WASHINGTON – The United States and China have committed to a historic agreement to stop the trade in ivory, during the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s meeting this week with President Barack Obama. One news report said the announcement marks the first public commitment by President Xi to end ivory sales in China. In a statement released by the […]

NEW YORK – South Africa has promised to cap its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, according to a submission it made on Friday to the United Nations. South Africa told the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change that emissions would reach a peak between 2020 and 2025 and then plateau for the following decade. The government said it would need funding […]

PRETORIA – The allegation that over 500 suspected poachers from Mozambique had so far been killed by South Africa was “highly overinflated”, a South African government spokesman said on Friday, according to a news report. Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano made the allegation this week, saying 82 Mozambicans had been killed this year. Much of […]

While the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) marked Heritage Day in South Africa yesterday calling for a removal of Die Stem from South Africa’s national anthem, and for the renaming of the Kruger National Park, the ANC’s Cyril Ramaphosa spoke of reconnecting all South Africans, black and white. In the statement, published on their website yesterday, the […]

PRETORIA – The title of the statement might be humorous – ‘Tobruk or not Tobruk? Pick a lane, Pretoria‘ – but the subject is serious. The Institute for Security Studies on Thursday highlighted an ongoing tussle over the Libyan embassy in South Africa’s capital, which, it said, shows that the Pretoria government cannot decide whether it supports […]

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Whether it’s selling pensions, pasta or toothpicks, investors in Africa have been targeting the booming middle class. But a year of diving commodity prices has exposed how much the continent, and its consumers, still rely on exporting resources. A decade of growth above five percent in sub-Saharan African economies has drawn a […]

PRETORIA – The fallout from the horrific shootings of 34 miners at Marikana in 2012 continue to be felt, as President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday appointed a commission of inquiry into the Police Commissioner Riay Phiyegi’s fitness to hold office. The three-member board led by Judge Cornelis Claasen will probe “the allegations of misconduct by the national […]

PRETORIA – The appeal by the state against Oscar Pistorius over his sentence for the death of Reeva Steenkamp will be heard before the Supreme Court of Appeal on 3 November, it was announced on Tuesday. More than a year ago, on 12 September, Pistorius was acquitted of murder but convicted of culpable homicide for the shooting death […]

At least 2,000 South Africans have lost their citizenship since 2010 after becoming the citizens of other countries, the Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, said on Monday. In reply to a question from the Democratic Alliance in parliament, Gigaba said about 500 South Africans a year had lost their citizenship in the past four years. He […]

BLOEMFONTEIN – Danish national Peter Fredekrisen who was arrested last week after female genitals were found stashed in his freezer was remanded in custody in Bloemfontein Magistrate Court on Monday. Hawks spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said. 21 suspected female genitals, scheduled anaesthetic medicine and surgical doctor’s operating equipment were found in Fredekrisen house in Langenhoven Park, Bloemfontein. Police […]

CAPE TOWN – The opposition Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday the loss of R64 million a month in holiday accommodation revenue between April and June – and loss of holiday makers – can be directly ascribed to the government’s rollout of its biometric visa programme. The programme, introduced last year, requires certain visa applicants to actually […]

OUAGADOUGOU – Troops loyal to the Burkina Faso government have apparently told members of a coup led by former general Gilbert Diendere to stand down or face attack, according to news reports. The country is meant to elect a new leader on 11 October, almost a year after Blaise Compaore, who had led the country for 27 […]

CAPE TOWN – Vandals using a power tool sawed the nose off a bronze bust of Cecil John Rhodes at Rhodes Memorial on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, a news report said today. A spokesman for Table Mountain National Park said on Monday that security at the monument had been increased after the vandalism. The report […]

CAPE TOWN – Protesters objecting to Grammy winner Pharrell Williams holding a concert in Cape Town on Monday because of his connections to Woolworths are allowed to go ahead with their demonstration, according to a report by Agence France Press. Williams, famous for his song ‘Happy’, was recently appointed a style director by Woolworths, and the group Boycotts, Divestment […]

EAST LONDON – South Africans needed to become more concerned about recycling and to make the effort to buy material produced from recycled material, the deputy minister of environmental affairs Barbara Thomson said on the weekend. Watch a new video about the global impact of plastic, narrated by Jeff Bridges: https://youtu.be/wwDq3WoO7V4 Speaking at an International Coastal […]

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – South African teenage boys have an unusual way of punishing their girlfriends: gang-raping them with their friends. It’s a way of demonstrating their power when they feel slighted, said Rachel Jewkes, an expert on sexual violence. “A boyfriend organises to have sex with his girlfriend and then he tricks her […]

MAPUTO – Mozambique has been declared free of land mines decades after efforts began to clear the country of the killer hazard. According to the Guardian, Mozambique is to declare itself the first heavily mined country in the world to be cleared of all known minefields. One of the major movers behind de-mining efforts has been the […]

LONDON – Malaria death rates have plunged by 60 percent since 2000 – or 6.2 million lives saved, the vast majority of them children – according to a joint World Health Organization-UNICEF report released today. “Global malaria control is one of the great public health success stories of the past 15 years,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO. […]

NEW YORK – The rhino documentary ‘Horn’, directed by South African filmmaker Dr Reina-Marie Loader, has won the 2015 award for Best Conservation Film,  the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival has announced. The film highlights the social causes that drive people to poaching and shows that the conservation of rhinos can be a problem solver for […]

PRETORIA – Oscar Pistorius cannot afford a new trial, his lawyer said yesterday, two days before the athlete’s case is to come before a review board that will decide whether he can spend the rest of his five-year jail sentence under house arrest. Lawyer Barry Roux said on Wednesday that Pistorius’ “financial ability” for a new trial was […]

LONDON (Reuters) – Top share index climbed to a one-week high on Wednesday, with SABMiller surging about 20 percent after news that AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer, was to make an offer to acquire the British firm, the world’s No. 2. SABMiller said Anheuser-Busch InBev had informed it that it intended to make an […]

The three most valuable corporate brands in South Africa are multinational mobile company MTN, Vodacom and Sasol, according to a Top 50 list released on Tuesday. The announcement was made by Brand South Africa and Brand Finance Africa in Johannesburg. The other top 10 spots were taken by Standard Bank, FNB, Woolworths, Nedbank, Absa, Investec and, in 10th position, […]

PRETORIA – A petition allegedly signed by 3,000 people in South Africa and abroad in favour of the release of Oscar Pistorius from prison has been rejected by the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Michael Masutha, it was reported on Twitter on Wednesday. Pistorius’ release was put on hold by the South African government less than a […]

HARARE – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has mistakenly repeated the same speech in parliament that he made during a state of the nation address on 25 August, it was reported on the BBC on Tuesday. His spokesman told the state-run Herald paper the error was because of a mix-up in the president’s secretarial office, the BBC said. […]

ZURICH – A Bloemfontein architect, Johann Beukes, died in Switzerland on Monday in an assisted suicide with the help of the local organisation Dignitas, according to news reports, which said he was the fifth South African to have used the Swiss group in a medically assisted death. DignitySA, which advocates legalising medically assisted suicide in South […]