To celebrate National Heritage Day,  here’s a collection of  some of South Africa’s most fabulous indigenous flowers (including SA’s national flower, the King Protea)…as seen at the Sunday Tribune Garden Show in Pietermaritzburg this past weekend. (Update: View more indigenous flowers of South Africa, 2016.) All photographs by Lorraine Scholfield (thank you!).  Strelizia Regina The […]

South Africa has launched a three-year incentive scheme to help black filmmakers develop their businesses to the point they can take on big productions – and create more jobs in the country’s growing movie industry. Trade and industry minister Rob Davies launched the South African Emerging Black Filmmakers Incentive Programme on 16 September. The programme, […]

Telling stories is an integral part of human life. It forges bonds, builds understanding and brings people together to celebrate their differences and similarities. And, of course, everyone has a story to tell about their experiences and heritage. To celebrate Heritage Month, the government recently launched the Tell Your Story campaign, to encourage South Africans to […]

“The history of our country is characterised by too much forgetting,” Nelson Mandela once lamented. The new Rainbow Makers series of documentaries aims to both help us remember the extraordinary stories, often untold, that shaped our road to democracy – and celebrate our 20 years of freedom. The four-part series, a project of the African […]

Fellow South Africans, I am greatly saddened to announce that 67 South Africans died and scores of others sustained injuries, after a building at the Synagogue Church of All Nations collapsed on Friday, 12 September 2014, in Lagos, in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This is a particularly difficult time for South Africa. Not in […]

Following the South African Rugby Union’s (SARU) new Transformation Strategic Plan in which SARU wants to ensure that by 2019 at least half the Springbok side consists of players of colour, with 60 % of those being black African, Max du Preez writes that we can’t only pick those parts of the constitution we like. With the permission […]

A Durban film, co-starring Capetonian Stelio Savante and SA child actor Sizo Motsoko, has been chosen as an Official Selection for the 2014 San Diego Film Festival where it will make its world premier. ‘Where the Road Runs Out’ made history when it became the first feature ever filmed in the small African country of Equatorial Guinea […]

Several people in South Africa were upset by the controversial broadcast on Sunday night of a segment by Carte Blanche that cast doubt over the rhino horn infusion method. In a country where latest statistics show that over 700 rhino have already been poached this year and that their future is precarious, many viewers expressed concern that the […]

As the exchange between the ANC and the Public Protector’s office heats up following a letter from Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to President Jacob Zuma being leaked to the press, South Africans around the country have taken to social media to send their own message to the country’s president – “pay back the money” (please). The […]

Following the Australian Brumbies’ tour of South Africa in May this year, super rugby player Clyde Rathbone wrote about the realisation of his own “complicity in the exploitation of Africa’s wildlife” after he and his team mates visited a lion park in South Africa. His article – highlighting the plight of many cubs who will be taken […]

His jewellery has been worn by actress Charlize Theron, and has been showcased on the international market at $16-million. Jewellery designer Kevin Friedman produces one-of-a-kind pieces that have won him awards. UPDATE June 2021: Queen Elizabeth II wears South African jewellery designer Kevin Friedman’s brooch. Theron modelled his bead and diamond choker at the 2012 […]

Jack Parow’s latest music video is a wonderful tribute to all the workers in South Africa…and instead of using models or actors he features some of the country’s very real working heroes (see below). This is a song that’s for anyone who works to make ends meet, who may hate their job but needs to pay […]

It has always been Richard John Pelwana Maponya’s dream to see Soweto grow its own flourishing economy. Born in Limpopo Province on 24 December 1926, Maponya is a property developer best known for building a business empire despite the restrictions apartheid imposed on black South Africans. He was fiercely determined to see Soweto develop economically. […]

As a 13-year-old Sir Stuart Ntlathi looked at his world and decided he needed to know how it worked. Fourteen years later, his after-school science club owns patents to a battery-operated shoe polisher with changeable colour cartridges, a 14-in-1 microwave combo, and an auto-cooling umbrella. As a 13-year-old he recycled old appliances and developed a […]

Working the chalkboard for over 74 years, watching students blossom and receive good grades, Nontsikelelo Qwelane, at 94, is South Africa’s oldest teacher. Qwelane believes she was born to “impart knowledge” and has dedicated herself to this lifetime vocation. Born in 1920 in Engcobo in the Eastern Cape, she trained as a teacher and started […]

Following Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies’ visit to Hollywood last week, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will be leading a delegation of South African film makers to Los Angeles to engage with the major studios, the minister announced on Tuesday. Briefing reporters in Pretoria, Davies said his visit had sought to strengthen […]

The government will invest billions of rands in South Africa’s transport infrastructure over the next three years in a bid to reduce road deaths and traffic congestion in the country, says Transport Minister Dipuo Peters. Addressing a seminar on road safety at the Southern Sun Hotel in Cape Town on Tuesday, Peters said that commuter […]

A new concept in filmmaking funding emerged a few years ago through crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to independently fund films. South African filmmakers, Susan Scott and Bonné de Bod are using this new development to try fund their documentary film on the rhino poaching. In Afrikaans and for the big screen, ‘STROOP die […]

The challenges of social integration were increasing, and it was essential to update democracy. “We must take on the challenges of the future, not just consolidate our wins.” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet expressed these sentiments in delivering the 12th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, in the City Hall, Cape Town, on Women’s Day – 9 August. […]

On 4 July Americans celebrate their independence, their freedom from the yoke of British colonialism. Even in Las Vegas – a city without clocks or calendars – the residents party in celebration of their freedom from oppression. On that day in 1983 South African David Ross Patient found himself in the desert outside the city. […]

A fusion of African and European cuisine will be a feast for the eye and a temptation for the taste bud at the inaugural Mzansi International Culinary Festival, taking place from 7 to 10 August. It has been planned to celebrate the culinary expertise of female chefs from across the globe – Europe, the Americas, […]

Standing 1.93 metres tall, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a giant of a man whose remarkable life has been chronicled in a number of films, from his childhood to his political awakening, his activism against apartheid and subsequent imprisonment, through to his role as unifier, peacemaker and first democratically elected president of South Africa. The statesman, […]

People have an amazing ability to adapt to their circumstances. The mind buries trauma till it seems like a dream, and the more traumatic the event, the quicker the mind tries to forget and heal. Yet in the spiritual geography of some Cape Town families, a finger of land still looms large in their identity. […]

Frene Ginwala helped build and grow the African National Congress (ANC) in exile and in the first 10 years of the democratic Parliament, when she was the speaker. The 82-year-old was in exile for 31 years, and returned to South Africa in 1990.   Her crucial role and wise leadership have been well-documented: “Dr Frene […]

Here’s another one of those emails – with a compilation of old and new photos from Africa – doing the rounds at the moment…showing that Plato was right when he said necessity is the mother of innovation.