SOUTH AFRICA – South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has moved to defuse a row with the new US administration over a new land law by speaking to Elon Musk. Mr Musk is a close adviser to US President Donald Trump, who on Sunday threatened to cut all future funding to South Africa over allegations that it was confiscating land and “treating certain classes of people very badly”.

The South Africa-born tech billionaire joined in the criticism asking on X why Ramaphosa had “openly racist ownership laws”. Ramaphosa’s office said that in the call to Mr Musk the president “reiterated South Africa’s constitutionally embedded values of the respect for the rule of law, justice, fairness and equality”. Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law a bill that allows land seizures without compensation in certain circumstances. Land ownership has long been a contentious issue in South Africa with most private farmland owned by white people, 30 years after the end of the racist system of apartheid. (BBC)