Mary Alexander • 25 August 2025

An astonishing 31-million-tonne motherlode of gold ore with a yield of 320,000 tonnes of refined gold valued at US$12 trillion has been discovered in Uganda.

At least, that’s the claim spreading on social media in August 2025.

A tonne is a thousand kilograms. Gold is measured in troy ounces, a unit of 31.1 grams and the amount of gold in a Krugerrand, so the find could produce an astonishing 10.3 billion Kruggerrands.

Uganda is a small landlocked country in East Africa, about the size of the United Kingdom.

In 2023 its gold production, most of it by small-scale artisanal miners, was just 0.0042 tonnes.

This is a drop in the bucket for Africa’s top gold-producing countries. In the same year, Ghana mined 130.6 tonnes of gold, South Africa 105.7 tonnes and Mali 103.4 tonnes. The average output of the continent’s top 10 gold countries was 76.7 tonnes.

Uganda’s output was 0.005% of that.

‘Unexplained mysteries’

The claim has recently spread widely on Facebook (here, here and here), Instagram (here, here and here), X (here, here and here), TikTok (here, here and here), LinkedIn (here, here and here) and YouTube (here, here and here).

A common version reads: “Uganda has made a groundbreaking discovery of 31 million metric tonnes of gold ore, with estimates suggesting it contains over 320,000 tonnes of refined gold valued at an incredible $12 trillion.”

The claim is false – and more than three years old – but it isn’t your typical bogus social media slop. It was reported by Reuters in 2022, citing a Ugandan government official. (Images: Facebook)

Some versions use graphics with photos of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, who has been in office since 1986. They read:

• Uganda Discovers Over 31 Million Metric Tonnes Of Gold Ore Valued At $12 Trillion
• Uganda Has Discovered Gold Deposits Worth More Than $12 Trillion Igniting Economic Hope
• Unexplained Mysteries: 31 million tonnes of ‘Gold Ore’. This much Gold was found in Uganda, with extractable pure gold estimated to gross 320,000 tonnes.

But every figure in the claim is, simply, impossible.

(More than) all the gold in the world

Although the claim is false – and more than three years old – it isn’t your typical bogus social media slop. The reputable news agency Reuters reported it on 8 June 2022, citing a Ugandan government official.

Energy and mineral development ministry spokesperson Solomon Muyita told Reuters that “two years of aerial exploration … across the country followed by geophysical and geochemical surveys and analyses” had revealed “gold ore deposits of about 31 million tonnes”.

“Muyita said an estimated 320,158 tonnes of refined gold could be extracted from the 31 million tonnes of ore,” Reuters said.

Other news reports from June 2022 quote a document prepared by the ministry: “The volume of the reserves is estimated at 31 million tonnes of gold ore, or net 320,158 tonnes of gold, valued at $12.8 trillion …”

The problem is, 320,158 tonnes is more than all the gold produced since we started mining the stuff about 6,000 years ago. The World Gold Council says the “best estimates suggest that around 216,265 tonnes of gold have been mined throughout history”.

That’s only two-thirds of what’s promised in Uganda.

World Gold Council data (PDF, Excel) reveals that in the 15 years from 2010 to 2024 the entire world’s total gold output was 50,941 tonnes. That’s under 16% of Uganda’s reported 320,158 tonnes. China, the world’s top gold producer, mined 4,721.9 tonnes (1.47%) in those 15 years. And the Asian country is huge, with a land area of 9.6 million square kilometres. Uganda, at 241,550 square kilometres, could fit into it almost 40 times.

Beyond ‘bonanza’ grade

More than this, the extraction of 320,158 tonnes of refined gold from 31 million tonnes of ore would mean that Uganda’s deposits have an average grade of 10,000 grams per tonne. That is beyond unheard of.

Gold ore is simply rock that contains particles of gold – sometimes more, sometimes less, but always in tiny quantities. The rock first has to be mined – dug out of the earth – then crushed and ground to a powder, after which various chemical and mechanical processes are used to extract the metal.

The grade of raw, freshly mined gold ore is measured in grams per tonne (g/t), with higher grades yielding more gold from each tonne mined. For open-pit mines, a high grade is 1.5 or more grams of gold for each tonne of ore. For underground mines, a high grade is eight grams per ton and a “bonanza” grade one troy ounce (31.1 grams) per tonne.

In 2015, the world’s 10 highest-grade gold mines had an output of between 11.1 and 44.1 g/t. Today, the Fosterville gold mine in Australia is recognised as the world’s highest-grade gold operation, producing an average of 28 g/t and historically reaching up to 40 g/t.

There simply is no rational comparison between the 10,000 g/t in the Ugandan claim and the proven peak of 40 g/t from the world’s highest-grade gold mine. If the claim were true, the ore found in Uganda would have at least 250 times more gold in it than the richest ore at Fosterville.

As one investment analyst wrote soon after the Reuters article appeared:

Thirty-one-million tonnes of ore with an average gold grade over 10,000 g/t… no. At that grade, there would be visible gold absolutely everywhere. Gold would be spilling out of the rock. You wouldn’t be able to walk without stepping on gold.

With that much gold discovered, the price of the metal would have plummeted. It hasn’t.

The average gold price for the second quarter – April, May and June – of 2025 was $3,280.35 per troy ounce, up by 40% on the same period in 2024. At that price, Uganda’s supposed gold find would be worth $33.8 trillion. That’s more than the value of all global trade in 2024.

The post No evidence Uganda has discovered 320,000 tonnes of gold worth $12 trillion – and evidence against it appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

Mary Alexander • 7 August 2025

“This is Durban, South Africa,” begins the caption of a video posted on the X account of US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on 20 July 2025.

“This is what removing ‘White Oppression’ and replacing it with Soros NGO systems looks like,” it continues. “A glimpse into the future of ALL Western countries if changes are not made fast as already seen in the SH!T HOLE blue city’s across America.”

The post has been viewed more than 1.6 million times so far, and has spread widely on X (here and here), Facebook (here, here and here) and elsewhere (here, here and here).

The footage shows mounds of trash strewn over an otherwise almost empty street lined with closed-up shopfronts. Taken from TikTok, it’s overlaid with the text: “This is the situation in Durban town right now.” It’s also been reposted with captions such as “This is Durban, South Africa, in neighborhoods where there are no white people.”

Durban is a port city in South Africa’s eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, on the Indian Ocean coast.

Alex Jones, Donald Trump and ‘white oppression’

The founder of the InfoWars disinformation platform, Alex Jones has built his fortune on fake news and false conspiracies. For his relentless claim that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting – where 20 children aged six and seven were killed – was a hoax staged by “crisis actors”, US courts have ordered him to pay US$1.5 billion to the victims’ parents.

In the X post, what Jones means by “White Oppression” is presumably South Africa’s universally condemned racist system of apartheid, which ended with the country’s first democratic elections in 1994.

By “Soros” he refers to the billionaire US philanthropist George Soros, founder of the pro-democracy Open Society Foundations and a favourite target of conspiracy theorists.

Jones is a strident supporter of US president Donald Trump, a Republican.

Since retaking office in November 2024, Trump has made false claims about land restitution and white genocide in South Africa. He has also criticised its genocide case against Israel, cut US aid to the country and slapped a 30% tariff – the highest in sub-Saharan Africa – on South African imports.

Trump has in the past referred to African nations as “shithole countries”. Jones’s “SH!T HOLE blue city’s [sic] across America” is his description of cities governed by the US Democratic Party.

Nine days of violence in 2021

The video does show Durban, but during a historic upheaval more than four years ago.

We took a screengrab of its first frame and ran it through a Google image search. This led us to a Reddit thread on the clip, where one user had this to say:

The video was originally uploaded July 13, 2021 by TikTok user Afu Afu (@af__ptl) and shows Durban, South Africa during the July 2021 riots. The TikTok account is private now but it can be seen in tweets from the time.

The user links to two X posts with the same video, one from 15 July 2021 and the other posted three days later.

From 8 to 17 July 2021 violence exploded across South Africa after former president Jacob Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison for defying a court order to testify at a commission probing corruption during his presidency. The “Zuma riots” were largely confined to KwaZulu-Natal – Zuma’s home province – and the urban province of Gauteng.

The looting that followed was largely opportunistic, as people took advantage of the chaos to raid shops. More than 300 people were killed over the nine days. It remains the worst violence South Africa has seen since the end of apartheid.

At the time, the world was still gripped by Covid. Analysts ascribed the violence not only to longstanding poverty and inequality, intractable problems with roots deep in the apartheid past, but also the social and economic turmoil of the pandemic.

The video does not show a typical day in Durban. It was shot from 440 West Street in Durban Central, heading east. A Google Street View of the same route snapped in November 2024 shows a very different scene.

Taken in its entirety, Jones’s claim is false. The footage is from a moment four years ago, when the country faced the unprecedented crisis of the arrest of a former president. And it could be said that the July 2021 riots were ultimately caused by the “White Oppression” of apartheid, not by its removal.

The post Trump ally uses four-year-old footage of South Africa’s Zuma riots to justify ‘white oppression’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 22 JULY 2024

Does the British monarch own all the land in England?

John Hlophe, the parliamentary leader of South Africa’s new opposition uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), made the claim after being sworn in at the national assembly on 25 June. He was arguing for his party’s policy of land expropriation and nationalisation.

“The land in Africa can never be the subject of private ownership. The land belongs to the nation. It doesn’t form part of private ownership,” he told journalists.

He added: “And we are not alone in that regard. Look at the UK. The land in England, the land belongs to the queen. Everybody else has a 99-year lease.”

England is one of the countries of the United Kingdom, also known as Britain. The others are Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

By “the queen”, Hlophe meant the British monarch, currently king Charles III since the death of his mother, queen Elizabeth II, in 2022. The monarch is the UK’s head of state.

The election manifesto of Hlophe’s MKP lists eight “pillars” – things the party hopes to do. Its second pillar is to “expropriate all land without compensation, transferring ownership to the people under the state and traditional leaders”.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), another South African opposition party, has a similar stance on land.

‘They’re all on 99yr lease. Are they poor?’

The claim that the British monarch owns all the land in England – or in Britain as a whole – has been circulating on social media since before Hlophe’s press conference.

“The Queen of England owns Britain, Canada and Australia and the land in Britain belongs to her,” reads a 24 June post on Facebook.*

An X post reads:

I support the idea of gvmnt becoming a custodian of all land. If you have no use for the land, you must relinquish it to the state to distribute it to those who need to use it.

This is happening in economy jurisdictions that we admire. In England, the land belongs to the queen.

— Mduh (@ThisIsMduh) July 2, 2024

Other versions include:

• “I think the model the EFF is advocating for is similar to one used in England where all the land belongs to the Queen – in our case I guess it would belong to Government.”
• “English law […] states all land in England belongs to the Queen.”
• “In UK the King Charles owns all the land and everyone has 99 year leases and it works very well. No one complains.”
• “No one owns the land in England, it is owned by the King/Queen. They’re all on 99yr lease. Are they poor?”

Is any of this true?

The monarch is not the crown

A 2022 UK house of commons research briefing reads:

Land ownership in England and Wales is based on historical feudal principles. The Crown owns all land in England and Wales; people own estates in land either directly or indirectly from the Crown (for example, a freehold estate or a leasehold estate).

There are two important points here. First, “the crown” is not the same as the monarch. Second, a “freehold estate” is privately owned land.

Another briefing defines the crown:

The Crown encompasses both the monarch and the government. It is vested in the King, but in general its functions are exercised by Ministers of the Crown accountable to the UK Parliament or the three devolved legislatures.

The crown is equivalent to the state in other countries.

And the crown “owns” the land in the sense that it has sovereignty over the land, giving legal weight to private land ownership.

Freehold and leasehold land

In the UK, a freehold estate is land freely and privately owned. It does not belong to the monarch. Freehold land ownership has been a principle of British law for centuries.

“The term freehold property ownership refers to the ownership of both the land and the building on it for an indefinite period of time,” says one UK property expert.

In fact, the HM Land Registry, a government department created in 1862, exists to “register the ownership of land and property in England and Wales”.

King Charles himself privately owns an extensive portfolio of freehold property – but not “all the land”.

Leasehold property, by contrast, is owned only for a fixed period of time. It is leased from the landowner – also called the freeholder. Leases have no specific timeframe. They can be as short as a day or as long as 999 years.

Land is also privately owned in Scotland, where there are concerns about the small number of landowners who hold huge swathes of the country’s rural areas. Northern Ireland also has private land ownership.

The question of land ownership is complex. But the claim that the British monarch owns all the land in England, or the UK as a whole, is false.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Edited version published by Africa Check on 13 August 2024

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MARY ALEXANDER • 18 JULY 2024

“It turns out that the World Health Organization, in its founding document (1946), EXEMPTED itself from criminal prosecution,” reads a claim circulating on social media in South Africa and elsewhere since 8 July 2024.*

It includes a one-minute video of UK comedian and known conspiracist Russell Brand interviewing US financial analyst and known conspiracist David Martin.

Brand asks Martin why he claims the WHO is a “criminal cartel” and “how the events of the last few years somehow demonstrate or at least utilise that”.

Martin responds: “In the founding document of the World Health Organization, they gave themselves the right to be exempt from all criminal prosecution of any kind whatsoever.”

He adds: “Why would an organisation need to give itself exemption from criminal prosecution? This is not civil prosecution, this is criminal prosecution …”

The reason “they wrote that into their founding charter”, Martin says, “is because they knew they were already breaking the law”.

Throughout the video, a clipped page of the WHO’s supposed “founding document” is displayed on screen as proof of Martin’s claim. It includes a URL to the page https://apps.who.int/gb/bd/pdf_files/BD_49th-en.pdf#page=34. That’s page 34.

The page is headed: “CONVENTION ON PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES. Article V – Representatives of Members”.

It reads:

Representatives of members at meetings convened by a specialized agency shall, while exercising their functions and during their journeys to and from the place of meeting, enjoy the following privileges and immunities:
(a) Immunity from personal arrest or detention and from seizure of their personal baggage, and in respect of words spoken or written and all acts done by them in their official capacity, immunity from legal process of every kind;

But the page isn’t part of the WHO’s “founding document”, and doesn’t “exempt” the WHO from “criminal prosecution”.

Convention passed by UN general assembly in 1947

If Martin had looked just four pages up to https://apps.who.int/gb/bd/pdf_files/BD_49th-en.pdf#page=30 (that’s page 30) he would have found that the section of text he refers to is not the WHO’s “founding document”.

Instead, it’s the text of a United Nations treaty, the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies, adopted by the UN general assembly on 21 November 1947.

The treaty applies to all of the UN’s 17 specialised agencies. The WHO is just one of those 17.

The others include the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Seabed Authority, the International Telecommunication Union and the World Meteorological Organization.

All the treaty does is grant what is essentially diplomatic immunity to representatives of the UN’s specialised agencies, as international organisations. This means that officials from one country who travel to or live in another country are not subject to the laws of the second country. It is an ancient principle of international law.

The PDF Martin refers to is also not the WHO’s “founding document”. It’s simply a collection of essential WHO texts put together under the title “Basic Documents.”. It includes the WHO’s constitution, agreements with other intergovernmental organisations, rules and regulations, and more.

By “the events of the last few years”, Brand is clearly referring to the Covid pandemic. Both he and Martin are proponents of the disproved “plandemic” conspiracy theory, which holds that the pandemic was somehow planned by the WHO and other shadowy elites.

But in the video, Martin doesn’t explain how the WHO was “already breaking the law” back in 1947.

If the treaty text Martin refers to is proof that the WHO is a “criminal cabal”, then all other UN agencies are too – including, for example, the International Seabed Authority.

Read more: Russell Brand – Confidence man

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 13 August 2024

The post No ‘founding document’ gives WHO exemption from ‘criminal prosecution’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 18 JULY 2024

After no single political party won a clear majority in South Africa’s 29 May 2024 elections, the African National Congress (ANC) invited other parties to form a government of national unity.

The ANC scored 40.2% of the national vote and the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) 21.8%. The newcomer uMkhonto weSizwe Party, which declined to join the unity government, was third with 14.6%.

The DA also retained government of the Western Cape province.

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa announced his new unity cabinet on 30 June, with 20 of the 32 ministerial posts going to the ANC, six to the DA and six to smaller parties.

The DA’s Leon Schreiber was appointed minister of home affairs, a national department that maintains the population register and issues identity documents.

Days later, a screenshot of an odd X post seemingly by Alan Winde, the DA premier of the Western Cape, went viral on social media.*

“The DA now controls the Dept. of Home Affairs,” it reads. “Get your Digital & Medical ID at these Bank Branches. We will be prepared when the next pandemic arrives.”

It appears to have been posted on the X account @AlanWinde666, with the name Premier Alan Winde, and its profile pic shows the premier. It links to an article on banks that process ID applications.

The screenshot has been posted with – and has attracted – outraged comments. These include:

• “The DA is selling us out to the Globalists…”
• “The DA is part of the New World Order […] Things are going to get very tough by 2025 more and more freedoms being taken away.”
• “This is the same guy who was forcing vaccine down the throats of people of western cape. Now he already know there is another pandemic coming […]”
• “What is a Medical ID? And the 666 on Alan’s name. A coincidence too neh? June is in July with this GNU gig! […] COVIS was a test phase for Hell on Earth?”
• “When we said these things will happen they thought we were smoking dirty socks […] that’s your next plandemic….New world order loading…”

But did the DA’s Western Cape premier really post this?

No digital or medical IDs in South Africa

The handle of Winde’s verified X account is simply @alanwinde, not @AlanWinde666. That handle belongs to an account named, in full, Premier Alan Winde Western Cape Parody.

On the screenshot, the words “Western Cape Parody” are obscured by the follow button.

The account’s bio reads: “Sith Lord. Woke Dick-tator of WEFtern Cape DICTATORIAL Alliance. Free PALPATINE. Only an unelected one world government can save us!” It then adds: “Parody”.

Its banner is made up of images where “un” has been added to the DA’s name, to read “Undemocratic Alliance”. The images include the URL for YesCape.org, a website that promotes the secession of the Western Cape from South Africa.

And the account’s current pinned post reads, in part: “We take orders from our globalist masters (WEF and WHO), support lockdowns and vaxxine mandates, promote gender fluidity in your kids, back Ukraine (US proxy wars), promote the climate hoax and will do anything to avoid referendums.”

@AlanWinde666 published the X post in the viral screenshot on 2 July. It has been viewed some 13,500 times so far – and attracted many more outraged comments.

South Africa has two types of ID document: the old green ID book and the newer smart ID card. There is no such thing as a South African “digital ID” or “medical ID”.

Parody and satire are meant to poke fun at political and other opponents, but not mislead about those opponents’ statements. And when parody or satire is reposted as fact, it becomes disinformation.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 6 August 2024

The post ‘Pandemic’ post from ‘parody’ Cape independence X account, not South Africa’s Western Cape DA premier Alan Winde appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 15 JULY 2024

“Biden just gave citizenship to 1 MILLION illegal aliens by Executive Order,” reads a claim circulating on social media since late June 2024.*

Joe Biden is the president of the United States.

The claim adds that this is “an ILLEGAL ACT that violates the Constitution’s Separation of Powers”.

“If this is allowed, we do not have a Republic of laws, we have a DICTATORSHIP. If this is allowed, our Republic is DEAD.”

The US is headed for a presidential election in November, likely to pit Biden of the Democratic Party against former president Donald Trump of the Republican Party.

Immigration is a hot topic in the campaign. Trump is strongly against it, while Biden has promised a more “humane” approach, leading to accusations that he is “soft” on the topic.

There are an estimated 2.1 million African immigrants in the US, a number that has risen dramatically since the 1990s. The exact figure is difficult to determine as it was previously so low authorities classified African migrants as “other”.

In 2015, the top four countries of origin for African immigrants into the US were Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Kenya.

But has Biden recently granted US citizenship to 1 million people who are living in the US illegally?

New process to ‘keep families together’

The claim appeared online on 18 June, the day Biden announced a new process to allow the noncitizen spouses and children of US citizens to apply for legal permanent resident status without leaving the country – and to protect them from deportation.

The process was clarified in a White House fact sheet titled “President Biden Announces New Actions to Keep Families Together.” It will be implemented by the Department of Homeland Security.

Previously, the undocumented spouses of US citizens were required to return to their home countries to apply for legal status, a process that could take years.

“In order to be eligible, noncitizens must – as of June 17, 2024 – have resided in the United States for 10 or more years and be legally married to a US citizen, while satisfying all applicable legal requirements,” the fact sheet reads. “On average, those who are eligible for this process have resided in the US for 23 years.”

The requirements are stringent. Each case will be individually assessed by the DHS, and if approved the noncitizens will be given three years to apply for permanent residency.

It’s estimated that 500,000 noncitizen spouses and 50,000 noncitizen children will benefit from the process, not 1 million. And the beneficiaries may only apply for permanent residence, not citizenship.

There has been no credible news that Biden recently “gave citizenship to 1 million illegal aliens by executive order”. The claim is false.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 13 August 2024

The post No, US president Biden hasn’t given citizenship to 1 million illegal immigrants – new process only to ‘keep families together’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 14 JULY 2024

“Bill Gates has decided that the slave class needs to drink maggot milk,” reads one version of a claim going viral in South Africa, Kenya and across the world since late June 2024.*

“He’s launched ‘EntoMilk’ a food-like product. It’s described as a ‘dairy alternative’ that’s supposedly similar to real milk, but is made from ‘black soldier fly larvae’ or maggots. His goal is to introduce this product into the food supply…”

The claim links to a blog post with a stock photo of a mass of maggots crawling through a human skull. It’s headlined: “Bill Gates Has Launched ‘Maggot Milk’.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been a common target of conspiracy theories for years.

Another version of the claim reads:

You will drink the bugs and be happy! Wait, what? That’s right! Bill Gates’ latest evil venture is called EntoMilk. He wants to replace milk from animals (cow milk, goat milk) with maggot milk.

The claim has been posted with comments such as:

• This is an actual thing and he’s evil. look up Entomilk…
• What has the evil world of darkness been up to lately? Here is just one other hair raising demonic ploy of the elites.
• Zillionaire Bill Gates is at it again. He has already got the ball rolling on eliminating and replacing all meat products and now he is going after milk and dairy.
• Part of the new “Transhumanist” diet. I feel so bad for our Grandchildren and leaving this sick world behind to them.

Several instances include an AI-generated cartoon of a crazed-looking Gates holding a jar containing a malformed fly in one hand and a cup of what is presumably EntoMilk in the other.

It’s been posted on the known disinformation site Natural News, on the equally dodgy sites YourNews and SlayNews, and on YouTube.

But has Gates recently launched a “maggot milk” known as EntoMilk?

‘That’s your headline’

The claim began in a 20 June broadcast of the Alex Jones Show on InfoWars, titled “DISGUSTING: Bill Gates Wants You To Eat Maggot Milk.”

Alex Jones is a notorious conspiracist who founded InfoWars in 1999. US courts have ordered him to pay $1.5 billion to the parents of 20 six- and seven-year-old children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting for repeatedly saying the massacre was a hoax. The cases were the subject of a recent documentary, The Truth vs Alex Jones.

Jones’s broadcast uses a promotional video for EntoMilk, titled “Bug Milk”, which shows how it is made from black soldier fly larvae. Two people are seen drinking the milk while the voiceover describes its “creamy mouth-feel”.

The video ends with people being offered EntoMilk ice-cream to taste. Some look dubious.

The video stresses that insects may be “vital to the future of food” because they need little land for cultivation and aren’t as damaging to the environment as livestock such as cattle.

But Jones says: “Oh, it’s rich and creamy? And they are feeding the black people the maggots.” It’s clear he’s watching the video for the first time.

“Bill Gates is involved in these companies,” he suddenly adds, without evidence. “Bill Gates wants you to drink maggot milk.” Jones then gestures to someone off-screen, and says: “That’s your headline.”

Six-year-old advert for defunct product

The original video is almost six years old, first posted on YouTube in September 2018.

EntoMilk was a dairy-free milk alternative developed by South African food scientists and launched by their Cape Town-based startup Gourmet Grubb in 2017.

It was made from the larvae of farmed flies, so the “maggot milk” description, if dramatic, is almost true. The product was only sold as an ice cream and never in its liquid form, according to a July 2023 article.

But Entomilk has been off the market for years, and Gourmet Grubb is listed as out of business.

The Gourmet Grubb website no longer exists. The company’s Instagram page hasn’t been updated since 2020, and its description (note the past tense) reads: “Yes! we made insect ice cream from EntoMilk which is Dairy Free and insanely SUSTAINABLE! 2020 – we are going to level up – watch this space.”

Gates wasn’t “involved in” Gourmet Grubb. He’s not mentioned in any of the company’s online profiles. And if the billionaire had invested in a South African startup, it would have made many local headlines. But there’s no credible news of Gates’s involvement.

Bill Gates has not launched a “maggot milk” called EntoMilk. The claim is false, made up on the spot during the Alex Jones Show.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 22 July 2024

The post Bill Gates launches maggot milk? No, Alex Jones nonsense misuses South African dairy alternative EntoMilk appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 5 July 2024

Has an Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) official who reported vote rigging in South Africa’s 29 May 2024 elections been arrested?

That’s the claim circulating on social media since late June.*

The election results were historic. The African National Congress (ANC) won just 40.2% of the national vote, losing its 30-year parliamentary majority. Next up was the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 21.8% of the vote, and then the new uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), headed by former president Jacob Zuma, with 14.6%.

With no outright winner, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa invited the DA and other parties to form a government of national unity (GNU), last seen in South Africa from 1994 to 1997. The DA accepted but the MKP, which has challenged the election results in court, declined. The GNU cabinet of ministers was sworn in on 3 July.

The viral claim has it that “senior IEC officials” confessed that they had been bribed by Ramaphosa and DA leader John Steenhuisen to rig the elections “in favour of the ANC 40% and the DA 20%” so that the DA could “sneak into” a government of national unity.

Africa Check has debunked the claim that the ANC and DA bribed IEC officials to rig the elections.

But the new claim adds:

Now one of many IEC whistleblowers gets arrested by the Hawks for an old case of where she used to worked from 2006-2011 at one of the commercial Banks whose Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Partner was no other than Ramaphosa […] to humiliate her. Why did the Hawks arrest her after 13 years and on whose instructions […] After she has implicated Ramaphosa in Vote Rigging and Bribery[?]

The Hawks are the police’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation.

The claim is attributed to the “uMkhonto weSizwe Khoisan Federation” and ends by reiterating the MKP’s court challenge to the results. The party withdrew its case on 3 July.

She’s not mentioned by name, but the claim clearly refers to Nomsa Masuku. Masuku is one of the IEC’s four commissioners and was arrested on 21 July, the day before the claim appeared online. One version includes a screengrab of a news report of her arrest.

Is there any evidence Masuku was arrested because she’s “one of many IEC whistleblowers” to election rigging?

R1.2 million theft from charity reported 10 years ago

Masuku’s arrest – coming so soon after the elections and given her high position in the IEC – was widely reported by local news.

But the arrest was for well-documented fraud, allegedly committed while Masuku headed the Standard Bank charity Adopt a School more than a decade ago.

A police spokesperson said an “intensive probe” by Hawks investigators established that Masuku had “flouted the processes of the trust by awarding scholarships to friends and family members through manipulation of documents and without the approval of the committee, with some of the monies deposited directly into her personal bank account to the tune of R1.2 million”.

A TimesLive report details the case against Masuku. One detail is that the matter was “initially flagged by Standard Bank and reported to police 10 years ago”.

The case has nothing to do with South Africa’s 2024 elections.

Ramaphosa was once a director of the board of Standard Bank and several other companies, but resigned from these positions after his return to politics in 2012.

The ANC’s performance in the 2024 elections was its worst in 30 years. In the event that Ramaphosa had bribed IEC officials to rig the polls – and then had a whistleblower arrested “to humiliate her” – his party surely would have won far more than just 40.2% of the vote.

But there’s no evidence for any of this. The claim is false.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 9 July 2024

The post IEC commissioner arrested for decade-old graft – not for blowing whistle on ‘vote rigging’ in South Africa’s elections appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 3 July 2024

In a “family meeting” on the evening of 30 June 2024, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa announced his expanded cabinet in the country’s new government of national unity.

Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) lost its 30-year parliamentary majority in elections held on 29 May. The ANC got just 40.2% of the national vote, with 21.8% going to the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) and 14.6% to the newcomer uMkhonto weSizwe Party.

With no majority, the parties negotiated a unity government. This included giving some cabinet positions to members of opposition parties. South Africa’s cabinet is made up of ministers and deputy ministers of national departments.

The DA’s Leon Schreiber was appointed minister of home affairs. The department maintains South Africa’s population register, issues IDs and passports, and handles immigration – including the status of refugees and asylum seekers.

Soon after Ramaphosa’s cabinet announcement, a viral claim that Schreiber was “a Zimbabwean foreigner” appeared on social media.*

It reads:

The Republic of South Africa demands answers as the DA Minister of Home Affairs Leon Schreiber who is alleged to a Zimbabwean foreigner is given a key position in country. On Wikipedia Leon’s place of birth was changed 5 hours ago from Zimbabwe to South Africa, this is happening while South Africa is watching.

Migration into South Africa – particularly the migration of people from elsewhere on the continent – was a major issue in the 2024 elections. The anti-migrant social movement Operation Dudula went so far as to attempt to register as a political party before the polls.

People from Zimbabwe and Mozambique, two of South Africa’s closest neighbours, are often targets of this xenophobia.

Schreiber’s place of birth was recently changed on his Wikipedia page. But that’s no proof he’s “a Zimbabwean foreigner”. Instead, it points to disinformation.

Wikipedia tracks all changes

Wikipedia is a free and open-source encyclopaedia maintained by volunteers across the internet. Anyone can edit a Wikipedia page, although others may quickly revert – change back – the edits if they disagree.

But every single published change to any Wikipedia page is saved, with its own online address, in the page’s history.

Using the revision history tab on Schreiber’s Wikipedia page, we found that it was first created on 21 April 2020. The original sidebar summary says he was born in “Namaqualand, Cape Province, South Africa” in 1988.

In 1996 the old Cape province was divided into the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and the western part of North West. Today, the broad Namaqualand region extends southwards from Namibia into South Africa’s Northern and Western Cape.

Schreiber’s place of birth remained unchanged on Wikipedia for more than four years. Then came the evening of Ramaphosa’s cabinet appointments.

Although delayed on public TV, the appointments were released at 21:00 on 30 June. Twelve minutes later, at 21:12, an unnamed Wikipedia user changed Schreiber’s birthplace from Namaqualand to “Borrowdale, Harare Zimbabwe”.

Borrowdale is a wealthy suburb in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

A Wikipedia “edit war” soon followed, with users reverting the change, others putting it back, and so on. At one point Schreiber’s nationality was changed from “South African” to “Zimbabwean]]on”.

The page was eventually protected from arbitrary editing in the afternoon of 1 July. The current page (as of 3 July) says Schreiber was born in “Piketberg, Cape Province”. Piketberg in the Western Cape is part of the Namaqualand region.

All of Schreiber’s other online biographies put his birthplace in Namaqualand, South Africa. There is no evidence that South Africa’s new home affairs minister was born in Harare or is “a Zimbabwean foreigner”.

Wikipedia is an invaluable source of information. But it can be abused to create disinformation.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 4 July 2024

The post Wikipedia edit war no proof that South Africa’s new home affairs minister Schreiber is a ‘Zimbabwean foreigner’ appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 23 JUNE 2024

“A High court in Zimbabwe has ordered a newly married gay couple to be put under house arrest for 12 months,” reads a claim circulating on social media since May 2024.*

“If by the end of the period none of them will be pregnant, the court further ordered a death penalty.”

The claim uses a photo of two men cuddling on a couch. It’s been posted in Kenya, Kuwait, Nigeria, South Africa and the USA.

Comments include:

• South Africa’s government why don’t you take good advice from Zimbabwe?
• That’s the only thing I like about Zimbabwe.
• Applause for that government. Yes, each African nations must take a staunch stand against that human corruption.
• God was not insane when He created Adam and Eve, and not Adam and Steve.

But the claim is false, and not only because Zimbabwe’s restrictive laws against LGBTQ+ people would make it impossible for a court to pass such a ruling.

Gay marriage and sex between men illegal in Zimbabwe

First, same-sex marriage is not recognised in Zimbabwe. It’s also illegal.

Section 78 of the country’s 2013 constitution deals with marriage rights. It reads: “Persons of the same sex are prohibited from marrying each other.”

Second, consensual sex between men (but not women) is also illegal. The 2004 Criminal Law Act lumps all sex between men under the label “sodomy”, under a part of the law titled “Sexual Crimes and Crimes Against Morality”.

Section 73 of the act reads:

Any male person who, with the consent of another male person, knowingly performs with that other person anal sexual intercourse, or any act involving physical contact other than anal sexual intercourse that would be regarded by a reasonable person to be an indecent act, shall be guilty of sodomy and liable to a fine up to or exceeding level fourteen or imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or both.

Level 14 fines are the highest level courts can impose.

Death penalty on hold in Zimbabwe

But no law in Zimbabwe imposes the death penalty for same-sex marriage or relationships.

Capital punishment remains on the country’s statute books, but no-one has been executed there since 2005. The 2013 constitution protects the right to life. For these and other reasons, Zimbabwe is considered a de facto death penalty abolitionist state.

In February 2024 the Zimbabwe cabinet approved the Death Penalty Abolition Bill. If passed, the new law would prohibit any court from imposing a death sentence and prevent any previously imposed death sentence from being carried out.

Discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in Zimbabwe often hits the headlines. But there have been no credible news reports of a court making this absurd order.

* Some Facebook and Instagram users may have deleted their posts after Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program rated their claims as untrue.

Published by Africa Check on 27 June 2024

The post No, Zimbabwean court hasn’t threatened ‘newly married gay couple’ with death penalty if they don’t get pregnant appeared first on South Africa Gateway.