She’s 90 years old and thrashing runners half her age! Undefeated by lockdown or the pandemic, South Africa’s astonishing Deirdre Larkin kicked off her ninth decade with a gentle 10km run. This Sunday Carte Blanche meets the humble, humorous South African running legend, a national treasure who turned 90 on SA’s Heritage Day (24 September).  […]

South Africans are going crazy for Adele’s new single ‘Easy On Me’ (WATCH VIDEO BELOW), with Adele’s name topping the Twitter Top 5 trends in SA for the second consecutive day… since the British singer-songwriter made her highly anticipated music comeback on Friday, releasing her first new record since the 2015 Grammy award-winning album “25”. […]

Squid Game is anything but your typical, saccharine, soft-glow Korean television drama. In this biting commentary on life in South Korea today, viewers are presented with a twisting, technicolour story of violence, betrayal and desperation. All of this is set around a series of macabre games in which players literally fight to the death. Despite […]

You can watch Carte Blanche on Sunday 10 October in South Africa on DStv Now or stream it overseas in most countries from Tuesday 12 October if you live abroad (in most countries). Here are this week’s must-watch topics: The Mysterious Case of Dead African Penguins Penguins are an endangered species spending most of their […]

Why would more than 600 journalists from 117 countries collaborate on a global investigation of jaw-dropping scope? Find out tonight as Carte Blanche previews what is set to be the largest journalistic collaboration in the world to date – the Pandora Papers! With millions of leaked documents, Carte Blanche joins a global investigation into the […]

South African dancer Motsi Mabuse was told she would never make it in Germany because of her skin colour… but with her dazzling international success, she has proved the critics wrong! As a judge on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ Motsi (40) is a household name in not only Germany, but the UK – where she replaced […]

A piece of controversial artwork by the late boxing legend, Muhammad Ali, depicting South Africa, is part of a prestigious Bonhams auction taking place in New York on Tuesday 5 October. The original painting (felt pen on paper) – titled ‘Let My People Go’ – includes a “white man whipping a black man”, and was […]

Tributes have poured in for South African writer and director Franz Marx, who passed away this morning at the age of 78. He was most famous for creating the Egoli TV show, a soapie about 3 families in Gauteng, which gripped South Africans from the moment it first aired in 1992 until it ended in […]

Global Citizen Live – the global moment of unity in the mission to defend the planet and defeat poverty – is taking place right now. Watch the live video stream below. It’s just moved from Paris (Ed Sheeran rocked it!) to New York City. The once-in-a-generation 24-hour Global Citizen Live broadcast is coming from six […]

This Sunday’s Carte Blanche broadcast has something for everyone. You can watch the show on Sunday 26 September in South Africa on DStv Now or stream it overseas on Showmax International in most countries from Tues 28  September if you’re abroad. CELEBRATION: South Africa’s Paralympic Heroes When you meet Ntando Mahlangu, a young unassuming man […]

This Heritage Month, you can celebrate South African stories and talents in this collection of movies, comedy and documentaries that tell fascinating tales of the complicated, beautiful land we love. Most of these are also available to South Africans living abroad in many countries. Browse full collection  On Heritage Day (Friday 24 September) – settle […]

Teaching is a difficult profession, especially in some of South Africa’s poorest schools. But for many educators, it’s a rewarding calling. Now, despite the odds, a headmaster working in a remote village in Limpopo has won the Global Principals’ Award. This week, Carte Blanche meets the man who has been recognised for his excellence – […]

The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra performed its first concert in front of an audience since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown, outside the main entrance of Groote Schuur Hospital on Wednesday. By Liezl Human. The concert was dedicated to frontline health workers nationally, recognising the work that they have done and are still doing. There […]

The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra is paying tribute and saying thanks to doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers across South Africa in the most beautiful manner – performing a concert right outside Groote Schuur Hospital, which has been at the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Western Cape. The hour-long lunch time concert is […]

It may have been almost 40 years since their last single, but Abba are now back in the charts with two new songs – I Still Have Faith in You and Don’t Shut Me Down. The new songs form part of a ten-track album that will be released in November… writes Shanika Ranasinghe, Royal Holloway […]

Free State artist Vuyisile Adoons may not yet be well known, but his paintings are adorning the walls of homes around South Africa and the world, and photos of them are adding soul and depth to our social media timelines. He’s currently making a living from the “dusty small town of Rouxville” but with his […]

For a few short weeks every spring, a miraculous eruption of daisies in the arid Namaqualand in the Northern Cape draws and delights tourists. But once the flowers wilt and visitors leave, a severe drought, that is now extending into its tenth year, is evident again. It has destroyed millions of hectares of land and […]

South African National Parks (SANParks) today announced that it will be launching a 13 week Reality Television Series on 7 October 2021 at 21:30 on Mzansi Magic DSTV channel 161. Hosted by popular actress Rami Chuene and renowned life coach Romeo Mabasa, the series titled Away for Repair will showcase the heartfelt stories of ordinary […]

Rodwell Nkomazana’s face was mauled by a hyena near his home, while he was sleeping at a church gathering in Harare, Zimbabwe, in May. The future looked grim, but thanks to the kindness of strangers – from donors and supporters to medical experts in South Africa who’ve worked pro bono – the little boy, who […]

The Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) has recognised the “incandescent talent” of South African actress Thuso Mbedu with the coveted TV Breakout Star Award at the annual HCA Awards. Thuso was awarded for her outstanding performance in Amazon Prime’s ‘The Underground Railroad’ (watch trailer below). It’s a performance so award-worthy that billionaire US talk show host […]

Here’s what’s coming up on Carte Blanche this week – you can watch the show on Sunday 29 August in South Africa on DStv Now or stream it overseas in most countries on Showmax International from Tues 31 August if you’re abroad. INVESTIGATE Drivers’ Licence Jam As the grace period to renew drivers’ licences was […]

Up and down the coast of Cape Town, a growing number of people have taken to the extremely cold water every day throughout winter, extolling the healing magic of cold water swimming. For them, it’s been an unexpected reprieve from the ongoing pandemic, claiming the icy-cold waters helped them fight the loneliness of lockdown, boosted […]

It’s hard to believe that Tatjana Schoenmaker nearly gave up after failing to qualify for the Rio Olympics in 2016. But fortunately, she followed her own advice: to refocus and keep going! Celebrating Tatjana Schoenmaker   Tatjana’s gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics’ 200 metre breaststroke was the first individual swimming record to be broken […]

Following the successful live streaming of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Showmax Pro is bringing the world’s best football to subscribers. Showmax Pro is the only streaming service on the continent to live stream every single match of the English Premier League, La Liga and Serie A and the DStv Premiership, courtesy of SuperSport. The new season of Premier League, now in its 30th […]

It is no secret that police officers in South Africa, who are implicated in violent crimes, are rarely held accountable. On a Friday evening in December 2013, 15-year-old Damian Ahrendse was shot and killed near his mother’s house in Wesbank, on the Cape Flats. Because of  the failure of the South African Police Service (SAPS) […]