The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) says it has registered the COVID-19 Johnson & Johnson vaccine, known as Janssen, with conditions. “This registration signals a significant step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,” said SAHPRA CEO, Dr Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela. According to Dr Semete-Makokotlela, the authorisation is based on acceptable safety, quality and […]

Fifty three years ago, on 4 April, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated as he stood on his balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Barely sixty feet away was the only photographer on the scene, South African Joe (Joseph) Louw, who was staying in a nearby room and making a documentary about […]

The price of petrol in South Africa is set to increase by between R1 and 95 cents a litre as of tomorrow, Wednesday 7 April, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has announced. The department attributed the increase to various global events, including the Ever Given vessel which blocked the Suez Canal. “The […]

In an average year, 1.35 million people die on the world’s roads and another 50 million are seriously injured. Most (93%) of the deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, and sub-Saharan Africa is the global hotspot in the road death pandemic. In South Africa 26 out of every 100,000 people die on the roads […]

Thirty Banded Mongooses that inadvertently ‘hitched’ a ride from Mabula Game Lodge for 170km to a house in Silverlakes, Pretoria, have been successfully rescued and returned by the Owl Rescue Centre. As the Centre says, this “unusual” (and uniquely South African!) story should make it into the Guiness World Book of Records. The mongooses’ adventure […]

About 7,000 families are living on the railways in Langa, Cape Town. The Siyahlala informal settlement calls the tracks their home, and they blame the City of Cape Town municipality for not providing services. Meanwhile their shacks are blocking the trains. The South African government wants them to leave, but they have nowhere to go. […]

Jeffrey, the baboon that’s become a household name – and visitor to some Joburg residents’ gardens – has been successfully and safely trapped. CLAW (Community Led Animal Welfare), which has been tracking Jeffrey’s movements, confirmed Jeffrey was captured yesterday and will soon be released. Jeffrey has been wandering the Johannesburg suburbs for the past few […]

When a young Groblersdal farmer was murdered in October last year, it was labelled a farm attack. But everything changed when the widow’s friend was arrested a month later. Carte Blanche investigates the full story this Sunday. You can watch the show on Sunday 04 April in SA on DStv Now or stream it overseas […]

Former Democratic Alliance (DA) Leader Mmusi Maimane has responded on Twitter to remarks made in a South African newspaper interview by fellow former DA Leader Tony Leon, who led the DA until his retirement in 2007. In an interview with News24 about his new book Future Tense, Leon reportedly declared that Maimane was “an experiment […]

A heartbreaking message from a proud South African Airways (SAA) pilot has been going viral on social media in the last few hours as SAA pilots go on strike for the first time in history, something he says they had never “lowered” themselves to do before… but desperate times call for desperate measures. The strike […]

South Africans have donated over half a million rand today, in just eight hours, to help save the life of much loved Doctor Sindi van Zyl. Dr Sindi, a general practitioner and public figure in SA, has been fighting Covid-19 over the past few weeks. Update 10 April 2021: Dr Sindi van Zyl has sadly […]

Howard Dembovsky, the founder of Justice Project SA (JPSA), has sadly passed away in the early hours of Friday morning. The news was broken on Twitter by Arrive Alive who sent their condolences to the family, colleagues and friends of Mr Dembovsky. Carte Blanche senior journalist Tony Beamish said: “My friend Howard Dembovsky, founder of the […]

The indigenous San communities of southern Africa were originally hunting and gathering peoples. One of the greatest testaments to San history is the rock art found throughout the subcontinent. The oldest rock art in southern Africa is around 30,000 years old and is found on painted stone slabs from the Apollo 11 rock shelter in […]

The award-winning Ndlovu Youth Choir have done it again. The South African choir from Limpopo, who rose to worldwide fame on the America’s Got Talent stage, have released a hauntingly beautiful production of Indodana – a traditional isiXhosa Easter Hymn. Watch below. The Choir explained on YouTube: “It is a prayer asking God to be […]

South Africa’s first chef to ever receive a Michelin Star (in 2016) today officially opens his much-anticipated new restaurant in the Kalahari, South Africa. It’s called Klein JAN… because of Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen’s grandmother who helped inspire  to become the world-class chef he is today, with a Michelin-star restaurant in Nice, in the […]

Here, once a month, the scent of milk tarts, cupcakes, or doughnuts can be discovered. Located about 30km from Cape Town city centre, Wolwerivier is a low-cost housing development for people who have been evicted, mostly from informal settlements, and have nowhere else to go. But within these dust-ridden streets, the home of Magdalene Minnaar […]

It looks like an ordinary domestic scene of pet dogs being fed beside a swimming pool in South Africa, until you look a little closer and realise amongst the dogs are some very obedient warthogs who’ve learnt how to sit obediently to receive their snacks! “Sit Varkie (Piggy),” the woman feeding the animals can be […]

A year ago, JP Engelbrecht bought a ticket in SA Rugby’s #StrongerTogether for R32-12 raffle, a response from SA Rugby to assist those hit the hardest when the COVID-19 pandemic swept through South Africa in 2020. Due to various factors out of our control, Engelbrecht could only “receive” his prize this week – the delivery to his […]

A life-size pencil drawing of an African elephant is bringing its viewers to tears, so magnificent and realistic is the artwork… an homage in fact to a real-life elephant named Makavuzi, affectionately known as Mak. The stunning picture, which captures Mak’s soul, was created by talented Zimbabwean artist David Filer with an all-Zimbabwean team taking […]

Below is an unedited conversation that Morning Shot’s Roman Cabanac recorded with Mahlatse Maroga. Mahlatse is the alleged ‘aggressor’ in the White River incident, in which a man appears to have been assaulted in front of police officers at White River Police Station, Mpumalanga, in South Africa.  The police seemed to watch without intervening. In […]

A South African pastor has kicked up a stink after being photographed sitting on members of his congregation and allegedly “farting the Holy Spirt” into them. Pastor Christ Penelope of the SevenFold Holy Spirt Ministries calls on members of his flock to lie down and he sits above their faces and, according to witnesses, then […]

AfriForum has assisted a couple from the White River district to submit a criminal charge after they were apparently intimidated, assaulted and threatened with firearms by members of a security company on 28 March 2021. The incident – which went viral on social media – took place in the presence of police members at the […]

The recovery rate in South Africa for patients with Covid-19 is holding steady at 95%, as the Health Department reports that almost 1,5-million people in South Africa (1 473 588) have beaten Covid-19! The total number of healthcare workers who have now been vaccinated is 251 707 as of 30 March 2020 as the country […]

Much to the relief of many South Africans, SA is to remain on Alert Level 1 with just a few minor adjustments, including that alcohol may not be purchased off-site during the Easter Weekend. But South Africans can purchase and consume alcohol at restaurants, shebeens and bars. Given the relatively low transmission levels, President Cyril […]

The first time I took a British friend to the Wild Coast she fell asleep in the back of our 4×4 and woke up where we had parked on the beach, near the shore. She opened the door… and got the fright of her life! A herd of cows was sitting around the vehicle. She […]