First we had loadshedding. Then the jokes. Now the musical videos… Ag Please Eskom – the joys of loadshedding Here’s a Loadshedding tribute song from Nikki Horn, aka TheNixter, whose previous South African-ised Christmas carols went viral during the festive season. Based on Jeremy Taylor’s ‘Ag Pleez Deddy’. Load Shedding Song 2015 – Hours Of Darkness […]

Durban witnessed what is arguably its most successful tourism year in 2014, with an increase in visitor numbers of 12.8% over 2013, according to the eThekwini municipality. In total, 7.4 million people visited the warm East Coast city, with a total direct spend of R19.2-billion and 95 396 jobs created and sustained over the year, […]

The Tate Modern in London is hosting a retrospective exhibition for South African-born painter Marlene Dumas. The exhibition, titled The Image as Burden and made up of more than 100 paintings and drawings, opened on 5 February and will run until 10 May. It was curated by Helen Sainsbury. In 2005, Dumas’ painting The Victor […]

Whenever South Africa is on a sports field, the fiercest rivals always come from Australia. When both countries put on their green and gold colours, encounters usually turn into dogfights. With Australia being the co-hosts for the upcoming Cricket World Cup, we look back at the history of this bloodthirsty rivalry in various sports South […]

American exchange student Brendan Coli spent four months in South Africa in late 2014, during which he filmed video every day. He has compressed his footage into a remarkable 11-minute 30-second video called “The Life Project”, which reveals the remarkable character of the country through an outsider’s eyes. Watch Coli’s take on Cape Town, the […]

Congratulations to South African musician Wouter Kellerman and Indian composer Ricky Kej for winning a Grammy Award last night for their album ‘Winds of Samsara’. Their beautiful collaboration, on the Listen 2 Africa label, won the award in the Best New Age Album category at the awards in Los Angeles last night. At the time of […]

A Zimbabwean expat wrote the following poem which, although it relates more directly to Zimbabwe, contains some sentiments which are sure to resonate with those South Africans scattered abroad… who still long for ‘home’. The poem – ‘Homesick’, by Liz Crilly Bedford – was first published on Facebook page Ubiquitas. According to Ubiquitas owner Dean Sweeney, Liz is an amateur poet who […]

Check out the rare video footage below of two black mamba snakes fighting over who gets the girl! The quality of the film is unfortunately not that great, but the sighting is exceptional with the snakes conducting their ritualised combat in full view in the middle of the road. The sighting of the black mambas (Dendroaspis […]

It’s been just over a year since a South African’s random act of kindness (RAK) caused a tidal wave of good deeds to sweep the nation and the world. And now that South African – Brent Lindeque – is back with a new campaign – #RAK15 (as in Random Acts of Kindness 2015). Rules are the same. Film yourself […]

As South Africa’s first major men’s fashion show kicked off today at the V&A Waterfront, lots of eyes are not only on clothes by the country’s upcoming designers, but also on South African-designed bodies wearing (and not wearing!) them. One notable example – or two, in fact – comes in the muscled and cut shape of model […]

A South African student based in the USA, has put together a cool 11-minute-video of the “best six weeks” of his life – proudly showing his American buddy around our beloved South Africa. And when you watch the video – which he’s called ‘Showing the Yank South Africa’ – you’ll feel like you were on the trip […]

The latest video from South Africa’s cricket team has knocked local and overseas fans for six. It’s packed with pride, patriotism and pure passion – for the game, the team, the fans…and our country, South Africa. With the help of the Proteas Supporters Club, South Africa’s national cricket team tracked down one of their biggest […]

For World Cancer Day today (4 February 2015), we thought we’d share one of our favourite South African videos ever – the morning that 36-year-old mom Gerdi McKenna’s friends and family surprised her with the ultimate act of love after she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer…but then Gerdi sent us a message that’s even better […]

There’s a trend emerging in South Africa of spotting selfless acts of kindness. And with social media as it is, these acts which in the past would go unnoticed – or certainly unshared – are now being spread faster than a viral video on load shedding. And each one brings hope. The latest story comes from DJ […]

Cape Town has been ranked by National Geographic as the world’s second-best beach city in their latest Top 10 list. The international magazine places Cape Town’s beaches behind Barcelona’s “eight white-sand beaches that rim its Mediterranean coastline”. But the South African “capital of cool” pips Hawai’s Honolulu, Nice in France, Miami in the US, Rio […]

Philani Dladla is a well-known feature of Joburg’s streets. The Pavement Bookworm reads books and gives reviews to passers-by. If they like the review, they buy the book. This way, he pays rent and buys food. But his bigger goal is promoting literacy among children. Walk along Gleneagles Road in Greenside and you will find […]

You know the drill. You move overseas and your first foreign friend (or even a guy in the queue at the post office) asks you whether lions roam the streets of South Africa, if Joburg’s roads are paved with gold, and whether we all live in trees. And it’s the same if you stay in […]

South African Airways (SAA) will this week become the first airline globally to install the SatAuth (Satellite Authorisation System) which will allow for secure credit card transactions anywhere in the skies. “The system, first installed on the airline’s cabin trainer for testing in May last year, will not only allow secure credit card transactions anywhere […]

Let us make 2015 the year of unity and cooperation amongst all South Africans, as we continue to transform our beautiful country into the prosperous one described in the Constitution, the Freedom Charter and the National Development Plan,’’ said President Jacob Zuma in his new year address. As we move South Africa forward in 2015 […]

The partnership between the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Primedia Group, via the collaboration between Crime Stop and Crime Line – is continuing to yield successes in the fight against crime. As a result of tip-offs by community members to the Crime Stop number (08600 10111) and the Crime Line SMS line (32211), […]

Bafana Bafana head coach Ephraim Shakes Mashaba has opted for an offensive starting XI that will take on Ghana in a crucial must-win final Group C match of the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) later tonight. Bafana Bafana will battle it out for three points against the Black Stars of Ghana in a match that […]

Due to a shortage of generation capacity, Eskom has moved to stage two load shedding. “We moved to stage two in order to manage our reserves at our pump storage schemes and gas turbines so that we can better manage the rest of the week,” said Eskom Acting Chief Executive Dan Marokane on Tuesday. Stage […]

 The Amajita, South Africa’s men’s under-20 national team, beat Finland 2-1 in a gruelling final to win the Commonwealth Cup tournament in St Petersburg, Russia, on Sunday. Goals by captain Motjeka Madisha and inspirational Pule Maraisane gave Amajita a historic win ahead of going to the CAF African Youth tournament in Senegal in March.And to […]

Wits scientists have found three extremely luminous gamma-ray sources in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way. The scientists are part of a multinational team of astronomers working on the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) telescopes that have again demonstrated its excellent capabilities in searching for high-energy gamma rays.In the […]

South Africans have long believed that biltong is superior to beef jerky…but there’s nothing as satisfying as hearing a foreigner praise our ‘African jerky’! Especially when it’s on a record-breaking TV show! In the video excerpt below, Willie Robertson  – of the hugely popular Duck Dynasty American reality television series – describes South African biltong as delicious, exotic, […]