Addressing the House of Assembly that was almost half empty, because most of the opposition (due to a boycott of him) plus many ANC members (because who knows why) were not there, President Jacob Zuma today told the speaker to get the house in order. He spoke about how South Africa’s dignity was compromised by the […]

Five Zimbabwean men have been successfully growing crops on land abandoned as unprofitable in Malmesbury. The landowner, N7 Meat, gave up farming crops on the land, claiming losses of over R1 million. Albert Zinhanga and four friends met the landowner when buying an ox for slaughter at N7 Meat in 2014. Noticing fallow land, they […]

In an unprecedented move, eight opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters but excluding the Inkatha Freedom Party, will boycott President Jacob Zuma’s speech in Parliament on Thurday, DA leader Mmusi Maimane said in a statement signed by the party leaders. They said it would be “an empty speech of an utterly […]

NEW YORK – “Lesedi la Rona,” the largest gem-quality rough diamond discovered in more than 100 years, will be auctioned in London next month and is expected to sell for $70 million (£48.2 million), international auction house Sotheby’s said on Wednesday. Ahead of the auction on June 29, the 1,190-carat diamond, its name in Botswana’s […]

Parliament descended into chaos for a few minutes on Wednesday as the Economic Freedom Fighters tried to prevent President Jacob Zuma from addressing the assembly, despite warnings from the Speaker Baleka Mbete, who finally told the EFF to leave the chamber. It was reportedly the first time Zuma had appeared in the assembly since two […]

A story doing the rounds on social media has it that President Jacob Zuma will get a luxury jet, the most expensively kitted-out one in the world, a Boeing 747-8 with all the trimmings. It’s a good story but totally fabricated. On 22 April, in fact, Armscor, the acquisition arm of the SA Defense Force, […]

At Port Elizabeth Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, where Christopher Panayiotou, 28, stands accused of murdering his wife, Jayde, two groups of women picketed against each other. Outside, holding placards with ‘Justice for Jayde’ written on them, the Democratic Alliance Women’s Network (DAWN) stood silently at the main entrance to the court. “This is to raise awareness […]

The Union Buildings might seem the obvious place to put Parliament if it were to move from Cape Town, but it appears the mayor of Pretoria/Tshwane has other ideas. He is talking about the old Boer War fort at Klapperkop. During this year’s state of the nation address by President Jacob Zuma it was suggested that […]

AfriForum will meet with the South African chief of police on Wednesday to discuss a strategy to deal with farm murders in South Africa, according to the civil rights organisation. AfriForum said it would meet with Lieutenant General Khomotso Phahlane, the acting national police commissioner, to discuss the manner in which farm murders can be prioritised […]

As the increasingly popular festival in the desert AfrikaBurn drew to a close for its tenth annual rave, the organisers said that a 52-year-old woman had died after an accident at the event. “It is with a heavy heart that we report that on Saturday (30th) April 52 year old Dana Lawless passed away after being airlifted […]

The mayor of Cape Town Patricia de Lille has condemned the “despicable” racist words of a 26-year-old Capetonian whose tweet full of foul language about the government went viral, and said she is referring it to the South African Human Rights Commission. “I condemn these comments as there is no place for racism in our society. We are […]

The idea of being on an island all your own isn’t new, but Thanda Island off of southern Tanzania is taking that a little step further. Instead of there being numerous lodges, there’s just one. And it’s not just a lodge, it’s a villa for you and your guests alone. And it’s run by South […]

And the answer is: Honfleur, Normandy, France ? – taken on a recent holiday by #ProudlySouthAfrican Mia Conradie who lives in Paris.

A 240-bed safari lodge to be built near Malelane Gate in the Kruger National Park has been approved, the SA National Parks said this week. SANP said the Department of Environmental Affairs had given the green light to the Malelane Safari Lodge, whose impact would “definitely be far less than the sprawling towns of Skukuza and Satara”. […]

The much-hyped Mall of Africa opened its doors on Thursday, and the traffic began before the crowds started flooding in – and neither had not eased off by midday. “It’s 12:48pm and they decided to close the entrance to the mall. They are making a KILLING today! #MallOfAfrica,” @zowie_jean tweeted. The 300-store mall in the new Waterfall development, […]

Almost three dozen lions that were rescued from circuses in Peru and Colombia since 2014 are finally going to make the last stage of their journey back to a better place, and will fly to South Africa on Friday. The organisation of the massive airlift by Animal Defenders International is going through its final phases before the aptly named […]

A 160 km cycling track between George and Plettenberg Bay, part of a much larger plan to make the Western Cape a biking mecca, is planned to be launched early next year. The Western Cape government said in a statement this week that the route, which will be the first part of the projected “Cape Cross” cycling […]

Today is the day South Africa remembers the first election on 27 April, 1994, the man who made it all possible, Nelson Mandela, and the freedom obtained by all. Lots of people are sending in wishes – even stores and bars and music festivals trying to cash in on the deal, even Mariah sent a […]

Thirty years ago today, 26 April 1986, one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in the then Soviet Union. A South African who recently visited and took these pictures says the site, now in the Ukraine, is one of the eeriest places he has ever visited. “After the explosion, the Soviets kept it quite […]

If it hadn’t been for a grandmother who was left sobbing on the floor of a Pick ‘n Pay supermarket, it should have been a good day on Tuesday for the supermarket chain, after it said it had its strongest annual growth since 2010. But the incident with grandmother Iris Beukes got all the publicity, unfortunately […]

The Mall of Africa will open its doors on Thursday, 28 April. It is the biggest mall built in a single phase in South Africa/Southern Africa/Africa, depending on which website you read. Construction consumed 10 million bricks and 8,500 tons of steel. It is located in Waterfall, a new living, working, retail area between Johannesburg […]

The confusion over whether the executive capital of South Africa is called Pretoria or Tshwane has been going on for several years already, although the mayor of the city says that is about to end – well, kind of. “With regards to the name change, we have done public consultations and reviews in council and a resolution was […]

In her latest episode of “Evita’s Free Speech”, the inimitable Evita reflects on the EFF’s Julius Malema telling Al Jazeera that his party would “remove the government through the barrel of a gun“, but also her thoughts about Freedom Day, 27 April.

Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane was joined by Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille and other party leaders in the Rand Stadium in Johannesburg as they launched the party’s election manifesto on Saturday. In his speech to a crowd of between 20,000 and 25,000, Maimane focused on the party’s six-pronged election platform of “opportunity, responsive government, service delivery, […]

Even though we live in one of the beautiful places in the world, it’s completely understandable that sometimes we may not give the beauty of Cape Town the appreciation it deserves. This is not because we don’t think our city is beautiful, it’s just because we become desensitised to it. But every Capetonian recognises that moment when the […]