Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will not be at a summit in South Africa next week, nearly six months after he left the country during a dispute between the Pretoria government and the judiciary, which had ordered he be detained until it reviewed his indictment for alleged war crimes. News reports on Thursday said South Africa […]

A few weeks ago I heard a young kid on KFM radio explain what he loved most about Cape Town. He said that despite school and work, it always feels like you’re on holiday. It got me asking why Cape Town has this particular atmosphere, and then it came to me – it has a […]

PRETORIA – A South African judge on Thursday lifted a domestic trading ban on rhino horn that was imposed by the government in 2009 to try stem poaching of the animals. The decision by Judge Francis Legodi in the Pretoria High Court came after Malelane game farmer John Hume and Limpopo farmer Johan Kruger fought a legal battle to […]

Move over, Starbucks, doughnut-maker Krispy Kreme and competitor Dunkin’ Donuts are also opening up in South Africa. While much attention has been given to the fact that coffee giant Starbucks will open its first branch in South Africa in 2016, it’s been less publicized that at least two other very successful US chains will be doing likewise. (Krispy Kreme’s first […]

In a story coming out of Bronkhorstspruit, a company called Bio2Watt in October started giving off its first power created by cow dung and other waste, and one of the main users of its energy is a nearby BMW plant. See how it all works at the Bio2Watt plant serving BMW: According to a news report […]

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest carrier, wants to buy 10 narrowbody planes and is considering Canada’s Bombardier and Brazil’s Embraer jets among others, as it plans to nearly double its fleet between now and 2025, chief executive Tewolde Gebremariam said Monday. Tewolde, speaking on the sidelines of a global aviation forum in Montreal, […]

The seaside town of Hermanus became a movie set this week with the filming of “The Whale Caller”. Based on the acclaimed book of the same title by Zakes Mda and adapted for the screen by Zola Maseko, the story is about a kelp-horn-blowing man who seems to be deeply drawn to a very particular whale. […]

We’ve all seen it happen on videos shared on Facebook, the amazing choir that bursts out in song unexpectedly when the long-estranged couple meets at the airport. But what happens when the staff members at the local Woolies do it right in front of you? That is what happened today (Tuesday) to Drew Abrahamson and a friend in the […]

The dramatic skies over the Cape Peninsula and Table Mountain started Sunday night, when a huge even bank of clouds came over the mountains in an even spread, almost like a new plateau. People on the Camps Bay side said it looked like a new mountain range across the sea. But by Monday morning the clouds […]

South African whisky is not as well known as South African wine or brandy, but it is… maturing. South Africa is the sixth-largest consumer of Scotch whisky in the world. South African whisky has seen growth of 130 percent in the last 10 years. It was estimated that in 2013 South African whisky was nowhere near […]

When Trevor Noah appeared on the Ellen Degeneres Show a few weeks ago, one of the things he talked about was Nelson Mandela’s sense of humour. That part of the interview – where Noah also does a very good version of Mandela’s voice – was not included in the first clip that was released, but now it is. […]

Thanksgiving is a very big time in the US, when people do anything to get home to the family and turkey dinner. This year National Geographic’s biggest scripted series ever tells the story of the first Thanksgiving, when British settlers on the Mayflower landed at Cape Cod in 1620, except it was all shot near another Cape – Cape Town. “Saints & […]

(Reuters) – From the dusty southern reaches of the Sahara to the lush uplands of central Angola, the Roman Catholic church is on the move in Africa, a continent that may be home to as many as half a billion Catholics by the middle of the century. Since 1980, the number of Catholics in Africa […]

ACCRA – The former president of Namibia, Hifikepunya Pohamba, became the fourth president to be awarded the Mo Ibrahim Foundation prize for African leadership, last given in 2011, at a ceremony in the Ghanaian capital on Friday. The award, created to reward an African leader who serves out his constitutional term and then leaves office, was created in […]

Here’s a pick of ten stories coming out of South Africa this week…from a buzzy area in Joburg and whale art in Woodstock to moulting penguins and a surprising re-count of marchers. 1.The New York Times focused this week on Melville, Johannesburg, which has risen from the ashes numerous times. Once again, it seems to have defied […]

Just when the furore had almost died down over President Jacob Zuma’s comment about the ANC coming first, before South Africa, he seems to have opened up attacks on that same front again – saying the ANC came first, before democracy – and for laughing too much in the face of the country’s problems. Zuma […]

GABORONE – A 1,111-carat diamond was unearthed in a mine 500 km north of the Botswana capital this week, the biggest diamond find in the country and the largest in more than a century, it was announced on Thursday. The discovery of the stone, weighing 222 grams, was made at the Karowe mine owned by the Canadian Lucara Diamond Corporation, the firm said in […]

NEW YORK – Sixteen of Africa’s 50 richest people are from South Africa, which takes over the lead from the 2014 No. 1 country, Nigeria, which only had 10 on this year’s list, according to Forbes magazine. South Africa also has six of the continent’s 23 billionaires, Forbes said when it publicised the list on […]

So what’s the first thing you notice about being back in South Africa after a while away? From the moment you leave the airplane, things start hitting you, the landscape, the smells, the sensations. After one week back, this is what had hit returnee Edward Robbins. The accent. Gyms. They just get it. Roadside shopping.  […]

JOHANNESBURG – The embattled South African Airways has appointed a new CEO after only four months, its seventh chief in four years, after the airline faced renewed challenges from its pilots and staff, according to news reports on Wednesday. SAA said in a statement that Thuli Mpshe will be replaced as acting chief by the head of technical […]

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by what has happened in Paris, you’re not alone. In the aftermath of the attacks on Friday evening, many are finding it hard to figure out what has happened and, indeed, where all this is going. The media has barely taken a moment to breathe. In the last few days there have been French reprisal attacks against […]

Talking to foreign fund managers about South Africa is sobering. I spent last week doing that in New York. Billions of dollars that were directed into our shares and bonds over the past two decades are being pulled out. The only fund managers who are smiling are those that have gone short on South African assets, […]

CAPE TOWN – After several weeks where it seemed South Africa might lose a huge American agricultural contract, it has signed an agreement with the United States to resume imports of 65,000 tons of chicken a year, according to news reports on Tuesday. The US had threatened to suspend trade benefits for South African farm products earlier this […]

The name is derived from “happy prospect” in Afrikaans, and once upon a time, life and the gold haul were both good at the Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mine, 50 miles west of Johannesburg. But two years after the mine’s owners abandoned it because it was unprofitable, sewage runs in the streets of the old mining village, […]

The double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe Hokulea – or Hōkūleʻa – has arrived in Cape Town, halfway around the world from Hawaii on a 60,000-mile journey. And there to greet the boat was one of its most famous supporters, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. On the Hokulea website, it said the visit to Cape Town was helping to celebrate ancestral connections and renewed friendship […]