A month-old baby in dire need of heart surgery in the war-torn country of Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula has been evacuated by a South African mercy flight and flown 16,000 kilometres to safety and surgery after other countries were unwilling to risk going into the area. A team of South African medical aviation evacuation specialists […]

GRAND BASSAM, Ivory Coast – Ivory Coast soldiers armed with assault rifles patrolled the deserted beaches of a resort town on Monday, a day after gunmen from al Qaeda’s North African branch killed 16 people. The raid was the third high-profile attack by Islamist militants in West Africa since November, but the first on Ivory […]

South African-born, Los Angeles-based film director Gavin Hood, who made “Tsotsi” and the newly released thriller “Eye in the Sky” with Helen Mirren, said the entire movie was shot in South Africa, even though it “takes place” in Nairobi, London and Las Vegas. He said the movie, which is a tense drama starring Mirren, Alan Rickman […]

The fast-growing company Uber has been in the news quite a lot lately, as it further entrenches itself as a taxi and transport alternative in several South African cities. So what’s the deal? The process is fairly simple. You join Uber as a customer via your phone on the Uber app, and it costs nothing […]

Anywhere in the world, the Labia Theatre would be a gem. The independent, quirky, fabulous, one-of-a-kind movehouse in Cape Town has to be seen and experienced to realise just how special it is. Recently turned 65 years old, the iconic four-screen cinema in the heart of the city  takes you back to the years when going to the […]

The New York Times last week promoted a house for sale high above Clifton, Cape Town, for a cool $4 million (or R65 million) in its regular feature “House Hunting in … “, which looks at property for sale around the world. The house it publicised was a four-bedroom on the slopes of Lion’s Head. A […]

A former policeman who was kicked off the force has appeared in court in Bushbuckridge along with three accomplices after being caught in Kruger National Park – in full view of holiday makers – allegedly on the way to poach rhino, according to news reports on Friday. A spokesman for the Hawks reportedly confirmed that the […]

JOHANNESBURG – A South African teenager has found debris which will be sent to Australia for testing as part of the investigation into the disappearance of a Malaysian Airlines plane two years ago, the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) said on Friday. Liam Lotter, 18, told South Africa’s East Coast radio he found the […]

Sometimes the first few notes of a song will take you back in time. A time you may not have thought about in 20 or 30 years. One minute you are sitting in traffic on a congested freeway in the stifling Texas heat. Or in London in the drizzle, or Perth or Prague. The next second you […]

For anyone overseas feeling homesick for South Africa, or even for someone in Cape Town feeling lus for some views of the Kruger Park or the Blyde River Canyon, Google Maps is partly answering the call. Short of taking a trip on a second’s notice, you can click on Google’s newly launched South Africa, the Mzansi […]

The new movie by “Tsotsi” director Gavin Hood opens in South Africa and the United States on Friday, and not only brings him back to Africa but it looks like it’s going to be a blockbuster and rank him with the world’s top action and suspense directors. “Eye in the Sky” has a brilliant cast – Helen […]

Parliament – or at least the African National Congress side of the house – on Thursday approved a 4.5 percent raise for President Jacob Zuma. Zuma now earns R2,874,851 a year, which means he gets R7‚876 a day or R239‚568 a month. The Democratic Alliance’s Chief Whip, John Steenhuisen, was visibly angry about Zuma getting a raise after firing finance […]

Business Day associate editor Sam Kokeli saw Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday, after the deputy president wrapped up a week of answering questions in Parliament. And both of them were sitting in economy class on the South African Airways flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Ramaphosa is the second high-ranking member of government to attract attention for […]

The tragic and redemptive story of Amy Biehl, the American Fulbright scholar who was living in South Africa when she was attacked by a township mob in Cape Town and stabbed to death, will be made into a film backed by Tyler Perry and some other US movie luminaries. According to news reports on Thursday, the movie, titled […]

Janusz Valus, the man who shot anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani in cold blood outside Johannesburg on 10 April 1993 and was sentenced to life in jail, has been granted parole. A judge in Gauteng North High Court said that Valus must be released within 14 days. The Department of Justice last year resisted Valus’ parole application, saying […]

DUBAI – Falcon Private Bank plans to expand in Africa and will look at opportunities arising from Barclays’ planned sale of its African assets, a senior executive at the Swiss bank told Reuters. Barclays said last week it would sell a 62 percent stake in Barclays Africa, its South Africa-based subsidiary, as it attempts to […]

Raymond Ackerman, who put what is arguably South Africa’s favourite supermarket on the map after buying three stores in the turbulent 1960s, turns 85 today. Last week, quite coincidentally, a documentary about Ackerman’s life and how he strived to run a fair, non-racial business in apartheid South Africa, “Good Business, The Story of a South African Retail Giant”, […]

The Proteas might have lost the last game in the T20 series against Australia, but the match had its lighter moments, especially when a squirrel made its way onto the pitch and was chased by five officials, who even tried luring it off with nuts. https://youtu.be/03nEP77rwTc

Eighteen young elephants have been spirited out of Swaziland under “devious” circumstances to be taken to three US zoos before a court case could be heard about the damage that would be inflicted on the animals, according to an animal rights organization. Animal rights group Friends of Animals said in an open letter posted online on […]

Three young men have been arrested by police in connection with the fatal assault on 16-year-old Franziska Blöchliger, according to news reports on Wednesday. The reports quoted Lieutenant Colonel Andrè Traut of the Cape Town police. “The circumstances surrounding the case are still under investigation and no further information can be released at this stage‚” he was […]

In its fourth annual report, in which it encourages South Africans to speak up against corruption, Corruption Watch has identified the most flagrant hotspots in South Africa as schools as well as traffic and licensing departments. In the report released this week, titled “Amp up the Volume” – the agency said that over the past four years […]

More than 3 million people visited their voting stations over the past weekend to register for the first time, to re-register and to update their registration details, the Electoral Commission of South Africa said in a statement on Tuesday. The IEC said it believed “the results show without doubt that South Africans remain highly committed to […]

Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration as Nigeria’s president presents new opportunities for reinvigorating relations between Nigeria and South Africa, the continent’s biggest economies. Since the 1990s, the collective leadership of Nigeria and South Africa has been vital in providing the foundations for African renewal, the creation of institutions on the continent and the mobilisation of African voices […]

PRETORIA – The New Development Bank of the five-nation BRICS grouping is officially open for business and has started hiring staff, according to the National Treasury. The bank is in the process of establishing its Africa Regional Centre in Johannesburg, as announced by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in his 2016 Budget Speech, and the Treasury […]

Nothing like a bit of encouragement to push you when you’re cycling – which is exactly what this ostrich did to two foreign cyclists who were training for the Cape Town Cycle Tour. Their friend taping it all said he almost fell off his bike he was laughing so much. “We came down to South […]