When Jon Stewart announced in February that he would be stepping down from his hugely popular Daily Show, the national lamenting in the United States began. At the same time people started asking who, if anyone, could take over from the acerbic, insightful and very funny Stewart. UPDATE: Click here for the Official News! A […]

Congratulations to 24-year-old Liesl Laurie from Eldorado Park in Johannesburg who has been crowned Miss South Africa tonight…living up to her motto that she will “never fit in because I was born to stand out!” Liesl was crowned at the ceremony this evening, 29 March, at Sun City Superbowl.  Her first and second princesses are Refilwe […]

Along with the recently announced Health Surcharge, the United Kingdom has announced a series of amendments to its immigration rules, many of which will impact South Africans and most of which will begin to come into effect as soon as April 2015. The UK Government says most of these visa application changes are aimed at ensuring the […]

Load shedded South Africans are no strangers to being without power…but tonight we’re being asked to switch off our electricity deliberately…as part of the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF’s) larger global movement – Earth Hour. South Africans around the country – including cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro), Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille and Zolani Mohale from […]

Fans may have thought the early mornings of getting up for the Proteas were over when South Africa was knocked out of the 2015 World Cup in the semi-final against New Zealand…but this morning they were up bright and early one more time to welcome their beloved cricket team back home. “What a brilliant welcome for […]

South African political analyst, author – and Rhodes Scholar – Eusebius McKaiser has defended his right to support the #RhodesMustFall campaign which calls for the statue of Cecil John Rhodes to be removed from the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus. After an opinion piece he wrote was published today on the New York Times website, furious defenders of […]

The video below – of a South African game ranger losing it with a German tourist – has turned out to be a hoax and nothing more than a sales ploy from a careers website. The German tourist in the video is portrayed as being Africa’s version of the noisy cinema-goer who eats popcorn and talks throughout the movie! […]

South African comedian Trevor Noah is using his platform as an international comedian to educate and, well, chastise the world on a few issues. Taking his role as an ambassador of South Africa and the entire continent of Africa seriously, Trevor has been putting the world straight…while making them laugh. At the end of last […]

South African author Marlene van Niekerk is one of 10 authors from around the world – four of them from Africa – nominated for the Man Booker International Prize. The award, worth £60,000, will be awarded on May 19. Van Niekerk was joined on the list by other Africa nominees Mia Couto of Mozambique, Ibrahim […]

South African cricket captain AB de Villiers has expressed his disappointment at today’s defeat of the Proteas by the New Zealand national team at Eden Park, Auckland…and at letting their fans down. South Africa was beaten by four wickets with a ball to spare after the Duckworth / Lewis system was taken into account (due to rain delays). […]

As international Wellness guru Deepak Chopra (67) wraps up his trip to South Africa with an observation that Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg “were uniquely enlightening experiences”…here are some of our favourite enlightening quotes from the author below. The New Age speaker was in the country to discuss “wellbeing”…of which he said South Africa as a nation was […]

Groot Constantia’s 2013 Chardonnay has beaten over 800 Chardonnays around the world to be crowned the best in the world….well, to be crowned Chardonnay du Monde to be exact. The South African wine was judged the world’s best at the recent 22nd annual Chardonnay-du-Monde competition in the Burgundy wine region of France. As can be gleaned from […]

It seems pretty clear now: “Chappie” is not doing well. The new film from “District 9” director Neill Blomkamp that especially attracted attention – or rather, curiosity – over its use of Die Antwoord’s duo Ninja and Yolandi Visser has come and (almost) gone. Since its release in the United States on March 6, critics […]

Former Sunday Times editor Ken Owen has passed away this morning. The writer, who grew up in Pretoria West, was suffering from cancer. Less than a month ago Owen gave a moving speech at his 80th birthday party celebrations, on 21 February, in which he said he was ready to “relinquish life”. He also used […]

We watched Americans trying South African snacks (and making the cardinal sin of forgetting to dunk their Ouma Rusks in coffee!). Now South Africa has responded with a video of South Africans (including children) trying American snacks. The original BuzzFeed video has been viewed over 1.5-million times since it was published on 7 March 2015! In […]

It had to happen! Someone’s created a South African version of the Laughing Man video (which went viral last week as an Apple interview). Both spoofs are based on a video clip from a Spanish show in which the contestant laughs uncontrollably whilst talking, causing the show’s presenter Jesús Quintero to double over with laughter himself. […]

Congratulations! South Africa has powered through to the World Cup Cricket Semi-Finals with a whopping nine-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the quarter finals today! This is South Africa’s first-ever World Cup knock-out win since it entered the arena in 1992. Protea bowler JP Duminy pulled off a hat-trick – the first hat-trick ever by a South […]

Helicopter pilot and #CapeFire hero Willem Hendrik ‘Bees’ Marais will be laid to rest today. But he will never be forgotten by his friends, family and the people of Cape Town. A facebook page has been set up in dedication of ‘Oom Bees’, as he was fondly called; and a makeshift memorial of cards, letters […]

For many Capetonians, DuNoon is a township on the fringes of Milnerton. For young filmmaker Howard Fyvie, it’s his new home. In a short film called ‘Township Diaries, Excerpt 1,’ Fyvie explains why he has moved to DuNoon (also written as Dunoon or Du Noon). “We hear such negativity about the townships, and [that] the government sucks and […]

Rare Diseases South Africa has issued a heartfelt plea for South Africans to help a Californian family find a young boy in South Africa who happens to be the only person in the world to share an identical gene mutation with their 7-year-old daughter. Both children have GM1 Gangliosidosis. In a message on their Facebook page, the NPO for rare […]

It’s 48 years since Professor Chris Barnard put South Africa on the medical map by performing the world’s first heart transplant, and now a  team of surgeons from Stellenbosch University (SU) and Tygerberg Hospital have proved SA remains at the forefront of medical progress by performing the world’s first successful penile transplant. The ground-breaking operation lasted nine hours and  took […]

There’s a fantastic new trend emerging in South Africa – thanks to social media – of giving a public shout out and recommendation to those people who work hard day in and day out, striving for excellence in their trade. In the latest shout-out post to go viral, Claire Dodds of Cape Town wrote about an […]

The Baboon Technical Team (BTT) has issued a plea to residents in the Western Cape to please NOT feed the baboons. Some well-meaning residents have wanted to help the baboons after fires ravaged the mountains around Cape Town last week, burning many of the pine trees in the Tokai Forest where the baboons lived. However […]

While the flames and the headlines may have died down, the work for the firefighters in the Western Province of South Africa is far from over. Just this evening the Volunteer Wildfire Services (VWS) crew were deployed again to assist with flare-ups along the slopes of Stellenbosch Mountain. “Be safe crew!” wrote the administrator of their Facebook page. Cape […]

Less than a week after fires ravaged mountain slopes in the Western Cape, new life is beginning in the midst of the devastation…as shown by these photos taken a couple of days ago by South African trail runner Ryan Sandes. Sandes took the photos during a “morning adventure” up Black Burn Ravine. He said that after […]