Members of a residents association in Sunbird Park in Kuilsriver, Cape Town, are at loggerheads with a community activist running a soup kitchen in the area. The residents want the soup kitchen closed. In June, we reported on Latifa Jacobs’s soup kitchen which she runs from the front of her parents’ house in Lovebird Walk. […]

“If you see a [taxi] driver not wearing a mask during a trip, report him,” warns Themba Kubheka, secretary of the Greater North Taxi Association in Durban. Taxi bosses and associations have warned drivers to wear masks and practise good hygiene during trips. They are encouraging commuters to report drivers who are not adhering to […]

Dear Family and Friends writes Cathy Buckle from Zimbabwe. I write this letter from a bitterly cold Zimbabwe where tension is high and people are anxious. There are 300,000 civil servants in Zimbabwe. A month ago they were promised a “cushioning” allowance of US$75 a month for the next three months and pensioners would get […]

Trucks are backed up in long queues at the Beitbridge border with Zimbabwe, with some drivers complaining that they have been stuck for three days. When GroundUp visited the area on Tuesday 28 July, the queue of trucks crossing into Zimbabwe or on their way to Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania stretched […]

The Cape Town leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series – provisionally scheduled for 4-6 December this year – has been cancelled due to the ongoing and dynamic global nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, World Rugby announced on Wednesday. The Dubai leg of the Series – with which the Cape Town event is paired […]

The National Lotteries Commission (NLC) has given more than R15 million in funding to a dormant organisation in rural Limpopo, some of it for a mysterious music festival in Mpumalanga. More than R15 million was paid to a dormant Limpopo organisation by the National Lotteries Commission in 2017 and 2019. About R5 million of it […]

In the mountains, valleys and plains of the Cape, there are about six thousand species of plants that are not found anywhere else in the world. But as the climate changes, and invasive species and human development elbow them out of their natural niches, they are rapidly disappearing. It has been 70 years since Erica […]

In the latest development in a conflict that has been going on for many years between residents of Marievale outside Nigel, Gauteng, and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and the City of Ekurhuleni, a community representative says he is now under military imposed house arrest.   Residents of Happiness Village informal settlement at […]

Olympic gold medallist Sir Mo Farah will compete in the 10km Cape Town Marathon Virtual Race Run in the United Kingdom, scheduled for 18 October. The coronavirus pandemic led to the launch of the virtual event and while Cape Town Marathon participants may miss out on the spectacle, the virtual race promises to take all […]

Under the District Six restitution project, 212 housing units, making up 954 homes, will be constructed at a cost of R325 million. Work on the final phases of the District Six restitution project has begun. The national Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development is having the ground cleared and rubble removal as mandated […]

Anti-apartheid struggle hero Andrew Mokete Mlangeni, who died this week at the age of 95, was the last surviving of the eight African National Congress (ANC) activists who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the infamous Rivonia trial in the 1960s. Mlangeni spent 20 of his 26 years in jail on Robben Island alongside fellow […]

The DA says it does not support the decision by President Cyril Ramaphosa to close schools in South Africa for four weeks. “President Ramaphosa has bent the knee to all-powerful teachers’ unions, in particular SADTU, who do not have the best interests of learners at heart,” said DA Leader John. “This is not leadership. President […]

Wayne Morgan, a plumber and electrician from Roodepoort, is a recent arrival at Angel Wings, a shelter in Benoni on Gauteng’s East Rand. He has lived at the shelter for two months. He lost his job when the company he worked for shut its doors at the start of lockdown. He stayed with family and […]

Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, says KwaZulu-Natal appears to be following the same trend of COVID-19 infections, as witnessed in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng provinces. Speaking during a virtual sitting of the National Assembly on Thursday, he said: “This is based on the average daily cases that we have been recording. We […]

The South African government has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for $4.2 billion. The money would come from a facility that provides financing to countries facing an urgent balance of payments need, without the need to have a full-fledged program in place. According to the IMF managing director this means that the recipient can […]

While the number of new COVID-19 cases is stabilising in the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal is expected to join Gauteng as the country’s epicentre, Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has warned.   “In the country, Gauteng is still at the top of the rate of infections. KwaZulu-Natal is taking over now,” Mkhize […]

A vaccine against COVID-19 is urgently needed if we’re to stop the virus spreading and prevent potentially millions of further deaths. We’re now one step closer to that goal. Yesterday, we published early results from our clinical trial of the vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (also known as AZD1222), designed by the University of Oxford and developed […]

Denel, the largest manufacturer of defence equipment in South Africa, has announced the resignation of its Group Chief Executive Officer Danie du Toit. Du Toit will continue to render his services until 15 August, while an interim Group CEO will be appointed shortly. Denel said on Monday its board has taken far-reaching steps to stabilise […]

No fewer than 15 Springboks – with a combined total of 522 Test caps worth of experience between them – have opted to return to South Africa in the last year. First to have their passports stamped by local customs were JP Pietersen and Ruan Pienaar, who returned to South Africa last year during the […]

As a medical professional, being on the frontline, I was constantly worried about contracting COVID. And three weeks ago I tested positive for it… writes Dr Andrew Williams, a medical practitioner in the Western Cape, whose post has gone viral, in which he candidly shares his fears and guilt of contracting COVID-19 in South Africa, […]

Hundreds of bikers roared down Roeland Street in Cape Town on Saturday morning to protest against farm murders. They gathered outside Parliament in leather jackets and long boots carrying placards saying: “Stop farm killings” and “No farms, no food”. Some bikers performed “donuts” (spinning around on their bike wheels). “The government is not doing anything […]

It was a beautiful day when Nelson Mandela and I met at his home in the late 1990s to brainstorm the programme of the Smile Foundation, writes Marc Lubner, one of SA’s leading philanthropists and Group CEO of Afrika Tikkun. As we fired off ideas at one another, our former president fell quiet for a […]

As the tourism sector across South Africa continues to be devastated by the lockdown, the Western Cape government has launched a R5 million fund to support new or existing tourism products and experiences in the province. The aim is to support those products and experiences that are most unique, such as cultural and heritage experiences […]

While the positive COVID-19 cases in South Africa is rapidly approaching 300,000… the good news is that almost half of these patients have already recovered. In the past 24 hours, SA has reported another 10 496 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections to 298 292. The number of recoveries is 146 279, […]

There’s good news for Eskom-using South Africans in that some generating units have returned to service. But there’s less good news too… as Eskom is implementing Stage 1 load shedding today (Wednesday 15 July)… as a “last resort” in order to protect the national grid. The power utility was set to implement Stage 1 load […]