Hi, this is Ava from Vanta. In today's digital world, compliance regulations are changing constantly,

and earning customer trust has never mattered more. Vanta helps companies get compliant fast and stay

secure, with the most advanced AI automation and continuous monitoring out there. So whether

you're a startup going for your first SOC 2 or ISO-27,001, or a growing

enterprise managing vendor risk, Banta makes it quick, easy and scalable, and I'm not to say

that because I work here. Get started today at banta.com. Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy's

editor-in-chief. This is FP Live.

Welcome to the show. It's been an important year for South Africa. In May, for the first

time since the end of apartheid, the African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority.

It cobbled together a government, but the result ushered

in a new period of coalition politics for Africa's biggest economy. It's also meant that there are

several new young leaders to keep an eye on. One of them is Ronald Lamola, the new foreign

minister. He's from the ANC, and at just 40 years old, is the youngest cabinet member in the new government.

Lamola is already being seen as a potential successor to Cyril Ramaphosa, the country's president,

and I caught him while he was visiting the United States for meetings in Washington, as well as the

United Nations Summit in New York. South Africa's foreign policy is worth studying closely. In general,

the country is what is known as non-aligned. It abstained on UN votes condemning Russia's invasion of

Ukraine.

It also hosted the BRIC summit last year in which it invited Iran to join the bloc.

But most recently, Pretoria has been in the news for its genocide case against Israel

at the International Court of Justice.

So I wanted to explore how South Africa is charting its foreign policy under

...