Watch: 'Pernille' is an endearing Norwegian dramedy. Tend: Embrace abundance in your garden with these expert tips. Wear: Our fashion critic has advice for making sense of the latest trends. Save: Memorial Day discounts are arriving. Wirecutter is tracking the best deals. Play: Here are today's Spelling Bee, Wordle and Mini Crossword. Find all our games here. The fuzzy blue alien who's everywhere It's been more than two decades since Disney released 'Lilo & Stitch.' But the presence of Stitch, a destructive but adorable blue alien, has only grown. There's a Stitch clothing line, Stich yogurt, Stitch dog toys and a cottage industry of TikTokers who show off their latest Stitch-centric items. He's become one of Disney's most popular characters, and one of the studio's most bankable, along with classics like Winnie-the-Pooh and Mickey Mouse. The arrival this week of a live-action 'Lilo & Stitch' remake promises a whole new wave of Stitch merchandise. Have a lovable evening. Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow. — Matthew Laurence Tan was our photo editor. We welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@
