Sometimes the first few notes of a song will take you back in time. A time you may not have thought about in 20 or 30 years. One minute you are sitting in traffic on a congested freeway in the stifling Texas heat. Or in London in the drizzle, or Perth or Prague. The next second you […]

For anyone overseas feeling homesick for South Africa, or even for someone in Cape Town feeling lus for some views of the Kruger Park or the Blyde River Canyon, Google Maps is partly answering the call. Short of taking a trip on a second’s notice, you can click on Google’s newly launched South Africa, the Mzansi […]

The new movie by “Tsotsi” director Gavin Hood opens in South Africa and the United States on Friday, and not only brings him back to Africa but it looks like it’s going to be a blockbuster and rank him with the world’s top action and suspense directors. “Eye in the Sky” has a brilliant cast – Helen […]

Parliament – or at least the African National Congress side of the house – on Thursday approved a 4.5 percent raise for President Jacob Zuma. Zuma now earns R2,874,851 a year, which means he gets R7‚876 a day or R239‚568 a month. The Democratic Alliance’s Chief Whip, John Steenhuisen, was visibly angry about Zuma getting a raise after firing finance […]

Business Day associate editor Sam Kokeli saw Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday, after the deputy president wrapped up a week of answering questions in Parliament. And both of them were sitting in economy class on the South African Airways flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Ramaphosa is the second high-ranking member of government to attract attention for […]

The tragic and redemptive story of Amy Biehl, the American Fulbright scholar who was living in South Africa when she was attacked by a township mob in Cape Town and stabbed to death, will be made into a film backed by Tyler Perry and some other US movie luminaries. According to news reports on Thursday, the movie, titled […]

Janusz Valus, the man who shot anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani in cold blood outside Johannesburg on 10 April 1993 and was sentenced to life in jail, has been granted parole. A judge in Gauteng North High Court said that Valus must be released within 14 days. The Department of Justice last year resisted Valus’ parole application, saying […]

DUBAI – Falcon Private Bank plans to expand in Africa and will look at opportunities arising from Barclays’ planned sale of its African assets, a senior executive at the Swiss bank told Reuters. Barclays said last week it would sell a 62 percent stake in Barclays Africa, its South Africa-based subsidiary, as it attempts to […]

Raymond Ackerman, who put what is arguably South Africa’s favourite supermarket on the map after buying three stores in the turbulent 1960s, turns 85 today. Last week, quite coincidentally, a documentary about Ackerman’s life and how he strived to run a fair, non-racial business in apartheid South Africa, “Good Business, The Story of a South African Retail Giant”, […]

The Proteas might have lost the last game in the T20 series against Australia, but the match had its lighter moments, especially when a squirrel made its way onto the pitch and was chased by five officials, who even tried luring it off with nuts. https://youtu.be/03nEP77rwTc

Eighteen young elephants have been spirited out of Swaziland under “devious” circumstances to be taken to three US zoos before a court case could be heard about the damage that would be inflicted on the animals, according to an animal rights organization. Animal rights group Friends of Animals said in an open letter posted online on […]

Three young men have been arrested by police in connection with the fatal assault on 16-year-old Franziska Blöchliger, according to news reports on Wednesday. The reports quoted Lieutenant Colonel Andrè Traut of the Cape Town police. “The circumstances surrounding the case are still under investigation and no further information can be released at this stage‚” he was […]

In its fourth annual report, in which it encourages South Africans to speak up against corruption, Corruption Watch has identified the most flagrant hotspots in South Africa as schools as well as traffic and licensing departments. In the report released this week, titled “Amp up the Volume” – the agency said that over the past four years […]

More than 3 million people visited their voting stations over the past weekend to register for the first time, to re-register and to update their registration details, the Electoral Commission of South Africa said in a statement on Tuesday. The IEC said it believed “the results show without doubt that South Africans remain highly committed to […]

Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration as Nigeria’s president presents new opportunities for reinvigorating relations between Nigeria and South Africa, the continent’s biggest economies. Since the 1990s, the collective leadership of Nigeria and South Africa has been vital in providing the foundations for African renewal, the creation of institutions on the continent and the mobilisation of African voices […]

PRETORIA – The New Development Bank of the five-nation BRICS grouping is officially open for business and has started hiring staff, according to the National Treasury. The bank is in the process of establishing its Africa Regional Centre in Johannesburg, as announced by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in his 2016 Budget Speech, and the Treasury […]

Nothing like a bit of encouragement to push you when you’re cycling – which is exactly what this ostrich did to two foreign cyclists who were training for the Cape Town Cycle Tour. Their friend taping it all said he almost fell off his bike he was laughing so much. “We came down to South […]

A ranger in Kruger National Park was wounded in a shootout with three suspected poachers on Sunday in which one of the men was fatally wounded, according to park authorities. Field Ranger Killers Ubisi was shot and wounded in the arm during a firefight in the central Houtboschrand section of the park, according to a statement […]

The Gupta family, who have recently come under severe attack by politicians and the media for reportedly receiving preferential treatment and financial breaks in South Africa because of their close relationship with President Jacob Zuma, have denied a report they are leaving South Africa for Dubai. In an emailed statement to Fin24, a representative for Oakbay Investments, the […]

South Africa’s great singer Miriam Makeba – Mama Africa – would have been 84 today. The singer famous for “Pata Pata” and numerous other songs and for being one of the most public opponents of apartheid on the world stage was born in Johannesburg in 1932. Her mother was a Swazi sangoma and her father […]

The Electoral Commission (IEC) has called on all eligible voters to come out in their numbers this weekend – 5-6 March – to register and to update their details ahead of the upcoming 2016 Municipal Elections during this weekend’s voter registration drive. This is one of the most anticipated local elections since 1994 as the African National […]

There will be an estimated 35,000 people riding the 109-km Cape Town Cycle Tour on Sunday, the biggest timed road race in the world, and it will include everyone from fund-raisers, moms and dads and kids, people in costumes, tandem riders, conservationists and even nudists. Well, the nudists won’t be ridding in the Cape Town Cycle Tour […]

The coffee chain Starbucks is to open its first two stores in South Africa in April, one in Rosebank, Johannesburg, and the other in the massive Mall of Africa between Johannesburg and Pretoria, according to news reports on Thursday. The stores will be Starbucks’ first in sub-Saharan Africa. The chain will reportedly adapt its menu […]

On World Wildlife Day, people from around the world are tweeting by the second – messages and pictures – to bring attention to species: the elephant, the rhino, the lion, the tiger, the moose, the butterfly, pandas, foxes, the Vietnamese langur (sought after for supposed medicinal qualities), dolphins, dugongs, pangolins, pythons, antelopes, the list goes on and on. And also, […]

MAPUTO – Debris from a plane found on a beach in Mozambique could come from the lost Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 that went down in 2014 while on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with the loss of 239 people. The one-metre-long piece of debris with the words “No Step” written on it was found in […]