{"id":45872,"date":"2026-09-18T13:52:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T11:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=45872"},"modified":"2026-09-18T13:52:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T11:52:01","slug":"sa-minister-in-us-ahead-of-81st-unga","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-minister-in-us-ahead-of-81st-unga\/","title":{"rendered":"SA Minister in US ahead of 81st UNGA"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">South Africa&#8217;s (SA) International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Ronald Lamola, is in Washington, DC, in the United States\u00a0(US), to attend a series of engagements in the US capital before travelling to New York, where he will attend the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Lamola is attending UNGA on behalf of President Cyril Ramaphosa.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Ramaphosa and his Deputy, Paul Mashatile, have both been declared medically unfit to carry out their official duties due to ill health.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">\nLamola, \u00a0will first attend a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation event and hold courtesy meetings with members of Congress in Washington before heading to New York for UNGA on behalf of Ramaphosa.<\/p>\n<p>The policy-making organ of the UN will take place from September 22 until t 28th.<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">SA will be among the more than 100 countries expected to deliberate and vote on global issues and will be looking to push its broader agenda of multilateralism and reform of global institutions.<\/p>\n<p>Lamola&#8217;s visit to the US comes just days after the US President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration announced new visa restrictions targeting people it says are responsible for discriminatory policies in SA.<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">He arrives only days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the new visa policy, which has opened another front in an already strained relationship between Washington and Pretoria.<\/p>\n<p>According to the UN, almost 130 Heads of State and Government will attend the UNGA in person to deliver their message to the world.<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16669,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-45872","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Minister, Ronald Lamola, is in Washington, DC","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45873,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45872\/revisions\/45873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=45872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}