South Africa lockdown relaxed but trust in government still hard hit by corruption

Thousands of troops have been deployed to South Africa's flood-ravaged KwaZulu-Natal province where residents are still searching for the missing more than a week after torrential rains began.

The imprisonment and political exclusion of former President Lula da Silva was a violation of his rights, the UN has said. Lula is currently leading in polls for October's presidential election.

Four Argentine friends will cycle 10,500 kilometres from South Africa to Qatar to support their country at the World Cup in November, an initiative that will also lead to 10,500 new trees being planted in their homeland.

While the official threshold for a COVID wave has not yet been reached, South Africa is facing a surge of infections driven by omicron sub-variants.

The latest installment in a scathing report into the presidency of former South African leader Jacob Zuma says that he played a critical role in the plunder of state entities. About 880 million euros worth of contracts for the Eskom power utility are thought to have been shadily awarded.

Cyril Ramaphosa was widely seen as the saving grace of South Africa's ruling ANC party when he became president in 2018. But his credibility with the working class and the poor is falling.

After struggling through the early years of the pandemic to get enough Covid 19 vaccinations, Africa's first factory to produce the doses says it may have to stop because it hasn't had enough orders. A former Congolese policemen gets a death sentence for murdereing a rights activist in 2010. And sanctions on Mali have hit Senegalese neighbouring towns. Within one month of the embargo exports to Mali have fallen by close to a quarter.

The egg-sized white diamond was sold for $21.75 million at Christie's in Geneva. It was billed as the largest of its kind to go under the hammer.

After struggling through the early years of the pandemic to get enough Covid-19 vaccinations, Africa's first factory to produce the doses says it may have to stop because it hasn't had enough orders. Also, a former Congolese policemen gets a death sentence for murdering human rights activist Floribert Chebeya in 2010. And sanctions on Mali have hit neighbouring towns in Senegal. Within one month of the embargo, exports to Mali have fallen by close to a quarter.

Semakaleng Mathebula is South Africa's first Black hot air balloon pilot and one of few women participating in the niche sport, which traditionally has been the domain of the white and privilege.

Shanghai eases a range of COVID curbs after a two-month lockdown. Meanwhile, North Korea reports more than 90,000 new "fever" cases. DW has the latest.

President Kais Saied issued the order with a list of judges to be dismissed, accusing them of corruption and stalling terrorism cases. Critics have blasted the dismissals as an "affront" to judicial independence.