Laura Wolvaardt did South Africa proud in India on Sunday night. If you don’t follow cricket, Sunday was the final of the Women’s World Cup and Wolvaardt captains the team. India won in the end, but Wolvaardt’s 101, as wickets tumbled around her, was an epitome of leadership. Indian crowds are always very expert, and the roar when she was finally dismissed was a statement of respect for the South African heroine.

Not so proud were South Africa’s spies, who were caught running a disinformation campaign stigmatising Afrikaners for South Africa’s trade troubles in America. The campaign was designed to shore up support for South Africa’s appalling foreign policy and its reluctant efforts to secure a trade deal in Washington. That a group of Afrikaner “leaders” had signed up to front the campaign shows just how gullible people can be when the reward is pleasing the government. The state, suitably, thanked them for their service (although rumours that the ringleaders are also in line to receive the Hero of Socialist Labour award, have likely been exaggerated).

South Africa’s trade negotiators are hoping that the United States (US) Supreme Court will find against Trump’s tariffs. A case to that effect has been brought. Two lower courts have found against the tariffs. An interesting study shows that the US Supreme Court has tended to shift its perspective over time as the dominant ideas in America have shifted. The courts that found against the tariffs had strong liberal majorities. The Supreme Court has a conservative majority. None of this is to say that the courts are corrupt, just that judges are human and that the law evolves.

It would be so much easier if, instead of spooky hijinks and desperate hopes, Pretoria put national interest first, stopped fronting for the world’s most corrupt administrations, made clear that market value would apply in the event of an expropriation, and stopped using black economic empowerment laws to tax capital in order to feed corrupt patronage networks. Like the naïve Afrikaners who fronted the letter disinformation operation, it is incredible that some people still think the government pursues these policies out of a sense of moral good.

Trump is onto something with his comments on the persecution of Christians in Africa. The terror that hundreds of thousands of African Christians are subjected to every year really is appalling. Thousands are killed for their faith and their churches burned. The people doing the killing are Islamist terrorists seeking to establish caliphates in Africa. The extent of the problem is so great that Africa has become the epicentre of the global terror threat. Westerners have for years pretended not to know what was going on, because in woke Western culture the killing of black people only matters when whites are doing it. The opportunity for America is that, in speaking and acting in defence of Africa’s Christians, its relationship with Africa could be redefined — from old tropes about race and Western colonialism to a new narrative about shared civilisational values.

Is Mr Ramaphosa going to resign? His office certainly wants the country to wonder about that, which is why they leaked the idea. Maybe he’s just tired of it all and wants to exit. It cannot be fun being surrounded by such failure all the time. He’s crashed the support levels of the African National Congress (ANC) to almost half of what he inherited from Jacob Zuma eight years ago, and by his own reckoning his limited reform efforts have failed. Many of his party peers are worried about what is coming out of the Madlanga Commission and would like the flow of revelations to be halted. But it is still not clear that the ANC has a better alternative to lead the party. His cabinet clique would fear losing their power and influence if he goes. Some key people in the ANC prefer the idea of running a minority government, others doing a deal with the uMkhonto weSizwe Party and the Economic Freedom Fighters. Most likely this is just more spin and drama signifying little. Whatever happens, even if he stays a year or two longer, the downward trajectory of his party seems likely to continue.

South Africa’s global ties are truly astonishing. By the time you read this, Zohran Mamdani will likely have been elected as the Mayor of New York City – the first time a socialist who hates America has held that job. In his formative years, Mamdani attended St George’s Grammar School in Cape Town.

Stats SA says South Africa’s birth rate is falling. That’s odd. Birth rates should fall as living standards rise. That’s not been the case in South Africa, where living standards have slipped for the better part of a decade. Did Covid scramble the data? That’s possible, as registration data got all out of whack during the pandemic. The Stats SA data show women are delaying having children. It’s all a bit of a mystery.