As coronavirus hit South Africa today with the first confirmed case, and continues to spread around the world, anxiety is rising. Shoppers fearful of quarantine measures have been stocking up on supplies to last out a week or two of isolation. Recent days have seen reports of shortages of hand sanitiser in shops around the […]

The Gauteng Executive Council has placed the City of Tshwane, in South Africa, under provincial administration following current uncertainty and instability within the municipality. Making the announcement on Thursday, Gauteng Premier David Makhura said the decision to take responsibility of all the executive powers of the City of Tshwane council was taken after an assessment, […]

Chantel Dartnall, South Africa’s multi-award winning chef extraordinaire, has been included again as one of the Best Chef Top 100 candidates. The 2020 final will be held in September. Dartnall previously won Best Lady Chef in the World at the international 2017 Best Chef Awards in Warsaw, Poland. On Wednesday an elated Dartnall – who […]

Wolfgat restaurant in Paternoster, on the rugged west coast of South Africa, has been listed as one of the 34 most beautiful restaurants in the world… a fabulous fact to which even the country’s leader can attest. President Cyril Ramaphosa and his family were guests at the restaurant a couple of days before New Year’s […]

According to a BBC documentary, very few fishermen in Jacobs Bay (Jacobsbaai) on the West Coast, South Africa, will be able to survive if the China lockdown continues for much longer. Speaking to fishermen, some of whom have fished these Atlantic Ocean waters for 25 years, they say they’re now struggling to pay rent, power […]

Humans and four-legged friends are invited to strut their stuff along the fifth annual Paws on the Promenade – a dog walk fundraiser by the Mdzananda Animal Clinic, Khayelitsha, in partnership with Vondi’s Holistic Pet Nutrition. The dog walk will take place on Sunday the 15th of March at 9am. Starting at the Mouille Point […]

Deputy President David Mabuza has condemned land grabs and attempted to assure the public that government has put in place legislative measures to ensure the efficient and orderly redistribution of land. “We reiterate our call to the citizens of our country to exercise restraint, and to allow government to implement the necessary policy and constitutional […]

While the South African economy has over the last couple of years taken a beating with a recession in SA announced today, the country’s people continue to rise above often difficult circumstances, says the SA government news site. Fourth-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures this week showed a decline of 1.4 % in the final […]

Thirty-two elephants in South Africa face being shot dead after two rogue bull elephants killed a conservationist trying to shepherd the herd back to a KwaZulu-Natal reserve from which they had strayed. Sources close to the KZN authorities say that a cull of the entire herd has been proposed, but no decision has yet been […]

The South African Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2019, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has revealed… and SA has officially entered into a recession. The South African GDP now stands at a miniscule 0.2%. After successive quarters of negative growth, South Africa entered into a recession in the […]

As cases of Coronavirus (Covid-19) in Europe steadily climb, some Europeans have been stocking up in preparation for voluntary quarantines or forced lockdowns. The risk of contracting coronavirus within Europe has been raised by the EU today from ‘moderate’ to ‘high’. These photos were taken today at a supermarket in Germany, close to the border […]

Eskom has announced that no load shedding is expected on Monday and the possibility of power cuts during the week is also low. “We are utilising emergency generation reserves to supplement power, as we had more unplanned breakdowns [on Saturday],” Eskom said on Sunday. Eskom said additional generation units would return to service on Sunday. […]

The petrol price will again come down by between 19 and 54 cents a litre this week. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy has announced a 19 cent decrease in the price of 93 (ULP and LRP) and 95 (ULP and LRP) as of Wednesday. Meanwhile, both grades of diesel (0.05% Sulphur) and diesel (0.005% […]

For two months late last year, the deadly antibiotic resistant CRE (Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae), ravaged the maternity ward of Tembisa Hospital in Gauteng killing 10 babies. But this wasn’t the first time that a number of infants have died in the same period inside a public health facility in South Africa. Carte Blanche investigates the hospitals […]

Supporters of 70,000 sheep facing a horrendous journey to Kuwait, as well as the sheep themselves, were dealt a devastating blow today when the court decided not to step in and prevent the live export of the sheep from South Africa. The live export of sheep for Kuwait-based meat supplier Al Mawashi is due to […]

The prohibition of waste pickers from accessing the Coastal Park Landfill Site near Muizenberg saw an initial confrontation with security guards on Tuesday 18 February escalate to a group of about 100 people fighting to get in at about 7pm – sunset – last Wednesday 19 February. Reinforcements were called in the next day and […]

The Basic Education Department (DBE) has suspended with immediate effect the serving of canned pilchards as part of the national school nutrition menu across all schools in the country. The decision follows a recent order by the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications that all formal wholesalers, retailers and informal traders remove and stop selling the […]

Between Germiston and Benoni is an open metal dump where more than 20 women survive by collecting scrap metal. Daily they pick through heaps of metal waste dumped by companies on the East Rand, looking for copper, stainless steel, zinc and brass. There are no ablution facilities and the women have to use the bush […]

In December 2017, the change to the foreign employment income exemption was promulgated into law. This has widely become known as the “expat tax”. The exemption at that point was capped at R1mil, meaning that South African tax residents earning foreign employment income above this threshold would no longer be exempt from tax in South […]

Numerous groups marched to Parliament or picketed outside the gates on Wednesday, ahead of the budget speech by Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni. Cry of the Xcluded Hundreds of protesters under the banner of Cry of the Xcluded marched to Parliament as well as the civic centre demanding that government deal with the crisis of […]

The South African Government has set aside R16.4 billion to repay guaranteed debt for the struggling airline SAA, the National Treasury said on Wednesday. This comes after the SAA Board placed the airline under voluntary business rescue in December last year after the struggling state-owned entity was unable to meet financial obligations. “Since 2008/09, SAA […]

A Spar franchisee in South Africa has been ordered to pay millions of rands to workers for unlawful deductions on earnings, as well as non-compliance with the National Minimum Wage (NMW), said the Department of Employment and Labour.   On Monday, the department welcomed the outcome of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) […]

A raft of tax increases and curtailing the public sector wage bill are just some of the interventions anticipated to be announced by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni when he delivers the 2020 Budget. Amid South Africa’s precarious economic state, economists, in anticipation of the Budget, say Mboweni has the unenviable task of extricating the country […]

The Department of Employment and Labour says the new rate for the National Minimum Wage (NMW) for each ordinary hour worked will now be R20.76. In terms of a notice published in the Government Gazette and signed by Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi, the new rate will be applicable on 1 March 2020. The […]

About 150 protesters marched to Parliament on Monday to mark the first day of the two-day Real Jobs Summit, part of the Cry of the Xcluded campaign over unemployment. On Sunday participants in the campaign staged a performance of a play at the V&A Waterfront amphitheatre about unemployment, climate change and domestic violence. The play was […]