South African soprano Elza van den Heever has been named as a recipient of the 17th Annual Opera News Awards. The 42-year-old will be celebrated, along with two other singers from the US, for her achievement in opera at the Awards Gala on 3 April 2022. Elza – who is based in France and is […]

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South African officials are investigating an alarming rise in seal deaths along the west coast near Cape Town, with malnutrition one potential cause. A Reuters photographer saw scores of seal carcasses on beaches in Cape Town and along the rugged Atlantic Ocean coastline north of the city last week. Several more […]

South Africa’s Department of Correctional Services has confirmed that convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius is being considered for parole, eight years into his imprisonment for killing his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013. Her parents have indicated they would be willing to meet with him in the Victim Offender […]

Durban University of Technology was forced today to close some campuses following violent “protest action” that resulted in damage to property. DUT said in a statement: “Earlier this morning, a group of protestors from a student political organisation turned extremely violent and damaged DUT property, thereby threatening and compromising the safety and security of our […]

Early this morning, Monday 8 November, Princess Charlene was warmly welcomed back to Monaco by her husband Prince Albert II, their six-year-old children – twins Prince Heir Jacques and Princess Gabriella – and her sister-in-law Princess Stephanie. After so many months away from her new home, it was no surprise that the Monaco Palace said […]

The DA is “deeply concerned about the anti-democracy protests” in Isipingo today, says DA Durban South Constituency head, Tim Bruteseth. In a statement on Monday afternoon, Bruteseth says that it was “ANC sponsored protestors” who blocked the northern and southern end of the main arterial road running through the Isipingo CBD, about 19 km south […]

The South African Police Service (SAPS) detectives in Motherwell are investigating the tragic and mysterious death of three children aged between just four-months-old and 11-years-old… who died not long after eating two-minute noodles. It’s alleged that the children had accompanied their grandparents to New Brighton to visit relatives on Saturday. “They stayed over and on […]

Eskom has unfortunately started implementing load shedding Stage 4 in South Africa from 13:00 Monday afternoon… and Stage 4 is set to last until 05:00 on Friday, after which it will be downgraded to Stage 2 until 05:00 on Saturday. This comes after the power utility announced on Sunday that it expected to continue with […]

The first South African Muslim film shot in Afrikaans, Barakat, has been selected as South Africa’s official submission for the 94th Annual Academy Awards (the Oscars!). It’s an award-winning film that brilliantly explores how a family moves on after the death of a father. Uniquely South African, yet absolutely universal. Watch the trailer below and […]

South Africa’s famous and ultra-luxurious Blue Train has derailed. The incident occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning at Union Station in Elandsfontein, near Germiston, Gauteng. Fortunately there were no passengers on board. Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) confirmed that 19 empty coaches of one of the Blue Trains derailed at the Union Station Loop […]

Johannesburg media witnessed the return of live theatre on Sunday, in an emotional fairytale night for all, as they watched the stars of pantomime Cinderella light up the Joburg Theatre stage for the first time in far too long. Gauteng publicist Georg Knoke was there… “Yiphee! The stages of South Africa are opening up again! […]

Eskom has announced that “regretfully” Stage 2 loadshedding – which is just a pretty word for rolling power cuts – will continue throughout the week ahead from 05:00 on Monday until 05:00 on Saturday. Since the power system remains “volatile and unpredictable”, Eskom cautioned that “higher stages of loadshedding may be required” (as happened last […]

Charlize Theron says she has no regrets over the projects she’s starred in or turned down. But when it comes to her career, Charlize says she’s most proud of its longevity. The 46-year-old Oscar winner made her professional debut in the 1995 direct-to-video horror film Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest, and over the […]

South Africa is one of the leading countries in Africa in terms of COVID vaccine rollout, along with Mauritius, Tunisia and Morocco. It has, however, had its fair share of challenges. Shabir A. Madhi has been a key player in shaping the country’s response. Ina Skosana and Ozayr Patel asked him for an assessment of […]

A raft of confessions have been published in the past three decades chronicling the stories of white men in uniform who plied their trade as apartheid heavies and enforcers. The brutality they dispensed – killings, assassinations, torture, beatings – also came to light in two commissions: the Goldstone Commission, which exposed the a dirty tricks […]

Proteas captain Temba Bavuma has admitted that today’s Twenty20 World Cup match brought a bittersweet ending for the South African team who gave it their all, won against England, but lost the chance to go through to the semi-finals. Speaking from Sharjah, in the UAE, today, Bavuma said: “A bittersweet ending for us. We achieved […]

JOHANNESBURG: Cricket South Africa (CSA) is pleased to announce India’s tour to South Africa in December-January 2021/22 across all formats. The India touring party will play South Africa in three Betway Tests, three Betway ODIs and four KFC T20Is. The tour commences on Friday, 17 December 2021 and ends on Wednesday, 26 January 2022. The […]

The Springboks came from behind in the final ten minutes to end their Cardiff hoodoo with a 23-18 (halftime 9-12) victory over Wales in teeming rain in the first Test of the Castle Lager Outgoing Tour at the Principality Stadium on Saturday. The Springboks – and their fans in the stadium and back home – […]

This article may contain spoilers. Damon Galgut, a white South African playwright and novelist, has won the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel The Promise, a satirical portrait of a white family living in Pretoria in post-apartheid South Africa. The story is a very personal one for Galgut, who grew up in Pretoria and witnessed […]

Former South African police woman Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu has been given six life sentences for the murder of five of her relatives as well as her partner. Ndlovu (known as Rosemary Ndlovu) was defiant throughout the three-month trial, accusing many of the 50 witnesses of lying, insulting journalists, constantly claiming to be ill, and lifting […]

Montgomery Brewster, played by Richard Pryor in the 1985 movie Brewster’s Millions, runs for mayor of New York with the twist that he asks his supporters to vote for None of the Above… By GroundUp Editors None of the Above is arguably the winner of South Africa’s 2021 local election. But in contrast to the […]

As the final vote tallies are confirmed and signed off and the dust settles on the 2021 Local Government Elections, South Africa can mark this week as an historic milestone in the development of our young democracy, says John Steenhuisen, Leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA). Steenhuisen says that with the elections this week, “South […]

IEC South Africa has released the final results of the Local General Elections in SA. At the podium, IEC Chairperson Glen Mashinini says the #LGE2021 has tested the nation in many ways. Among the challenges faced by voters, included #COVID19, the short time frame to conduct the elections, bad weather, power outages, and logistics. The […]

In 2015 a new member was introduced to the family tree of humans. Fossil hominins from the Rising Star cave system outside Johannesburg, South Africa, were found to belong to a previously unidentified hominin species, which was then named Homo naledi. Now an international team of researchers, led by Professor Lee Berger, a palaeoanthropologist from […]

Cape Town (Nov. 4, 2021) – A shocking undercover investigation recently conducted in Iowa, USA, by Humane Society International (HSI)and the Humane Society of the United States found what they say can only be described as a “massive garbage bin of the trophy hunting industry”. A four-day event was held where thousands of taxidermised animals […]