When you’re a South African living abroad, a road trip back home can take on an aura of magic and wonder as you see your former homeland through new, more appreciative eyes. After living elsewhere, you now realise the raw and unique beauty that is South Africa. You see a magnified kaleidoscope of sensational scenes.  Your heart […]

Renewable energy spells big things for South Africa’ economic future, if sustainable and affordable solutions are found. Working towards making solar power a feasible source of motoring energy, the Sasol Solar Challenge invites renewable energy addicts from across the globe to compete in an eight-day country-wide endurance challenge. Held every two years under the auspices […]

Storytelling is the new rock n roll, says Rian Malan. Known for his own expert storytelling, his latest project, with Ann Toerien, is bringing out the stories of Johannesburg. Invited artists will tell their tales of the city of gold in The Unbelievable Truth, four themed evenings about life in Jozi. To some, Johannesburg is […]

Photographic prize winner Rob Tarr and his partner Louise van den Aardweg have recently returned to Cape Town from what they describe as the trip of a lifetime: a nine-day ship-based photographic expedition for two, deep into the Arctic. Rob won this fantastic prize in the Oceans of Life annual photographic competition, organized by Birdlife South […]

A software application developed by the University of Cape Town to monitor patients on treatment for HIV and TB treatment is being implemented by countries such as Mozambique, Malawi, Vietnam and Pakistan. The electronic register, developed by UCT’s Centre for Infectious Disease, Epidemiology and Research (CIDER), is already in use in 3½000 clinics in South […]

    Property group Mantis Collection is hooking up with one of Cape Town’s most visited tourist destinations, The Cape Wheel, and conservation organisation Wilderness Foundation to help save the rhino.  A brainchild of Mantis Collection owner Adrian Gardiner, the campaign will see R5 of every adult and family entry ticket to The Cape Wheel […]

At only 20-years-old South African Caspar Lee is a YouTube millionaire, living in London, who’s just starred in his first movie (with John Cleese), done an internet show with “living legend” Lisa Kudrow (from ‘Friends’), appeared on BBC Radio One and delivered his first live stand-up comedy routine. His routine begins with the words “hi, […]

To celebrate National Heritage Day,  here’s a collection of  some of South Africa’s most fabulous indigenous flowers (including SA’s national flower, the King Protea)…as seen at the Sunday Tribune Garden Show in Pietermaritzburg this past weekend. (Update: View more indigenous flowers of South Africa, 2016.) All photographs by Lorraine Scholfield (thank you!).  Strelizia Regina The […]

South Africa has launched a three-year incentive scheme to help black filmmakers develop their businesses to the point they can take on big productions – and create more jobs in the country’s growing movie industry. Trade and industry minister Rob Davies launched the South African Emerging Black Filmmakers Incentive Programme on 16 September. The programme, […]

Telling stories is an integral part of human life. It forges bonds, builds understanding and brings people together to celebrate their differences and similarities. And, of course, everyone has a story to tell about their experiences and heritage. To celebrate Heritage Month, the government recently launched the Tell Your Story campaign, to encourage South Africans to […]

“The history of our country is characterised by too much forgetting,” Nelson Mandela once lamented. The new Rainbow Makers series of documentaries aims to both help us remember the extraordinary stories, often untold, that shaped our road to democracy – and celebrate our 20 years of freedom. The four-part series, a project of the African […]

Fellow South Africans, I am greatly saddened to announce that 67 South Africans died and scores of others sustained injuries, after a building at the Synagogue Church of All Nations collapsed on Friday, 12 September 2014, in Lagos, in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This is a particularly difficult time for South Africa. Not in […]

Following the South African Rugby Union’s (SARU) new Transformation Strategic Plan in which SARU wants to ensure that by 2019 at least half the Springbok side consists of players of colour, with 60 % of those being black African, Max du Preez writes that we can’t only pick those parts of the constitution we like. With the permission […]

A Durban film, co-starring Capetonian Stelio Savante and SA child actor Sizo Motsoko, has been chosen as an Official Selection for the 2014 San Diego Film Festival where it will make its world premier. ‘Where the Road Runs Out’ made history when it became the first feature ever filmed in the small African country of Equatorial Guinea […]

Several people in South Africa were upset by the controversial broadcast on Sunday night of a segment by Carte Blanche that cast doubt over the rhino horn infusion method. In a country where latest statistics show that over 700 rhino have already been poached this year and that their future is precarious, many viewers expressed concern that the […]

As the exchange between the ANC and the Public Protector’s office heats up following a letter from Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to President Jacob Zuma being leaked to the press, South Africans around the country have taken to social media to send their own message to the country’s president – “pay back the money” (please). The […]

Following the Australian Brumbies’ tour of South Africa in May this year, super rugby player Clyde Rathbone wrote about the realisation of his own “complicity in the exploitation of Africa’s wildlife” after he and his team mates visited a lion park in South Africa. His article – highlighting the plight of many cubs who will be taken […]

His jewellery has been worn by actress Charlize Theron, and has been showcased on the international market at $16-million. Jewellery designer Kevin Friedman produces one-of-a-kind pieces that have won him awards. UPDATE June 2021: Queen Elizabeth II wears South African jewellery designer Kevin Friedman’s brooch. Theron modelled his bead and diamond choker at the 2012 […]

Jack Parow’s latest music video is a wonderful tribute to all the workers in South Africa…and instead of using models or actors he features some of the country’s very real working heroes (see below). This is a song that’s for anyone who works to make ends meet, who may hate their job but needs to pay […]

It has always been Richard John Pelwana Maponya’s dream to see Soweto grow its own flourishing economy. Born in Limpopo Province on 24 December 1926, Maponya is a property developer best known for building a business empire despite the restrictions apartheid imposed on black South Africans. He was fiercely determined to see Soweto develop economically. […]

As a 13-year-old Sir Stuart Ntlathi looked at his world and decided he needed to know how it worked. Fourteen years later, his after-school science club owns patents to a battery-operated shoe polisher with changeable colour cartridges, a 14-in-1 microwave combo, and an auto-cooling umbrella. As a 13-year-old he recycled old appliances and developed a […]

Working the chalkboard for over 74 years, watching students blossom and receive good grades, Nontsikelelo Qwelane, at 94, is South Africa’s oldest teacher. Qwelane believes she was born to “impart knowledge” and has dedicated herself to this lifetime vocation. Born in 1920 in Engcobo in the Eastern Cape, she trained as a teacher and started […]

Following Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies’ visit to Hollywood last week, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will be leading a delegation of South African film makers to Los Angeles to engage with the major studios, the minister announced on Tuesday. Briefing reporters in Pretoria, Davies said his visit had sought to strengthen […]

The government will invest billions of rands in South Africa’s transport infrastructure over the next three years in a bid to reduce road deaths and traffic congestion in the country, says Transport Minister Dipuo Peters. Addressing a seminar on road safety at the Southern Sun Hotel in Cape Town on Tuesday, Peters said that commuter […]

A new concept in filmmaking funding emerged a few years ago through crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to independently fund films. South African filmmakers, Susan Scott and Bonné de Bod are using this new development to try fund their documentary film on the rhino poaching. In Afrikaans and for the big screen, ‘STROOP die […]