It started with one picture of shoes lined up against a wall, posted on Facebook by Fish Hoek High School in Cape Town, and another two pictures of students walking away from them shoeless. And it quickly grew into a storm of good news across the country. “As our Matric class of 2015 finish writing […]

Jenny Crwys-Williams, the well-known talk show host, was driving home in Johannesburg this week when she saw something that took her totally by surprise… “How fabulous is this?” Crwys-Williams wrote on Facebook. “Driving through Craighall Park I thought I saw a scarecrow. So I turned round, parked & walked down the road and sure enough, it […]

BLOEMFONTEIN – A full panel of five judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa has found Oscar Pistorius guilty of murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, saying that the lower court erred in its decision of culpable homicide. The ruling was read on Thursday by Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Eric Leach. He […]

PRETORIA – During the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to South Africa for the China-Africa summit this week, the two countries signed 26 agreements worth R94 billion ($6.5 billion) on Wednesday, the South African government announced. Xi arrived in South Africa on Wednesday from Zimbabwe, ahead of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit in […]

Almost 60 percent of Africans believe that corruption in their countries has increased over the past year, although in South Africa this figure is 83 percent, according to a new survey released on Tuesday. According to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer for 2015, done together with Afrobarometer, it spoke to 43,143 respondents across 28 countries […]

South Africa has made incredible strides providing anti-retroviral treatment to millions of people since 2004. HIV has been transformed from a grim and inexorable death to a chronic disease controlled with a cheap, safe tablet-a-day, rendering a person with HIV healthy and non-infectious. Treatment is freely available at primary care clinics, administered largely through nurses. […]

HARARE – The Chinese president, who is on his way to South Africa for an Africa-China summit, is stopping off in Zimbabwe first, making him what media have called the most important foreign leader to visit the country since independence in 1980, according to news reports Tuesday. On Friday and Saturday Xi Jinping will attend the Forum […]

A new book by veteran South African journalist John Matisonn claims that once-beloved (by many readers, at least) editor of the Sunday Times, Tertius Myburgh, was an apartheid spy and that Thabo Mbeki tried to warn US and UK leaders off attacking Iraq. These are two of numerous revelations made in the just-published “Gods, Spies and […]

Two weeks ago in Kruger National Park clients of Wild Wings Safari came across an elephant calf stuck in a muddy hole. Try as it might, with lots of encouragement from one particular adult, it just couldn’t make it. Finally, however, after a few other elephants had come to check out the scene, the adult got down and […]

There’s nothing quite as sad as a weekend market that’s empty but for a couple of aunties bravely trying to sell their crocheted doilies and koeksusters. Well, those days are gone if these 10 weekend markets around South Africa are anything to go by. From the trendy Neighbourgoods Market in Johannesburg, where people hang out quaffing wine overlooking the […]

Dreaming of a fabulous holiday to South Africa? While few holidaymakers in the past probably thought of renting someone else’s home – or even a room in it – the US company Airbnb seems to be changing all that around the world, especially in South Africa – and your holiday options are now quite spectacular…as seen in the photos below. Airbnb’s home/room/couch-rental […]

It has been only three weeks since Tanzania elected John Magufuli, the son of a farmer, to take over from Jakaya Kikwete, whose government was scarred by scandals and excesses, and it’s already clear why the can-do, cost-cutting, austere, corruption-hating new leader is known as Iron Fist and the Bulldozer. There might be tongue-in-cheek celebrations on Twitter – […]

A slick new video made by a young German doing a trip around South Africa – great music, thrilling footage from a drone – includes a scene less than halfway through that might throw some viewers into a moral dilemma. He rides an elephant. The scene is jarring because in the rest of the video, titled “For that […]

The traditional huge post-Thanksgiving sale day in the US, Black Friday, had South Africans lining up outside stores early on Friday, with stores packed with shoppers and, in some cases, even battles over cheap Coca-Cola. Checkers, which together with Shoprite is one of the biggest promoters of Black Friday this year, put out an ad beforehand […]

Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Front, addressed the Oxford Union at Oxford University on Wednesday during a trip to the United Kingdom, including in his speech everything from expats to Nelson Mandela. Here are some of his quotes to the “most famous debating society in the world” pulled from the news media. On rich South […]

NEW YORK – South Africa joined 13 other countries including North Korea, Sudan, Syria, China, Russia and Zimbabwe on Wednesday to vote against adopting the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, according to news reports. The declaration recognises the extreme importance and legitimacy of human-rights activity, and those who carry it out. Fourteen countries voted against the bill in […]

This week saw a South African win an award for his searing documentary, another magical multitudinous meditation on the beach in Cape Town and the opening of a hot new design centre in downtown Johannesburg. Plus much more. Remembering Cecil – March in London South African opponents of hunting, canned hunting and petting of lion cubs march […]

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will not be at a summit in South Africa next week, nearly six months after he left the country during a dispute between the Pretoria government and the judiciary, which had ordered he be detained until it reviewed his indictment for alleged war crimes. News reports on Thursday said South Africa […]

A few weeks ago I heard a young kid on KFM radio explain what he loved most about Cape Town. He said that despite school and work, it always feels like you’re on holiday. It got me asking why Cape Town has this particular atmosphere, and then it came to me – it has a […]

PRETORIA – A South African judge on Thursday lifted a domestic trading ban on rhino horn that was imposed by the government in 2009 to try stem poaching of the animals. The decision by Judge Francis Legodi in the Pretoria High Court came after Malelane game farmer John Hume and Limpopo farmer Johan Kruger fought a legal battle to […]

Move over, Starbucks, doughnut-maker Krispy Kreme and competitor Dunkin’ Donuts are also opening up in South Africa. While much attention has been given to the fact that coffee giant Starbucks will open its first branch in South Africa in 2016, it’s been less publicized that at least two other very successful US chains will be doing likewise. (Krispy Kreme’s first […]

In a story coming out of Bronkhorstspruit, a company called Bio2Watt in October started giving off its first power created by cow dung and other waste, and one of the main users of its energy is a nearby BMW plant. See how it all works at the Bio2Watt plant serving BMW: According to a news report […]

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest carrier, wants to buy 10 narrowbody planes and is considering Canada’s Bombardier and Brazil’s Embraer jets among others, as it plans to nearly double its fleet between now and 2025, chief executive Tewolde Gebremariam said Monday. Tewolde, speaking on the sidelines of a global aviation forum in Montreal, […]

The seaside town of Hermanus became a movie set this week with the filming of “The Whale Caller”. Based on the acclaimed book of the same title by Zakes Mda and adapted for the screen by Zola Maseko, the story is about a kelp-horn-blowing man who seems to be deeply drawn to a very particular whale. […]

We’ve all seen it happen on videos shared on Facebook, the amazing choir that bursts out in song unexpectedly when the long-estranged couple meets at the airport. But what happens when the staff members at the local Woolies do it right in front of you? That is what happened today (Tuesday) to Drew Abrahamson and a friend in the […]