W-what does the report card say on Hichilema, and who is contesting him in this election?

You know, initially everyone kind of thought, well, this is, uh, HH, that's what his, his sort of his supporters call him.

Um, this is HH's election to lose because he has delivered, um, some measure of economic progress, particularly in and around the mining sector.

But as the campaign has gone on, um, our reporters at, at, at rallies have sort of said, "Well, the public mood is actually ...

It doesn't look like it's in HH's favor." Um, and there's been a really strong campaign run by opposition candidate Brian, um, Brian Mondubile.

And I think the core problem that HH is facing is economics.

It's about the price of goods, the cost of living.

And let's finally go to Mali now, where Russian mercenaries bomb a village in Mali that they were supposed to be protecting.

The accidentally leaked spreadsheet that revealed how Rwanda conducts influence operations online.

well lester this was a bit of a crazy story um you know how when you set up a a web page there's a setting to either keep the web page private or to make it public to the whole wide world well somebody inside the rwandan government um picked the wrong setting and instead of uh keeping their spreadsheet with paid influences uh secret um it was released to the public for anyone who knew where to look for the link we had a source who was able to um send it in our direction and after some investigating we've been able to kind of uncover a little bit of what rwanda's online death information operations look like of course you'll be very um familiar with the public face of Rwanda's PR campaign.

It's on the Arsenal, well, used to be on the Arsenal shirt, the Visit Rwanda logo.

But there's also a much more subtle online influence campaign where paid influencers who do not disclose that they are paid by the Rwandan government are trying to push certain narratives to shape the narrative in one direction or another.

It's a fascinating story.

And it is, of course, probably sort of emblematic of how a lot of governments these days go about trying to own the media space.

And then finally, the mass border crossing at Ceuta, which is essentially a Spanish colonial outpost in the northern tip of Africa.

know lester it's not just any colonial outpost it is the original colonial outpost so in the 1400s the portuguese landed in sweater that this was the first one of the first places in africa that european powers were able to uh seize it was also i believe the first place that slaves were purchased by european powers from the african continent setting in motion um uh the whole era of imperialism and slavery that followed so sweater has deep symbolic historical resonance and what happened there over the weekend is that some 60 000 moroccans um were able to go across the border from morocco into sweater um 67 people died during that um many of them were were swimming around the sort of border outcrops to get into Sueta in the mistaken belief that they would be able to go onwards into Spain once they were in Sueta.

Um, your cover story is about militias that are keeping Togo's p- president in power.

You know, our, our neighbor, Eswatini, is often referred to as the last absolute monarchy in Africa, but I think perhaps Togo, um, might have a claim to that.

Um, Faure Gnassingbé has been in power for 21 years.

Um, his dad was in power for a few decades before then, and last year, President Gnassingbé, uh, engineered a constitutional coup to remove term limits and allow him to stay in charge.

Now, while that was initially reported as, uh, a relatively peaceful coup, The Continent has investigated and been able to confirm reports that actually there was a lot of violence that went along with it.

Um, opposition members sort of detained, beaten, um, activists taken from their homes, um, and yeah, a lot of violence committed in the, uh, interest of keeping a president in power for longer.

An American company just got approval to put a, a giant mirror in space to reflect sunlight back to Earth, and astronomers fear their plans will destroy our ability to see stars on Earth.

Yes.

That's the, the situation outside the Malawian Consulate in Johannesburg.

Yes.

So Lester, I was there last night.

Uh, the Malawian Consulate is in Woodmead, um, which is a nice suburb in northern Johannesburg.

And outside the consulate on the grass, there are about 2,000 Malawians.

Um, they have come from all over Gauteng and parts of the Free State.

Most have been chased out of their homes.

But I think the sheer scale of humanitarian crisis this time around in 2026 i- is, is, is quite large, particularly if we're trying to, if we're trying to imagine the sheer scale of people trying to move and leave this country with, with, with very little help coming from, from whatever quarter besides civil society and the NGOs, Simon.

What are their reasons? Are they the same? So these

are the three Sahel countries that have kind of formed their own alliance, the Association of Sahel States.

They are all led by military junters, and none of them are recognizing the court's jurisdiction over any crimes they may or may not have committed on their territories.

That being said, it takes a year to leave the International Criminal Court.

So the court still does have jurisdiction, but...

There's another worrying sign for the court.

It's not just these three withdrawals that have put it in the spotlight recently, but also the conduct of its chief prosecutor, Kareem AA Khan.

Let's move on to something else.

Do you think Bafana knew that when they did the charter? You know, we're unsure.

We have...

Let me backpedal.

I was watching the footage of Bafana Bafana arriving in Mexico City, you know, all in their team kits, feeling a bit of the .

And suddenly I noticed the plane that they had chartered to get there was by an airline called Omni Air International.

And that rang a few bells.

So I did a bit of research and sure enough, Omni Air International is one of the favorite airlines used by ICE in America, that's the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to deport migrants from the United States.

You know,

Simon, you have the floor.

So this was quite an extraordinary and surreal moment where the lights go dim in the Oval Office and suddenly this, uh, screen starts showing these images and the, the, the audio comes in and everyone's looking.

Um, and for South Africans watching, you know, we're very familiar with that particular bit of audio, with those images, because they have been a hugely contentious subject in our own politics.

The man who you saw speaking in those videos, a man by the name of Julius Malema, he is a firebrand politician.

He grew up within the ruling party, the ANC, but he left, um, quite a while ago now to start his own party, the Economic Freedom Fighters.

So when he was making those comments, he was an opposition party member.

He was not part of government.

Go on.

Mm-hmm.

There's no accident that South Africa has been leading the charges of genocide against Israel, um, at the ICJ, the International Court of Justice.

That's because for many years, South African leaders have been saying, "Hey, what's happening in Israel-Palestine, that reminds us of apartheid.

Um, we know what that looks like.

Um, our alarm bells are ringing." And I think that we are seeing...

You know, those same alarm bells are starting to ring now with some of the policies, um, that we are seeing coming out of the United States.

Um, this being an obvious example, you know, making up, um, a genocide against white people, um, fast-tracking a bunch of white farmers, providing a private plane for them to come to America.

Can you please explain what's going on and talk about the Expropriation Act? What is it?