LONDON – The South African brewer SABMiller has agreed to a $104-billion takeover bid by its larger rival Anheuser-Busch InBev, it was reported on Tuesday. It will apparently be the largest-ever takeover of a British-listed company. According to one news report, the takeover is also one of the top five mergers in corporate history, and will […]

Maboneng, Joburg’s hot new shopping and eating area, was one of the first to glam up old shipping containers with glass windows and wooden floors to turn them into retail shops, but now Melville has gone one better by creating the 27Boxes mall out of over two dozen of them. Opened in July, the mall is one of the […]

TORONTO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Contrary to reports that Chinese firms were buying or leasing millions of hectares of prime African farmland, Chinese investors have acquired only about 240,000 hectares, according to a book published on Monday. Deborah Brautigam, director of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, analyzed media reports that Chinese […]

JOHANNESBURG – South African companies are more likely than their counterparts abroad to stay away from potentially corrupt deals and will pull out of a deal they discover is corrupt even if they have already invested in it, but also feel strongly that not paying a bribe could hurt business, according to a new survey. The annual ‘International attitudes […]

Just in time for the worldwide release of the highly anticipated Danny Boyle movie ‘Steve Jobs’, about the Apple founder, a South African version of the trailer – with a couple of ‘bliksems’ and ‘voetseks’ thrown in – has been uploaded to YouTube. https://youtu.be/H_tnqZ_686w The movie stars Michael Fassbender as the legendary but controversial Jobs, as […]

Some 4,000 people in Johannesburg climbed in the saddle early on Sunday for the fourth annual Freedom Ride Jozi, the organisers said, “celebrating the memory of Nelson Mandela and the freedom to ride around the city”. The 27-kilometre ride – on which only five minor injuries were reported – was free and part of Freedom Ride’s […]

CAPE TOWN – The city of Cape Town has reopened a walkway near Boulders Beach to dogs after temporarily closing it following the death of 22 more penguins north of Seaforth Beach near Simon’s Town, although it says it will increase monitoring of the area. Since the beginning of the year 42 endangered African penguins […]

KATHMANDU – The deputy leader of the Democratic Alliance in North West whose two-person aircraft did not return from a flight in Nepal earlier this week remains missing, according to a statement by the party. The ultralight aircraft with Petro Nel and a Russian pilot on board went missing on Thursday during a morning flight out of Pokhara, about 150 km west of Kathmandu, […]

MIDRAND – The African National Congress has seen its membership fall by about one-quarter since 2012 – from 1,220,057 to 769,870 – President Jacob Zuma said today, addressing the party’s National General Council. Zuma said that party members were growing tired by the impression of a “lack of discipline”, infighting and divisions in the ANC. There was reportedly […]

In 1987, when Martin Pistorius was a 12-year-old in Johannesburg, something happened. His whole body shut down. For the next 12 years, he stayed that way, trapped inside himself. Until the shut-down, his mother Joan told an American radio interviewer earlier this year, Martin was a bright child who from the age of three had said […]

DAR ES SALAAM – A Chinese woman known as the ‘Queen of Ivory’ has been arrested in Tanzania, the most important ivory trafficker ever caught in the country, according to a statement released on Thursday. Yang Feng Glan, 66, has been followed by Tanzania’s National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit for over a year, and was […]

BLOEMFONTEIN – The South African Broadcasting Corporation chief Hlaudi Motsoeneng should be suspended while a disciplinary hearing is conducted into his alleged breaches – a huge salary increase and fake matric papers – according to a Supreme Court of Appeal Court ruling on Thursday. Motsoeneng‚ the SABC and the Communications Minister had challenged a lower court’s decision that, following a report by […]

The Democratic Alliance and the African National Congress have both been clamouring over the past week for the other party to take immediate action after news broke of serious problems within their ranks, namely the ANC’s possible involvement in a deal with Hitachi and a DA parliamentarian’s indiscrete tweet that has been called racist. On Thursday (today) […]

The ‘South Africa’s Got Talent’ audience was on its feet Sunday night when DJ Arch Junior, all of three years old, took to a digital music deck and handled the jog wheels and transport controls like a pro. Oratilwe Hlongwane from Alexandra township has reached the semifinals of the show’s national competition. He’s the youngest person to have ever been on the […]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer, has promptly rejected an improved offer from bigger rival Anheuser-Busch InBev, saying on Wednesday that its 68 billion-pound valuation was insufficient. Earlier Belgium-based AB InBev said it was willing to pay 42.15 pounds in cash per SABMiller share, having already made two prior offers at 38 […]

As African authors get more and more publicity and prizes – as well as readers – they are becoming must-haves on bookshelves worldwide. Some are already known as African by their subject matter as well as their names (Nigerians Chigozie Obioma, the youngest ever nominee for a Booker, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). But here are a couple […]

In her latest DIY video, Suzelle explains how to make a vertical or hanging garden using a bunch of old plastic bottles. Her planting gets done so fast that she spends the rest of the time singing. Go, Suzelle! Watch the SuzelleDIY video ‘How to Make a Vertical Garden’

PRETORIA – A panel led by a judge has upheld a decision not to let athlete Oscar Pistorius be transferred to house arrest and have sent his case back to the parole board for review again, a move his family reportedly said “flies in the face” of justice.   Pistorius was sentenced to five years in jail […]

PRETORIA – After a meeting with the leaders of some of South Africa’s universities on Tuesday, President Jacob Zuma said that while it was the right of all students to protest, they should do it responsibly. Zuma also said that Afrikaans was as African as South Africa’s other official languages, which immediately started a debate on […]

Charlie Simpson, the British singer who busted up his band Busted, is in the news for rejoining the band, but it’s his collaboration with a group of San Bushmen that has got us tapping our feet to the unforgettable beat. It’s great! The song ‘Walking with the San’ was played last week on the show ‘Singing in […]

People in Africa are healthier and the continent more democratic than 15 years ago, but progress in certain areas has stalled over the last four years, according to an important new governance survey released by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation on Monday. “It is wrong for people to buy elections.” Mo Ibrahim pic.twitter.com/91bNVNF2tU — Mo Ibrahim Fdn […]

Just two days ago it started as a campaign to get 12 likes on Facebook against a popular series of ads by Telkom, but already it has got a whole lot more than a dozen. The one-man (or is it the one-band?) campaign is against the well-known adverts that some see as cute, others as […]

Mention of the dung beetle might cause some to go ‘Ick’, but the industrious, single-minded gatherers of animal poop have become a favourite of a South African plant species, says a new study from the University of Cape Town that’s getting a lot of international media buzz. According to the paper published on Monday by Jeremy Midgley of the Department […]

Much of Africa’s most densely populate areas should have free access to broadband Internet by late 2016, all provided from a satellite, according to a plan announced by Facebook on Monday. In partnership with French satellite operator Eutelsat, news reports said, the two companies will use the AMOS-6 satellite to beam Internet connections to reach at least 14 countries in sub-Saharan […]

In the United States they have been doing it for years, taking a night off to ‘roast’ – basically make fun of (in the harshest possible way) – a famous person. Anyone who has seen Amy Schumer’s infamous roast of Charlie Sheen knows that to be roasted is pretty much to be gutted. In 2012 […]