Friday Briefing: A Deadly Fire in South Africa

South Africa’s deadliest residential hearth in years

At least 74 folks, together with a dozen kids, died yesterday in a fireplace in Johannesburg that tore by means of a constructing the place squatters lived, metropolis officers stated. It was one of many deadliest residential fires in South Africa’s historical past.

My colleague Lynsey Chutel, who covers Johannesburg, arrived on the scene shortly after the hearth broke out. “There was a real sense of chaos,” she stated. “You could see people sitting on the sidewalk looking confused, looking helpless.”

A Johannesburg metropolis councilman, who oversees public security, stated that when he arrived on the constructing, folks have been leaping out of home windows to flee. (See why the residence was a firetrap.)

The constructing, as soon as a authorities checkpoint for Black employees throughout apartheid, was most lately a ladies’s shelter, earlier than the nonprofit group that ran it ended its operations there. The constructing is certainly one of many which might be deserted in Johannesburg and which were hijacked by prison gangs, who accumulate lease however don’t present any companies, turning them into vertical slums, Lynsey stated.

President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the location of the hearth yesterday and vowed to crack down on such criminals. “It’s a wake-up call for us to begin to address the situation of housing in the inner city,” he stated.

The hearth is a vivid illustration of a political disaster that has resulted in a extreme lack of reasonably priced housing in Johannesburg.

Lynsey visited the constructing in May, whereas reporting on the chaotic state of town, and located piles of trash and wires hanging from the constructing. “This was a tinderbox,” she instructed me.

“There have been more and more episodes like this in the city because of the political paralysis, because of years of corruption, and Johannesburg seems to be falling apart,” she stated.

“You feel it when you walk in the streets,” Lynsey added. “The city has been let down over the last few years. There’s a real sadness and a sense of frustration.”

The U.S. resists requires extra Taliban contact

The world braced for a human rights nightmare in Afghanistan after the U.S. left the nation to Taliban rule two years in the past. According to worldwide observers, that has come true, with the federal government finishing up revenge killings, torture and abductions, in addition to denying jobs and training to Afghan ladies.

But features of Taliban rule have modestly shocked some U.S. officers. Taliban leaders have met President Biden’s high precedence for the nation — counterterrorism. The Taliban have helped to carry again Al Qaeda, whereas additionally battling an area department of the Islamic State.

Still, that has not been sufficient to steer Biden to revive any U.S. assist to the nation. Some officers and analysts stay deeply mistrustful, fearing that the Taliban are merely containing Al Qaeda within the quick time period to keep away from frightening the U.S.

China’s disinformation is fueling anger over Fukushima water

China has mounted a marketing campaign to unfold disinformation concerning the security of Japan’s launch of handled radioactive water — which the Chinese authorities has known as “nuclear-contaminated wastewater” — from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant into the ocean.

Scientists have stated that Japan’s launch of water would have a really low impact on human well being or the atmosphere. But in accordance with a tech start-up that helps counter disinformation, social media posts mentioning Fukushima by Chinese state media, officers or pro-China influencers have elevated by an element of 15 for the reason that starting of the 12 months. Experts say China is in search of to sow doubts about Japan’s credibility.

The variety of folks sentenced to dying within the U.S. annually has declined over the previous 20 years, however the prisoners on dying row languish there far longer, as much as 20 years.

To deal with the isolation, the prisoners spend time in quest of escape, one thing to ease the racing ideas or the crushing regrets. For a bunch of males on dying row in Texas, the fantasy sport Dungeons & Dragons has develop into a lifeline.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Have we reached ‘peak China’?

We dwell in an period of many peaks. If commentators have it proper, we now have reached peak TV, peak avocado, peak fish — even peak peak. Now China is getting the height therapy in political science circles and the news media.

“Peak China” refers back to the hotly debated idea that China has reached the peak of its financial energy. The time period started making its manner into headlines in 2021 and has been broadly adopted in tutorial debates concerning the trajectory that China will take.

But Ian Bremmer, founding father of the Eurasia Group, a political danger consulting firm, says he believes that the idea that China’s finest days are behind it’s “ideologically freighted” and that it’s untimely to make use of the phrase. The debate continues.

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