Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer.

Biden’s team shared a statement on Sunday that the former president was experiencing “increasing urinary symptoms” ahead of his diagnosis, which was characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (grade group 5) with “metastasis to the bone.”

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management. The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” the statement said.

JOE BIDEN DIAGNOSED WITH ‘AGGRESSIVE FORM’ OF PROSTATE CANCER WITH METASTASIS TO THE BONE

Biden’s ranking of 9 on the Gleason scale, a grading system for prostate cancer severity, has sparked concerns, as it correlates with high-grade cancer.

Dr. Arpeet Shah, a urologist with Associated Urological Specialists in Illinois, explained in an interview with Fox News Digital how the grading system indicates the aggressiveness of the disease.

“It’s based on what the cancer cells look like under a microscope – specifically, how different they look from normal prostate cells,” he said. (Shah was not involved in Biden’s care.)

PROSTATE CANCER CASES SPIKE IN THIS US STATE AS DOCTORS SHARE LIKELY REASON

Pathologists assign two numbers from 1 to 5, based on the most common and second-most common patterns present in the tissue.

The lower the grade, the more normal the cancer cells look, according to Cleveland Clinic.

Descriptions of the grades are listed below.

Grade 1 – Cancer cells look like normal cells.

Grades 2 to 4 – Cancer cells in the tissue look less like normal cells.

Grade 5 – Cancer cells look very abnormal.

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health

The largest areas with cancer are graded and then added together to determine a Gleason score, which typically ranges from 6 to 10.

“The higher the score, the more aggressive the cancer is likely to be,” Shah said.

Below is a breakdown of Gleason score ranges.

Gleason score of 6: Cancer is low-grade and slow-growing.

Gleason score of 7: Cancer is intermediate and more likely to grow or spread over time.

Gleason score of 8 to 10: Cancer is high-grade and may need more aggressive treatment.

The system is “one of the key tools” experts use to “help guide treatment decisions and to have meaningful conversations with patients about their options,” Shah commented.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR HEALTH NEWSLETTER

“It’s important to highlight the importance of ‘early’ here,” he said. “Had President Biden undergone regular prostate cancer screening with a PSA blood test and digital rectal exam, his diagnosis might have been detected sooner.”

In an appearance on “The Big Weekend Show” on Sunday, Fox News medical contributor and board-certified radiologist Dr. Nicole Saphier noted that much like breast cancer, prostate cancer comes in different forms and can be treated “very differently” per case.

Saphier confirmed that Biden’s metastasized cancer is stage 4, which “significantly” decreases the chance of survival.

“No two cases are exactly the same,” she said. “But the one good thing that they did mention about President Biden’s case is that it’s hormone-sensitive.”

This form can be treatable through surgery or medication that will stop the testosterone production that fuels cancer growth.

“[Stage 4] is the worst-case scenario when you’re talking about cancer, but we have so many treatments these days that you can actually live for quite a long time with stage 4 cancers,” Saphier said.

“In his case, because it is hormone-sensitive, there are treatment methods,” she continued. 

“It’s never going to cure him. He’s never not going to have stage 4 cancer. But he could get to the point where he has no evidence of disease or certain no progression of disease. And at this point, that’s what our goal is.”

Fox News’ Stepheny Price and Peter Doocy contributed to this report.

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema says none of the Afrikaners who left South Africa for the United States last week under refugee status are farmers, but instead appeared to be “car guards”.

Malema made the remarks while addressing scores of EFF supporters outside the Union Buildings on Monday ahead of a march to the treasury.

He said anyone who had ties with the 49 Afrikaners should provide their addresses so that their status as farmers could be verified. 

“We don’t have a problem. People left voluntarily, we are just asking for the addresses of those farms that they left. We will make a plan for them. We cannot allow for land not to be used.

“If they are real farmers, why is the media not giving us the list of the farms that were left by farmers who went to America? Nothing looked like a farmer among those people. They looked like car guards.”

The extension of refugee status to Afrikaners was done by US president Donald Trump earlier this year. The policy has also been extended to other minorities in South Africa who could show “either a history of persecution or a credible fear of future persecution”. 

Since his first term in office, Trump has maintained that Afrikaner farmers are being attacked because of their race. He has, on several occasions, referred to white farmers as being victims of “genocide”. 

Farm killings remain an emotive topic in the country, which is riddled with excessive levels of violent crime. 

In March, the constitutional court, South Africa’s apex court, refused AfriForum leave to appeal against a supreme court ruling that the song “kill the boer” does not constitute hate speech. 

The song is often sung by Malema – who has made inflammatory remarks about white and Indian South Africans – at EFF gatherings. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to meet Trump on Wednesday where, among other things, the notion of “white genocide” and Afrikaner persecution are expected to be discussed. 

Speaking to journalists on Saturday, Ramaphosa said there was no genocide in South Africa, a fact that was borne out by evidence. 

He told the journalists that the two trading partners would be talking trade. 

“Just as he [ Trump] meets with other people and I also meet with other people, it’s state to state [and] we’re representing our people. We are going to have good discussions on trade,” he said.

Speaking to his party supporters on Monday, Malema said Ramaphosa would be disrespected in the US. 

“Those people know that there’s no white person being killed in South Africa, but they use it to make us change our policies.”

He said South Africans must reject the “propaganda”. 

Should there have been murders of white people because of their race or because they were farmers, those pushing the narrative would have been the first to leave, he said. 

“Why is [AfriForum chief executive Kallie] Kriel not going to America, because he is the one who claims that people are being killed? He must lead by example and go to America, [former AfriForum deputy chief executive Ernst] Roets must lead by example and go to America.”

“They can’t go because they live a very good life here. When they go to America, they are going to become hobos with immediate effect,” said Malema.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has argued in papers filed to the Pretoria high court that its ruling compelling him to submit his record of decision on assenting to the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act was flawed on 10 counts.

He is appealing the court’s order to hand over the record to the supreme court of appeal (SCA) but indicated that he would also appeal directly to the constitutional court by 27 May. Should the apex court grant him direct access, the president said he would not persist in his application to the SCA.

Ramaphosa argued that the high court made grave errors in law when, in a ruling handed down on 6 May  in favour of the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF), it held that his decision was reviewable and ordered him to hand over the record within 10 calendar days.

He advanced 10 grounds of review, including that the court lacked jurisdiction in the matter and erred in finding that his decision to sign the NHI Bill into law was reviewable. 

Because BHF alleged a failure by the president to fulfil his constitutional duty, Ramaphosa submitted, only the apex court could hear the matter because it alone has the power to determine whether that is so in terms of section 167(4)(e) of the Constitution.

His counsel had argued before the high court that the obligation imposed on the president in section 79 of the Constitution to assent to legislation was assigned only to himself, or an acting president in the case of his absence.

Therefore any breach of this obligation triggered the exclusive jurisdiction of the constitutional court.

They further argued that when deciding whether to assent to a law, the president was exercising a subjective discretion bestowed on him by section 79 of the Constitution. 

It was up to him to decide how he went about reaching his decision and an attempt to review this decision in court had significant implications for the separation of powers.

Allowing a high court review would also mean that any person who was unhappy with his decision to sign a Bill into law and had enough money to launch litigation could embark on a courtroom “fishing expedition” to find a flaw in his reasoning.

In this instance, the president’s lawyers argued, the BHF could not point to any reviewable lapse in the process he had followed, yet was trying to halt a legislative process designed to meet the healthcare needs of the whole country.

The BHF, which represents most private medical schemes in South Africa, had argued that Ramaphosa flouted his constitutional duty by failing to scrutinise the constitutionality of the NHI Bill.

It said he acted irrationally when he signed it into law on 15 May 2024 because he ignored submissions that pointed to the patent constitutional defects in the legislation. The BHF said section 79 did not give him untrammelled powers but compelled him to send the Bill back to parliament to remedy these.

The court found no merit in the president’s argument on the separation of powers, and said the step of assenting to a Bill was but part of a lawmaking process that was a  reviewable exercise in public power.

“The issue is whether the president has properly applied his mind as required by section 79 of the Constitution when he assented to and signed the NHI Bill after receiving all the objections to the constitutionality of the Bill from the stakeholders including his own legal advisers,” the court said.

“This cannot be said to be intruding into the domain of the principal legislative and executive organs of state which would bring the matter into the remit of the exclusive jurisdiction of the constitutional court.”

It held that a legislative process implies a shared obligation on the National Assembly, the National Council of Provinces and that hence, the case fell within the jurisdiction of the high court.

As to whether Ramaphosa’s decision was reviewable, the court said he exercised the power to sign Bills as a central part to a legislative process. And since all public power must be exercised within the bounds of legality, and this particular one within the constraints of section 79(1) of the Constitution, it was subject to legal review.

Ramaphosa challenged this in the application for leave to appeal filed last week.

“The court reasoned that the president’s obligations are not agent-specific and do not engage the exclusive jurisdiction of the constitutional court,” he submitted. “Respectfully, the court ought to have found the opposite.” 

The court was inconsistent, because on the one hand it said the case revolved around his duty, in terms of section 79, to scrutinise the constitutionality of the Bill, yet on the other that the “conduct which is challenged by the applicants in this case does not fall in the category of the president’s failures in fulfilling his constitutional obligations”.

Both could not be true at the same time. 

Nor could the court rightly find that assenting to a law was not “agent-specific” when only the president had the power to do so.

Furthermore, Ramaphosa submitted, the separation of powers was implicated because the function he performed in signing a Bill into law was not a legislative one.

“If it were, that would constitute a demonstrable incursion into the terrain of the legislature and breach the separation of powers.”

Ramaphosa argued that assenting to legislation was a politically sensitive matter, where it was left to the president to determine which considerations he had to bear in mind when fulfilling a particular obligation.

It meant “sensitive” not in a party political sense but in the context of separation of powers in that a court had to exercise “extreme caution in determining whether it is capable of second-guessing or assessing” his decision.

The high court had ignored a warning from the apex court, through case law, that in such matters, “which are by their very nature politically sensitive matters”, only it had jurisdiction.

The president signed the Bill into law a fortnight before last year’s general elections. Critics of the decision have said it was a populist move at a moment when it was clear to the ANC that it risked losing its majority.

The legislation has remained one of the main sources of friction in the unity government Ramaphosa assembled after his party won only 40% of the vote.

Listen to article

Watching the morning news on TV one morning last week, I was stopped mid-spoonful of cereal when a report came on about savings.

According to a study, it said, 1 in 10 people in the UK have zero savings.

I let my spoon fall back into my bowl and frowned – not because that figure seemed high and that I was saddened to hear that so many people had no savings at all, but because it seemed so low to me.

At 53, not only do I not have any savings now but I’ve never had any.

To me, having no savings is normal, and until that day, I’d presumed it was normal for most other people. How could I be so wrong?

Growing up in Sheffield, my mum worked in a betting office and my dad worked in the steel works and, from what I remember, that meant there was never much money around in our house.

We didn’t go on extravagant holidays and what money they did earn went on bills and food.

It wasn’t that they didn’t save by choice, it was that they physically couldn’t.

I never questioned this: Most of my friends were in the same boat in their families too, so it was hardly unusual. It was just how we lived.

But the thing is, as a child, I had all the hallmarks of a natural saver.

When my brother and I received money as a Christmas present, even when we were as young as 10 years old, he would blow all of his in half an hour, the money burning a hole in his pocket.

I, meanwhile, was cautious, weighing up every potential frivolous purchase on records and magazines wondering ‘do I really need this?’ and preferring to save mine.

As I got older, though, I found it harder and harder to stick to this. Not because I suddenly became irresponsible with my money, rather my responsibilities left me with little to spare.

At age 17 I moved into a one bedroom flat with my then-boyfriend and we quickly grew used to living paycheck to paycheck.

As this was all I’d ever seen from my parents, and because I was used to living in a household with no surplus cash at the end of the month, it wasn’t a big deal to me. We made sure our bills were paid, we bought food, maybe went to the pub once or twice, but that was usually it until the next payday. 

Even if we had only a pound left at the end of the month – yes, sometimes it really was just £1 – I dealt with it by buying a loaf of bread and living on toast for the next 24 hours.

To me this was perfectly reasonable. If anything, I thought I was doing well.

Years later, when I met the man who would become my husband, the topic of savings came up once again.

We’d decided we wanted to buy a small starter home for which we needed a small deposit of £5k (this was the 90s) but my lack of savings made that a challenging target. 

Luckily, we were able to borrow most from our parents and put a little of our salaries in too (probably £1k in total) and managed to cobble it together and begin our first mortgage after six months.

It was a modest house but the monthly payments, bills and food still took up most of my money.

Yes, we went on holidays – usually paid for on a credit card and paid off monthly. We never missed a payment (and I never have) yet I still had nothing left over. Nothing to put aside for a rainy day.

This continued for years and I always felt comforted by the fact that family and friends were in the same situation.

My neighbour once told me casually that she’d maxed out her credit card and had nowhere left to turn if anything went wrong in their house. My friends all lived month to month and never had any savings. It really did appear to be the norm.

Then, when I got divorced in 2011 and became a single mother, the thought of saving became even more of a fantasy.

Suddenly, small things like taking my kids to the seaside felt huge financially and I even considered putting a weekend away on my credit card.

When talking that particular issue over with my sister – whether I should really get into debt for a short holiday – she said: ‘You do what you have to do.’

And that’s how it’s always been for me – I do what I have to do to get by. 

Having debts instead of savings is much more normal to me, so to suddenly hear that only 1 in 10 people in the UK don’t have savings was quite startling. 

Do I just not know anyone with savings, or have they been keeping it quiet because they know I don’t have any? I don’t know what to think.

Saving seems like a distant, unobtainable dream for me and those around me. And with the cost of living crisis still in full force, it feels like it will always be impossible.

Yes, there are some small choices we all make – do I go out for a meal for my birthday or do I save that money? – but to me the answer is simple. Life is short and I’d rather go for the meal.

If I could save, I would, and I do hope one day I’ll be able to, but right now I don’t think any of us should feel guilty about being in a minority of people who can’t.

This isn’t a failure on our part. It’s just the reality of our everyday lives.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

They were wrapped in plastic or foil or a piece of clothing, tucked inside a backpack or pulled from a burnt pile of rubbish. Those were some of the ways the remains of newborns and foetuses were found before being taken to the Diepkloof Forensic Pathology Service in Soweto. 

Although discoveries like these rarely make the news, they are a regular occurrence. The bodies are found in open veld, public toilets and landfills across South Africa.

To help figure out why, researchers from Wits University gathered data about the remains that landed up at the Diepkloof facility from 2020 to 2021 and in 2023. They hope by tracking where the bodies were found and the causes of death, they will better understand why so many women take desperate measures instead of seeking legal and safe abortions. 

Studies show this is extremely rare in countries like Germany (150 cases over 15 years) or Denmark (11 cases over 12 years). Meanwhile, research published in 2014 in the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ) found about 1 658 cases in Mpumalanga and Gauteng alone from 2009 to 2011.

Of the 158 cases in the Diepkloof facility studied, 68 were found to be non-viable, which means they would not be able to survive outside of the mother; 29 were stillborn — when a foetus dies in the womb after 20 weeks of pregnancy. In a third of the cases, the cause of death couldn’t be determined because the bodies were severely mutilated or were too badly decomposed. 

The researchers — Rachel Gill, Roxanne Thornton and Shakeera Holland — believe the high number of non-viable cases could be linked to illegal abortions, something backed up by the SAMJ study.

Their initial findings point to a lack of information and education about abortion and inadequate medical care, which reproductive health specialists agree are the main reasons women are driven to unsafe abortion providers. 

In a recent episode of Bhekisisa’s monthly TV programme, Health Beat, we spoke to Holland, who heads up forensic medicine and pathology at Wits University and leads investigations of unnatural deaths in eight forensic pathology facilities in Gauteng — the busiest region in the country, which handles about 28% of all the unnatural death investigations in the country.

Mia Malan spoke to her at Soweto’s forensic pathology service facilities in Diepkloof. This interview was edited for clarity.

Mia Malan: How many abandoned foetuses and newborns are found?

Shakeera Holland: We don’t have accurate statistics about this because there is no digital database of unnatural deaths in the whole of South Africa. What we do know is that we have about 70 000 unnatural deaths in South Africa, and of those, we estimate that approximately 2% are abandoned neonates [newborns in the first few weeks of life] and foetuses.

MM: In the study you supervised at the mortuary, where were the remains of these abandoned foetuses and newborns found?

SH: The majority of the time, the remains are left where it is convenient, and probably where people think they won’t be found easily. So usually in open veld, landfills and dumping areas. It’s less common to find them in toilets in shopping centres and other public toilets. 

MM: Is there a difference in the number of female remains versus male remains?

SH: Most of the foetuses in our study were male. And most of our paediatric deaths happen to be more commonly in boys than girls — and this is what we see in international studies as well.

MM: What do your autopsies show? What are the causes of death? 

SH: The most common cause that we see are non-viable foetuses. This means that the foetuses haven’t completed sufficient time in the pregnancy for them to survive outside of the mother. 

We also see a lot of stillbirths. These are babies that have completed enough gestational time in the mother to be considered viable, but they’re not born deceased. In a minority of the causes we see trauma, and that can either be accidental or homicidal — but this is in very few cases.

MM: What are the most common causes of the trauma?

SH: A lot of the common causes are head injuries, and a few are related to suffocation, and we’ve maybe had one or two where there’s sharp force injury. For example, the foetuses or neonates have had their necks cut. 

MM: Why did you do the study? 

SH: We see these cases of abandoned neonates and foetuses every day. You see newspaper reports about these cases, but they make it seem as if they never happen. 

In fact, they are happening every single day. I had a student that was particularly passionate about the topic and wanted to look at what is exactly going on in this area, and hopefully spark research in other places, because we don’t know much about it. 

MM: So when a foetus or neonate lands here, what happens to it? 

SH: They undergo a medical and legal post-mortem examination, which includes an autopsy. That autopsy includes any investigations that are necessary to determine the cause and circumstances of death. Once that is completed, we compile a post-mortem report. 

That report then goes to the South African Police Service for further investigation, for them to decide whether or not there needs to be prosecution in this case and what happens to the remains. In foetuses that are less than 26 weeks the remains are discarded as medical waste. Neonates of 26 weeks and older are buried as paupers if nobody claims the remains, which means the state assumes the cost of the burial.

MM: Do you have enough doctors to conduct these autopsies?

SH: At present, our doctors are doing between 500 to 600 post-mortems per doctor per year. The ideal amount would be about 250 because we need to take into consideration that the process is not just doing autopsies. In fact, the doctor has to do the autopsy then compile a meticulous report that needs to stand up in court.

MM: We have more than 1 000 unemployed doctors in this country. Why can’t you use them?

SH: We do not have enough funded posts for doctors, even though we do have a lot of doctors who would like to come and work in our service.

MM: Have you got a specific policy intervention you’d like to see? 

SH: That’s exactly why we do these studies. We’re hoping that if we are able to shine a light on where the problems lie, we are able to give a basis for policy development to show where intervention is necessary. 

I think it’s very sad that the law provides for women as young as 12 to have access to contraception without parental consent if the child has a clear understanding of the process. But I feel like perhaps girls do not know enough about it, or they are not getting safe access to the service — and it’s the same with termination of pregnancy. So it’s a lack of knowledge perhaps, or perhaps it’s a lack of access for these young women.

This story is based on the Health Beat TV programme, “Why are thousands of babies dumped each year in SA instead of being safely aborted?,” which was broadcast on 29 March on eNCA. View the full programme on Bhekisisa’s YouTube channel. 

If you are seeking information about abortion services, Where to Care has a list of providers in South Africa, which is regularly updated. 

This story was produced by the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Sign up for the newsletter.

Generally, I am apprehensive of adaptations of foreign stories for local audiences — as if we don’t have pertinent stories of our own to tell. The crime thriller series Unseen on Netflix, however, is an exception due to its universal and contemporary themes. 

Adapted from the Turkish Netflix series Fatma, created by Özgür Önurme, Unseen returns for an explosive second season. 

This South African version follows domestic worker Zenzi as she continues her pursuit for justice and healing. Brilliantly portrayed by Gail Nkoane Mabalane, Zenzi is timid yet courageous, quiet but her trail of murders rings loudly in the underground world and in corporate corridors. 

In the first season, released in 2023 on the global streamer, we saw Zenzi losing loved ones due to being entangled in an intricate corruption scheme involving gangs in the Cape Town area, private bankers and the government. 

In this second season we not only see how deep corruption can go when private and public representatives collude, the story also goes deeper to explore Zenzi’s relations with her estranged sister, Naledi (Dineo Langa) and their shared grief. 

As in the first season, dead bodies, blood and tears flow throughout the six episodes, with Zenzi at the centre in her trademark outfit of a coat and hoodie.

Repurposed but relatable

What is it about this story that has got local and global audiences excited and binging in their homes? 

For award-winning production company Gambit Films, it is about telling such stories in a thrilling, but relatable, way. Having produced successful shows like Blood and Water, Nommer 37 and Suidooster, this Cape Town-based company has learned how to capture viewers with electrifying drama. 

Travis Taute, who produced and directed both seasons of Unseen, says it was an exciting experience for them to work on a story that most South Africans would be able to identify with. 

“The lead character is just a domestic lady, and I think that repurposing that, and telling that story through a South African perspective, just made all the sense in the world.”  

Taute adds that their aim at Gambit Films is to tell the most authentic story possible. “That is always our focus — story first and whatever comes after that, hopefully, if we’ve done our job right, the audience will respond accordingly.” 

What makes Unseen particularly enchanting is the universality of the themes. As a global society, we are all struggling with similar issues such as grief, survival, justice, strained relationships and corporate corruption. 

Taute adds: “I think just the entry point into the story, the perspective of the story being told from a domestic lady, was so interesting and refreshing. That’s the kind of thing that we feel like people really resonate and identify with. 

“So, hopefully, that’s the case with this season, too.” 

Creative producer Darren Joshua shares Taute’s sentiments on the growing popularity of the show with audiences. “To see the thousands of people posting about the show on social media, and talking about Zenzi like she’s someone that’s a friend of theirs who’s going through something, was brilliant.”

Survival and black women standing up to power

What further resonates with South African audiences is the theme of a black woman standing up for herself and her loved ones in a hostile, patriarchal society. In a country layered with toxic masculinity, from households to corporate skyscrapers, Zenzi’s pursuits make her a national hero to the unseen and voiceless. 

Many black women are in survival mode, due to an antagonistic environment that treats them like second-class citizens. Those in lower economic positions, like domestic workers, often black women, are seen as insignificant figures — “nobodies” in society.  

Joshua adds that the show’s title is on the nose for those reasons. “Zenzi is unseen and overlooked. And then she pulls into a world that you just haven’t seen before. I think that is the most attractive thing about this local show. 

“We wanted something that was just, suspenseful and propulsive.” 

However, viewers are challenged about whether Zenzi’s actions are justified as self-defence; accidental or intentional. 

In one scene, a character tells Zenzi: “Harden up lady, this place will eat you!” — a reminder of how ruthless the world can be for women. 

When a person is attacked without provocation, or in a dangerous situation, survival is a natural response, no matter what one’s standing in society. These kinds of situations thus lead to the, “We stay together. We fight. We survive,” mantras many women must use to get by in their daily lives. 

Stories about ordinary people seeking justice and healing will never get old in a violent country where many are silenced and rejected, particularly women and children. Though perhaps morally questionable, Zenzi does what some might have been driven to think of doing in the dark corners of their minds. Without healthy and safe spaces to offload anger, resentment and desperation can darken many hearts. 

The character of Zenzi speaks on behalf of those unfairly treated; she validates their ever-flowing tears and deep scars inflicted at the hands of the broken men in our society, be they in tailored suits or not. 

But Unseen does remind us that principled men do exist, such as Lufuno Ngezi (Mothusi Magano) and Detective Morkel (Waldemar Schultz), and even gangster Raymond Hendricks (Brendon Daniels) who eventually becomes Zenzi’s unlikely ally. 

Simon Beasely, the show’s executive producer, says starting out on any production one never knows where the story could end up. 

“The idea is you always try to make local for local and sort of any additional eyeballs are always a bonus. 

“It’s incredibly exciting and it’s hard to actually even predict where we’re going next. You think you have seen it all and then, all of a sudden, a new concept comes about and it blows everyone away.”  

Unseen season two is a seamless continuation from the first, with a stellar cast, great cinematography and haunting themes relevant to our times, particularly in South Africa. It is the story of an ordinary woman standing up to power and patriarchy with the extraordinary resolve and grit which has resonated with many viewers, locally and globally. 

Recently, 49 South Africans quietly packed their bags, boarded a flight and were granted asylum in the United States. Not because they were stateless, undocumented or fleeing war but because they said they no longer felt safe here. The world noticed, social media stirred and, for a moment, the actions of a few seemed to drown out the quiet resolve of the many.

Let’s be honest: “The 49” sounds less like a historical event and more like a failed sequel to District 9. It’s the kind of film that opens to empty cinemas and a few polite claps at a film festival in Iowa. And yet, somehow, it captured national headlines as if 49 people could declare the end of the South African dream.

But here’s the thing: South Africa didn’t stop when they left.

While we debated their reasons — fear, disillusionment, a longing for certainty — the streets were still swept, classrooms still opened, taxis still hooted and people, millions of them, still chose this place. They chose it not because it’s easy, but because it’s home.

Yes, life in South Africa can be hard. Really hard. We carry the weight of history, the burden of inequality and the daily grind of “making a plan” in the face of load-shedding, potholes, and policy limbo. But we also carry something else — something quietly extraordinary: a kind of stubborn hope; a belief, however battered, that things can be different; that they must be.

And still, despite all of it, people stay. People have stayed. Let’s not forget that when this country was at its worst, many were persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and killed not for what they feared might happen, but for what was happening. And yet they fought to make this place better, not for themselves alone but for generations they might never meet.

Even today, millions live under conditions far worse than those cited by the 49: townships with no running water; the “blokke” without real safety and security; households where hunger is a daily visitor. And yet, they stay. They build. They believe.

Meanwhile, one can only wonder what happens when Donald Trump finally accepts the truth that not all migrants come bearing casseroles and Calvinist charm? What will you, the 49, do when the red caps stop smiling and start asking hard questions about Orania, Afrikaans, and affirmative action — American style? The first sign that not all Americans are buying the persecution story has already arrived. Even the Episcopal Church, hardly known for turning away the weary, declined to assist. Because heritage doesn’t always come with a visa stamp. It lingers in your name, your accent, your Sunday habits. And it’s hard to explain your love for braai or sishanyama when nobody around you knows how to pronounce it.

I was reminded of this truth and beauty of our country in the back seat of an Uber, driven by a man from Rwanda who had every reason to run from his past. “This is the land of opportunity,” he said with a quiet conviction, “if you’re willing to see it.”

That stopped me in my tracks.

Because opportunity, like beauty, often lies in the eye of the beholder, and sometimes the privilege of living here blinds us to the very promise it still holds.

To those 49, I genuinely wish you well. Migration is as old as humanity and if your spirit truly finds peace on the other side of the world, I hope you thrive. But, let’s not crown your exit as noble resistance. Let’s not pretend that leaving is the same as leading.

Leadership looks different here. It looks like a teacher who stays behind after school. A nurse who still shows up an hour before her shift. A small business owner who keeps paying wages even when the books don’t balance. Leadership is the domestic worker who helps raise another family’s children while sending her own to school. It is the everyday commitment to stay and build, again and again.

What’s easy to forget especially when we fixate on who left is what they’ve walked away from. Not just the difficulties, but the beauty; the complex, messy, breathtaking beauty of this country. They’ve left behind mountain and mielie field, heartbreak and healing, struggle and song. They’ve left behind the very identity that made their ancestors trek into unknown lands, not to escape, but to create.

There’s a quiet dignity in staying; in staying when it would be easier to go; in choosing to love a country that doesn’t always love you back in the way you hoped. That’s not resignation. That’s courage.

So, to the millions who remain — black and white alike — thank you. You are the real story. You are not trending, but you are transforming. You are not fleeing, you are forging.

To the 49? No hard feelings. But just know: while you search for green pastures in someone else’s backyard, the soil here, though stubborn, is still rich with possibility. You just have to be willing to dig.

Dr Armand Bam is head of social impact at Stellenbosch Business School.

Trade union Solidarity has issued a letter of demand to Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, accusing her of defamation, intimidation and unconstitutional conduct in a series of public statements that it says were “false, harmful and insulting” and intended to damage its public standing. 

The letter outlines a set of grievances against Ntshavheni arising from statements she made during a media briefing on 27 March, and public statements she made on 13 May. Solidarity has given the minister seven days to retract her claims and issue an apology, or it will pursue legal action. 

Ntshavheni has accused Solidarity and civil rights group AfriForum of conducting a continued misinformation campaign involving farm murders and the persecution of minorities, and of peddling the same when the organisations were in the United States.  

Solidarity’s demand follows the departure of 49 Afrikaners to the US last week, after they were granted asylum. 

Their relocation was made in line with a policy under President Donald Trump’s administration, which allows Afrikaners and other racial minorities from South Africa to apply for refugee status if they can demonstrate “either a history of persecution or a credible fear of future persecution”. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to meet Trump in Washington on Wednesday as part of a working visit to the US.

Among the topics likely to be discussed is the narrative surrounding Afrikaner farmers — a subject Trump addressed in his first administration and his latest, claiming that they are victims of racial targeting and genocide. 

Solidarity’s letter describes Ntshaveni’s communiqué as defamatory, stating it implied that Solidarity had deliberately and maliciously spread falsehoods. 

On 13 May, Ntshaveni referred to Solidarity’s actions as “treasonous”, accusing the group of inciting foreign interference and undermining national sovereignty. She has confirmed in parliament that Solidarity and AfriForum are under investigation for treason, and has suggested regulating civil society groups.  

Solidarity said in its letter: “The tenor, placement, and language leave little doubt that the intention was to impute to our client conduct that is duplicitous and deliberately misleading.” 

The trade union, which represents more than 200 000 professionals, said it has never endorsed or used the term “white genocide”, nor misrepresented crime statistics about farm murders. 

Farm killings are an emotive topic in the country. In March, the constitutional court refused AfriForum leave to appeal against a supreme court ruling that the song “kill the boer” does not constitute hate speech. Various politicians have also chosen not to condemn it.

The song is often sung by Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema at his political rallies. Malema is also known for making inflammatory remarks about white and Indian South Africans.

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has repeatedly said that according to crime statistics, from October to December 2024, only one farm killing was recorded.

AfriForum, which has its own neighbourhood watch structures and has been recording farm murders for years – has disputed this, saying there were eight farm murders in those three months. The information has been submitted to Mchunu, after he challenged the organisation to do so. 

Solidarity said in its letter to Ntshavheni that it has consistently based its advocacy on publicly available data, handled with “due care” and “circumspection”.

The letter further claims that the government’s treatment of Solidarity illustrates a growing trend of hostility toward civil society organisations that critique state actions. It says such conduct contravenes a broad array of legal protections, both domestic and international.

Citing multiple constitutional rights — including freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly — as well as international agreements such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and several International Labour Organisation conventions, Solidarity insists that its rights have been violated.

“The continued reference to Solidarity’s advocacy, statistics, and international engagements as if they were tantamount to incitement, betrayal, or disinformation, is nothing less than an abuse of your public office,” the letter states.

The union’s attorneys have set a deadline of 21 May for the minister to comply with their demand, warning that failure to do so will result in legal action. 

Ntshaveni’s office said it would not respond to questions from the Mail & Guardian.

Many crops and their related value chains have shown dramatic progress in recent years. This should inspire further growth in this sector.

I often write about South Africa’s soybean success story, involving an increase from 67 700 tonnes in the 1993-94 production season to an expected 2.3 million tonnes in 2024-25. This, in turn, has been driven by an increase in the demand for high-protein food, particularly poultry products.

But soybeans aren’t the only winners in South Africa’s vegetable oils cluster. Canola is also an agricultural success story.

Since South African farmers planted the crop commercially on 17 000 hectares in 1998-99, the area has increased to an estimated 165 750 hectares in 2024-25. For the new season of 2025-26, the farmers plan to increase the area to 166 500 hectares.

Like soybeans, the catalyst behind the increase in canola plantings is a rise in domestic demand for, and use of, oils and oilcake. South Africa is now a net canola exporter, having recently exported to countries such as Germany and Belgium.

There has been a switch in traditional winter wheat and barley-growing areas to canola because of the firm demand and the price competitiveness. Canola is a winter crop, hence, production is primarily in the Western Cape, a winter rainfall region.

The farmers intend to plant 166 500 hectares, up by 0.5% from the previous season. If we assume relatively favourable weather conditions and a decent yield, applying a five-year average yield of 1 89 tonnes a hectare, South Africa looks set to harvest 314 685 tonnes, up 9% from the previous season. This could be a fresh high.

Admittedly, it is still too early to tell with certainty where the canola crop harvest will be and whether farmers will manage to plant the area they intend to. The key determinant will be the weather conditions. Fortunately, the weather has turned positive, promising some showers in the Western Cape in the last two weeks of May. Under this assumption, we can remain optimistic.

Putting the current weather forecasts aside, I think it’s fair to say that canola is one of the success stories of South African agriculture, belonging in the same category as the soybean industry and many of our fruits. 

From now on, the objective is to see increases in various commodities, such as canola, and general improvement in agriculture in the parts of the country that haven’t been part of the success story, like the former homelands.

But for that to materialise, we need coordinated support and effective collaboration between the government and business. The government will need to do its part to improve land governance, while leaning on commodity associations for support in unlocking the agricultural value of these regions at the periphery of South Africa’s agricultural achievers.

This is an important step, not only for crops and fruits, but also for livestock and the poultry industries, which are already the key value chains with better penetration in the former homelands regions. 

Again, as I have said several times, the effort to realise this ambition does not require new planting. We already have the Agriculture and Agro-processing Master Plan, which is broadly embraced by agricultural stakeholders and other social partners and was co-created by all.

The plan seeks to improve South Africa’s agriculture by unlocking various hindrances in key value chains and takes a commodity-specific approach. Importantly, it is also clear on what value chains could thrive in multiple regions. What is left is for it to be fully implemented.

My book, A Country of Two Agricultures, advances this ambition and clearly states South Africa’s policy approaches to drive progress in the sector.

The success of South Africa’s canola industry should inspire others in the agricultural sector.

Wandile Sihlobo is the chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa.

Labour union federation Cosatu made famous the slogan “An injury to one is an injury to all.” The organisation was said to be more than just a federation of unions; their unions adopted the Freedom Charter and their demands were not limited to wages and conditions of service, but also what type of society they wanted South Africa to be. 

But, in the post-1994 era, Cosatu hinged all workers’ demands on their opposition to the government’s macroeconomic strategy, the conservative Growth, Employment and Redistribution policy. Their growth in the private sector, even as types of work changed, was limited. 

One of the problems facing trade unions is that businesses constantly come up with different ways to bypass them. 

In your local supermarket chain that carry national franchises, the majority of cashiers, store packers and so forth are members of a trade union, probably the Cosatu-affiliated South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union. 

But the motor bike delivery drivers are not unionised. They are not even employees of the company. They are categorised as independent contractors. 

This phenomena began in the early 2000s with what became known as owner-driver schemes. Previously companies such as Coca-Cola and Dairy Belle owned the trucks and employed the drivers. 

Owner-driver schemes were presented as an empowerment model. The driver would sign an agreement with the company to deliver their goods to various parts of the country and, based on that agreement, they would then receive a loan and purchase the delivery truck. It seemed like a great model and allowed employees to become entrepreneurs. Owner-driver schemes flourished and mining companies also began using similar models.

Upon closer inspection, you begin to realise that this is not empowerment, but rather the company is mitigating its risk and passing it on to its former employee. The drivers receive no job security and lose employee benefits such as sick leave and pensions. It is just another outsourcing model. 

The retail sector, where the packers and cashiers are unionised but the delivery workers are not, is a classic example of divide and rule. The expectation is that soon walk-in stores will be an abnormality and the number of cashiers and merchandisers will decrease, because the store will become a warehouse for the internet delivery worker to pick up the order. There is little worker solidarity between the delivery worker and the in-store staff. 

So do trade unions still organise workers? We know that trade unions exist, but are they still a revolutionary force on the ground? Do people, even if they are not members of a trade union, still believe that a trade union really wants a better country for all? 

It’s not that South Africans have become jaded and cynical, but many have discarded their commitment to revolutionary ideals, because they witnessed their leaders dump it first. 

Most of the public sector is unionised, and very many people will testify how bad the services are in public institutions. The revolutionary garments of the trade union leadership and their members seem quite frayed and tired.

South Africans are not fooled by the revolutionary rhetoric about workers and a socialist state. They know that this is a pantomime and not the real focus. Trade unions seem more focused on keeping what they have from other trade unions, rather than growing their membership base in the new areas of the economy. 

Thus, the delivery bikers are not unionised, neither are call centre employees. There are a host of social media platform companies in South Africa, such as Facebook, TikTok and Google, and none of the people working in those companies are unionised.

One of the reasons trade unions began was because of the lack of job security. Without unions, companies were able to easily dismiss workers without fear of a backlash. They could lower wages or not give increases. 

Take the time to speak to many of our young people. You will find that many of them are working in call centres, where they are sales persons selling financial products or dental plans to people all over the world. They earn anything from R4 000 to R8  000 a month. They have no job security and remain on probation in the hope of becoming permanent. There are no trade unions organising in this sector.

Uber drivers are not unionised. They are also, like the delivery biker, regarded as “independent contractors”.

It’s not that the businesses in an internet-based economy have outsmarted the trade union leadership, but it does seem that unions care only about their current workers’ membership fees and not about the rest of society.

I first got into social media in about 2009, when I signed up for Facebook. I recall that they had a catchy motto: “It’s free and it always will be”. In 2012, Facebook listed as a public company and its share price rocketed. I kept wondering how Facebook made money, so that people bought these shares and the share price just kept rising. I was wondering whether it was going to be similar to the early 2000s with the dot.com bubble burst. Everyone told me that, like Google, Facebook made money through advertising. I still failed to understand how it became a trillion dollar company; it could not just be with advertising.

In the wake of the election of Donald Trump as the United States’ president in 2016, as well as the 2013 defection of American intelligence officer Edward Snowden to Russia, the movie-documentary Cambridge Analytica was released. This documentary revealed how Facebook (and other social media platforms) could use their algorithm to ensure that many people held a particular view. Facebook, Google and others allow full access to the US government to not only track peoples’ views but to also sculpt and mould them in a particular way. In other words, Facebook and others were weaponised.

I had naively thought Facebook was valuable because it gave pleasure and entertainment to the masses, not because it could be used by the powerful and elite to control the masses. When that realisation hit me, I felt quite foolish.

It gets worse, though. Surveillance Valley is a book by Yashane Levine which was published in 2018. It traces the history and development of the internet. I, and others, could be forgiven for believing that Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg had no choice but to allow his product to be data-mined and therefore weaponised, so that it could be commercially viable. But what Levine proved is that the internet was not weaponised; it was created to be a weapon to control society. 

The truth of the matter is that we measure value by how much money and control it can give us over others. There is no appetite to change society, even from trade union leaders and their members. Rather, there seems to be a high level of commitment to the capitalist values of private property ownership, individual freedom to pursue profit and market-driven competition. 

The pursuit of these values will be the death of us. The elite and powerful use these values and the lure of individual success to control us.

When trade unions began, they knew that their struggle was not limited to the shop floor, but to include changing the values of society. Today, we witness a tired, antiquated trade union movement with no discernible plan on how to counter the gig-based and techno-feudal global economy. 

Trade union leaders need to re-commit to the socialist values of their unions, and especially worker solidarity and power. In South Africa, we need the plethora of trade unions to sit down and unite, despite their ideological and political party affiliations. Globally the working class must unite. Global competition has become a race to the bottom and Africa is winning that race, but other continents will soon start catching up.

Donovan E Williams is a social commentator. @TheSherpaZA on X.