President Cyril Ramaphosa and other Southern African heads of state agreed on Wednesday to the deployment of the SADC’s Standby troops to Mozambique to combat the horrific terrorism that has rocked northern parts of the country. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) met in Maputo to consider the SADC’s proposed response to address the attacks […]

Gauteng Provincial Government has released a statement on Wednesday afternoon, announcing that it conducted a thorough check with all hospitals in the province, and that none of them – private or public – had any records of the ‘decuplets’ births reported by the Independent Media group on 7 June 2021. Gauteng government says it is […]

When the President’s iPad went missing in Cape Town yesterday, as he was about to deliver a keynote address about the Transnet National Ports Authority on live TV, he instead delivered a humorous monologue about how his iPad had been ‘stolen’. He was of course joking (although visibly a little shocked). It didn’t take South […]

A total of 46 893 COVID-19 tests were conducted on Tuesday, with 11 093 new cases detected. According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), this represents a 23.7% positivity rate, pushing the number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 1 843 572. Of the latest infections, the majority are from Gauteng (67%), followed by the Western Cape […]

The South African Revenue Service’s (SARS) destroyed over 2,000 master boxes of illicit cigarettes, valued at R17.4 million on Tuesday, it announced in a statement. SARS director for customs border operations, Beyers Theron, said the cigarettes were either illicitly imported or illicitly manufactured in the country. They were seized and destroyed by a government inter-agency […]

Nine-year-old Romario Valentine is a pint-sized planet warrior and artist from Umhlanga, Durban. He has dedicated the last 4 years of his young life to protecting our planet… and has big planet-saving dreams for his tenth birthday. Fully focused on his passions, namely bird and marine conservation, climate change, and deforestation, Romario has remarkably already […]

Yesterday Gauteng Premier David Makhura warned that the province is in the midst of a COVID-19 crisis, as cases show no signs of slowing down. “Our province is under fire,” he said. “This place is burning with Coronavirus.” Today there are rumours that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa may soon announce a move to Level […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa today announced the establishment of the Transnet National Ports Authority as an independent subsidiary of Transnet. Following his visit to the Port of Cape Town, the South African President said: “This is an important part of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan… The weak performance of our ports is the result of […]

A year ago, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we predicted that school closures in South Africa would result in learning losses. A loss of contact learning time would lead to lower educational outcomes, and the losses would be higher in no-fee schools (serving children from low income families) than in fee-paying schools. Now […]

The COVID-19 crisis has revived discussions on localising vaccine manufacturing to the African region to reduce the dependence on imports. The fact that Africa is lagging so far behind on the COVID-19 vaccination compared with Europe and North America has highlighted the importance of the issue. Most African countries depend on the WHO-sponsored COVAX scheme, […]

South Africa has reported 9 160 new COVID-19 cases, said the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD). There were 36 858 COVID-19 tests conducted on Monday. This translated to a 24.9% positivity rate, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 1 832 479. Of the latest infections, the majority were found in Gauteng (6 […]

South Africa’s internationally renowned opera singer Pretty Yende has described a horrific account of her experience at the hands of police officials at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris yesterday, Monday 21 June 2021. Yende (36) is in France to perform in La Sonnambula opera at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. It was just five years […]

South African professional cyclist Stefan de Bod will be flying the flag high for SA during this year’s Tour de France 2021 in what is a dream come true for the 24-year-old. Yesterday, he was announced as a Tour de France team cyclist for Astana Premier Tech. On Monday, Stefan said on social media: “First […]

The World Health Organization (WHO) and its COVAX partners are working with a South African consortium to establish its first COVID mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub. The SA consortium comprises Biovac, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a network of universities and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The move follows WHO’s global call […]

Melville’s 7th Street in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been named the 12th coolest street in the world in a Time Out survey which was based on the opinions of 27,000 city-dwellers worldwide. It’s the first time Time Out has featured a Coolest Street guide, and Main Road, Kalk Bay, in the Western Cape was also […]

As Covid-19 cases rise rapidly, Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi claims that hospitals are “still able to cope with the pressure at this stage”… but it’s an open secret in the province, amongst concerned friends and family, that some patients are being turned away. Others are sitting for two days in a chair, waiting for […]

An investigative team has revealed that sadly, the ‘diamonds’ that fortune seekers thought they had found in a village near Ladysmith, South Africa, were nothing more than quartz crystals. The team was deployed to investigate and identify the stones in KwaHlathi village following a ‘diamond rush’ last week which saw over 1,000 people from around […]

Photos are pouring in from around South Africa and the world, with the words “Baboons Belong” written on the palms of people’s hands, to raise awareness for a vastly improved management of these iconic animals in the Western Cape who currently face death if they don’t behave according to a set of what some people […]

There was joy for Wayde van Niekerk but more frustration for Caster Semenya at the Continental Tour Silver event meeting in Madrid on Saturday night. Van Niekerk, the current 400m Olympic champion, finished second in 44.56 seconds and although he was headed across the line by Colombia’s Anthony Zambrano (44.51), both men easily dipped inside […]

AfriForum has sent a formal PAIA application to the Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19 (MAC) and the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) to obtain documents and information from these organisations that relate to their review of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. As much of the country enters a third wave […]

With Lockdown restrictions eased since last year, the rhino poaching war has certainly heated up in South Africa. The last seven days have been hectic – a suspected rhino poaching kingpin gunned down just before appearing in court, three suspected poachers arrested in separate incidents (with tourists helping report them), and at least 21 poaching […]

For the first time in history, the entire country of South Africa may soon be lit up. Eskom has never been able to provide power to 100% of the population. And while the state-owned enterprise has battled to keep existing lights on, it has been unable to spend the time and energy needed to resurrect […]

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced Friday afternoon (18 June 2021) that South Africa’s long jumper Luvo Manyonga has been banned for four years. The AIU said in a tweet: “The Disciplinary Tribunal has banned South African long jumper Luvo Manyonga for four years from 23 December 2020 for whereabouts failures, his second violation of […]

Fabulous South African soprano – Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha – has won the Song Prize at the prestigious BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2021. The 27-year-old rose to victory – against finalists from Madagascar, Wales, South Korea and Austria – with a mix of popular Lieder, South African song (in Xhosa!) and spirituals. “Masabane Cecilia […]

Despite video interviews, sworn statements and even the BBC reporting on the record-breaking birth of ten babies in South Africa to a mom from Tembisa township, it turns out it was all a hoax. The mother – Gosiame Sithole – apparently was not even pregnant, according to several reports in SA. Pretoria News, owned by […]