JOHANNESBURG – The World Bank will lend Angola $1 billion to fund social security and water projects, their president’s office said on Wednesday. Angola, Africa’s second largest oil producer, has been pushed into an economic crisis by the fall in oil prices since mid-2014. Alongside a $500 million loan agreed earlier, which Angola is set […]

Recently a number of school boards and police services issued statements advising parents of an alleged cyberbullying threat called the Momo challenge. It’s unclear how many videos actually exist of the creepy-looking mask apparently telling children to harm themselves, or to what extent they have circulated, among children or elsewhere. While some experts suggest anxious […]

ADDIS ABABA – Draped in traditional white mourning shawls, relatives of the Ethiopian victims of ET Flight 302 gathered silently in a hotel conference room in Addis Ababa on Thursday, before boarding buses headed for the crash site. Couples held each other, slumped forward in their chairs, their gazes downcast. Some men held their heads […]

Jane Goodall visited a chimpanzee sanctuary in Sierra Leone on Thursday that has taken on the veteran primatologist’s mission to protect the animals threatened by deforestation, disease and hunting. Goodall, 84, famous for her ground-breaking study of chimpanzees in East Africa in the 1960s, praised the work of her old friends, Bala Amarasekaran and his […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa has, on behalf of the government and people of South Africa, expressed condolences to the families affected by the Sunday crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane which killed all 157 people on board. In a statement issued on Sunday, President Ramaphosa said the thoughts of the South African people are with the […]

WASHINGTON – The government of Zimbabwe under President Emmerson Mnangagwa has failed to bring about political and economic changes needed to improve the country’s reputation, the US State Department said on Thursday. The comments relate to President Donald Trump’s decision this week to extend by one year U.S. sanctions that target more than 100 entities […]

Nearly one and a half years ago when Alyssa Milano asked women to click MeToo on their social media platforms, the #MeToo movement was born. Since then millions of women have indicated through social media that they too have been victims of sexual harassment or assault. The racial nature of the campaign lies behind the […]

Raging fires are destroying parts of Mount Kenya National Park and surrounding areas. So far they’ve affected almost 20,000 hectares of land and killed wildlife. Fires on Mount Kenya are a regular occurrence. BBC Fires on Mount Kenya are a regular occurrence, but the size, number, and severity varies from year to year depending on […]

NAIROBI – Four Americans and their Kenyan pilot were killed when their helicopter crashed just after take-off from a remote island in Lake Turkana in northwestern Kenya, officials said on Monday. The aircraft came down in Central Island National Park at around 8 p.m. on Sunday, Kenya’s National Police Service said on its Twitter feed, […]

In this 14 minute video account the Red Bull Air Force takes to the skies from the Drakensberg Mountain Range in South Africa flying down the Sentinel and the Eastern Buttress. On this first-time journey, they attempt to base jump and wingsuit fly various iconic locations around the country. Experience the Red Bull Air Force […]

Wiesenhof’s National Beverage Specialist Khulekani “Khule” Mpala Khule who came from Zimbabwe with a family, and pretty much nothing in his pocket is now a top barista, winning awards for his exceptional coffee creations! He won top technical honours at the Speciality Coffee Association of Southern Africa’s National Coffee Competition last weekend, being awarded the […]

Foreign workers in South Africa with expertise deemed vital to the economy are worried that authorities will reduce the number of critical skills eligible for work permits, a move they say could force some of them out of the country as early as April. Immigration lawyers say a shortened list of critical skills circulating among […]

In his first State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa posed the key question: has South Africa built a society where the injustices of the past no longer define the lives of the present? The answer is clearly no. Among the biggest injustices is unemployment. Last year the unemployment rate worsened to over 27%. […]

For many the new school year has just begun and sending a child to school must have set parents back a bit. Picodi Analysis Team conducted research on school supplies costs in South Africa and compared the results with expenditures of parents from 26 other countries. Wondering how much South Africans spent on back to […]

Elephant experts at Humane Society International/Africa have condemned Zimbabwe’s capture of 35 baby elephants, some as young as two years old, who have been stolen from their mothers and are awaiting export to foreign zoos. According to The Times of London, the young elephants are being held in pens in Hwange National Park while travel […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Thursday officially open the R5.5 billion investment zinc mine in the Northern Cape, the Presidency said on Sunday. The Gamsberg Mine near Aggeneys is located in the mining centre between Springbok and Pofadder and will contribute to job creation and skills development. The new mine is owned by India’s globally […]

Zimbabwe’s government has a trust problem as it introduces a discounted currency in a bid to reverse chronic cash shortages that left people struggling to get hold of basic goods. Businesspeople and economists welcomed last week’s decision to abandon an unrealistic dollar peg for the country’s surrogate bond notes and electronic dollars, which were merged […]

The Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPP) is making a significant impact on the economy, job creation, community upliftment, economic transformation and climate change. The REIPPP is a competitive tender process that has been designed to facilitate private sector investment into grid-connected renewable energy generation. In a short, 8-year period it has attracted […]

Zambia will begin a planned cull of around 2,000 hippos in May, a senior government official said on Friday, reviving a measure put on hold two years earlier amid protests from animal rights activists. Zambia says its population of 12,200 hippos is too large for the water levels in the Luangwa river, where most of […]

The National Assembly has adopted a resolution to dissolve the Fifth Parliament, whose five-year term ends on 10 May. This is in line with section 50 of the Constitution, which deals specifically with the “dissolution of National Assembly before the expiry of its term”. By law, elections cannot be held during the term of office of […]

In his maiden budget speech, South Africa’s Finance Minister Tito Mboweni confirmed the depth of the financial crisis at South Africa’s power utility Eskom. He also underscored the serious risks this poses to economic recovery in the country. Mboweni allocated R23bn a year over the next three years to Eskom, to be extended over the […]

As custodians of culture, traditional leaders are ideally placed within communities to expose myths around patriarchy and notions of ownership over the bodies of women that continue to persist. This is according to the Minister of Women Bathabile Dlamini, who on Thursday addressed a dialogue with traditional leaders. The Minister said her department supports and […]

South Africa is supposed to be a secular state, but one can perhaps forgive Tito Mboweni, the Minister of Finance, for quoting numerous biblical verses in his 2019 Budget Speech. After all, South Africa’s fiscal situation is enough to make many people hope for divine intervention. The 2019 budget numbers show that the past year […]

South Africa will inject 23 billion rand ($1.63 billion) a year over the next three years into state power utility Eskom but will NOT take on 100 billion rand of debt as requested by the struggling firm, the national budget showed on Wednesday. The Treasury said the first step in a plan announced by President […]

Tabling a difficult budget that required him to weigh priorities against a need for fiscal consolidation, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni kicked off his speech by saying that by doing things right, the country can return to “plum” times. A part-time farmer himself, Mboweni told the nation on Wednesday afternoon that it is time for the […]