For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Thabi Shomolekae.

Making headlines: South Africa still committed to coal, and to upgrading the national grid; South Africa to offer Musk Starlink deal before Trump meeting; And, Tanzanian police arrest foreign activists supporting detained opposition leader

South Africa still committed to coal, and to upgrading the national grid

South African Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has reaffirmed the country’s commitment to coal-based energy. He was delivering the keynote address at the Enlit Africa 2025 conference, being held at the Cape Town International Convention Center today.

He said South Africa is sitting on significant coal reserves and that the country would not abandon it.

South Africa was seeking to add new forms of electricity generation to its already existing ones. The country had classified coal as a critical mineral. But he also assured that the country recognised its environmental obligations and that it would meet these.

He said South Africa has an emissions problem, not a coal problem.

A major issue hanging over the electricity sector was the R100-billion owed to national electricity utility Eskom by municipalities. The government, Ramokgopa assured, was working to resolve this.

South Africa to offer Musk Starlink deal before Trump meeting

Meawhile, South Africa’s government plans to offer Elon Musk a workaround of local Black ownership laws for his Starlink internet service to operate in the country, aiming to ease tensions with both the billionaire and US President Donald Trump.

The offer will come at a last-minute meeting planned for tonight between Musk or his representatives and a delegation of South African officials travelling with President Cyril Ramaphosa, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

Sources said it’s meant to defuse the onslaught of criticism by Musk and Trump — who’ve spread the conspiracy theory that there’s a genocide against White people in South Africa — before Ramaphosa’s visit to the White House.

The alternative to so-called Black Economic Empowerment laws that in some cases require 30% Black ownership is not specific to Starlink and Musk, the sources said. It would be applied to all information and communication technology companies, including those from China and the Middle East.

A so-called Equity Equivalent option would instead involve investments in infrastructure or training, or providing Starlink kits to rural areas in order to help improve Internet access. The auto industry in 2019 signed up for a similar workaround that involved the largest car manufacturers setting up a fund to bring disenfrachised groups into the sector.

And, Tanzanian police arrest foreign activists supporting detained opposition leader

Tanzanian police have arrested prominent human rights activists from Kenya and Uganda who had travelled to Dar es Salaam to observe a hearing in the treason case against detained opposition leader Tundu Lissu, an advocacy group said.

Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi and Ugandan lawyer Agather Atuhaire went to Tanzania to attend Lissu's first court appearance yesterday in a case that has spotlighted a growing crackdown on opponents of President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

The chief spokesperson for Tanzania's Immigration Services Department, Paul Mselle, said he was not aware of Mwangi and Atuhaire's arrests, but would look into it.

Spokespeople for the government and police did not immediately respond to news requests for comment.

Mwangi and Atuhaire were being held at the central police station in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition said in a statement.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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