Silwerskerm Best Actress winner Lea Vivier (Wonderlus, The Day We Didn’t Meet) is the lead in the new Showmax Original DAM, a small-town psychological thriller from four-time SAFTA winner Alex Yazbek that’s now streaming.  In DAM, Lea stars as Yola Fischer, who returns from Chile to a small town in the Eastern Cape to bury […]

South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 32.5% in the last three months of 2020, Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke has revealed. The increase presents a 1.7 percentage point increase from the third quarter of 2020. Despite the grim picture painted in the fourth quarter (Q4) Labour Force Survey, released on Tuesday, Stats SA said the Quarter 4 […]

The MTN Foundation has rewarded South Africa’s top 183 matriculants with laptops for their hard work and dedication displayed in the 2020 National Senior Certificate examinations. “As a reward for their efforts and stellar results, MTN Foundation is handing over laptop computers to the top 33 achievers nationally, as well as providing laptops to the […]

The drug whoonga has plagued South African communities for at least a decade, yet only gained significant public attention when it appeared more visibly in the inner-city and surrounding suburbs of Durban, the major city in the country’s KwaZulu-Natal province. Also known as nyaope, whoonga is a street concoction of B-grade heroin, rat-poison (strychnine) and […]

Everything is falling apart in Kannaland: water supplies, sewage, rubbish collection. Even the Ladismith city hall is in a mess in this Little Karoo municipality marked by strange political alliances and in-fighting. The municipality includes Ladismith, Zoar, Calitzdorp, and Van Wyksdorp. A brief trip by GroundUp to Ladismith and Zoar revealed serious municipal service failures, […]

This morning – Tuesday 23 Feb – at Parliament, the Free State Agricultural Union handed over 85 000 objections to the Democratic Alliance (DA) against the Expropriation Bill. Free State Agriculture launched a #StopExpropriation campaign on November 30, 2020. Today, Francois Wilken, president of Free State Agriculture, presented the organisation’s official submissions. The DA said […]

Hot 91.9FM announced today that Jeremy Mansfield, anchor of HOT 91.9 FM’s breakfast show, “Joburg’s Hottest Breakfast” will be leaving the station on Friday 26th February in order to focus on his health. “Jeremy has been undergoing treatment for the past few months and has decided to take a break,” Hot 91.9 said in a […]

If you’re missing SA, here’s a behind-the-scenes weekend at Manyoni Private Game Reserve… packed with exquisite panoramic and aerial views of the reserve in the heart of Zululand, South Africa. Filmmaker Anthony George Kirkwood gives viewers a glimpse of Etienne Gerber’s life as the reserve’s Head of Law Enforcement, running the anti-poaching unit. It’s a […]

South Africa’s low-cost airline kulula.com today announced that it will restart its operations at Lanseria International Airport from 1 April 2021, servicing its Durban and Cape Town routes. Similar to the re-introduction of its other routes, kulula.com will commence with a limited schedule, adding additional frequencies over the next couple of months. Customers are now […]

British Airways (operated by Comair) has announced the reopening of bookings for daily regional flights between Johannesburg, South Africa, and Harare, Zimbabwe, with one-way fares starting from R995, including taxes and surcharges. Bookings for the regional route are open from today and will start operating on 28 March 2021. Desmond O’Connor, Executive Head of Revenue […]

The world needs a laugh right now, and Netflix has selected South Africa’s Loyiso Gola to deliver just that. The sharp-witted comedian is back with his sharp wit and critically acclaimed comedy hour, Unlearning, which will debut globally on 23 March 2021. Gola is the first African to have a solo full hour of stand […]

Born to an underprivileged family, Robert Maposa (43) from Mamelodi East, Pretoria, learned to make the most out of his limited opportunities. Determined to build a better life for his wife, Hitahlula, and their two sons, Wonderful and Timothy, Robert worked as a gardener and did odd jobs to put himself through matric at the […]

South Africa’s vaccination programme is gaining momentum, with over 15 000 healthcare workers having already received their Johnson & Johnson shot in five days. “South Africa is rapidly moving to protect its highly valued healthcare workers through the Sisonke Early Access Programme,” said the Health Department. According to the latest data, there are 15 388 […]

Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, will announce the results of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations in Pretoria on Monday. The matric exams concluded on 15 December 2020 after a strenuous academic year. The release of the matric results have been approved by Umalusi, the Quality Council in General and Further Education and Training. […]

There’s a growing trend amongst concerned citizens in South Africa to unite and fix their own towns. Gatvol with poor service from their local municipalities, communities are coming together – residents and local businesses – to clean up their streets and pavements, replant trees, fill up potholes… and even, in the case of Kgetlengrivier, take […]

As the world marked World Pangolin Day yesterday (20 February), pangolins tragically remain the most trafficked mammal in the world… surpassing elephants and rhinos. They are poached for their scales and meat for use in traditional medicines, even though there is no scientific proof that their body parts have any medicinal value.   According to […]

In commemoration of World Pangolin Day today – 20 February 2021 – Investec has announced plans to fund and support the first dedicated pangolin veterinary ward in Africa in partnership with the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital (JWVH). “Pangolins are currently the world’s most trafficked non-human mammal. In 2019, 97 tonnes of scales were trafficked from […]

Olympic 400m champion and world record holder Wayde van Niekerk is parting ways with beloved Tannie Ans Botha to head off to the United States where he will step up his preparations ahead of defending his title at the Tokyo Olympics later this year. The 28-year-old continued his comeback from a serious knee injury suffered […]

The most heartwarming video to come out of South Africa this week has been the footage of Kathy Wootton being wheeled out of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Kingsbury Hospital in Cape Town… waving gratefully, and being cheered on by healthcare workers, after two months in ICU. Posting the video to Facebook, Kathy said […]

The Swellendam SPCA went above and beyond in a response to a woman in South Africa who called the police because she was frightened of the rain spider in her bedroom. Here is the report from the SPCA, in full, written with the same care, dedication, professionalism and good humour as that used by the […]

There is hope for terminally ill patients as Cancer Immunotherapy living trials are being conducted with South African patients. Watch Carte Blanche on Sunday as the current affairs show meets the inspirational team. INSPIRE    The Living Trials – Cancer Immunotherapy Takes Off  For over 150 years, doctors have tried to stimulate the body’s immune […]

The South African Police Service (SAPS) management says it will urgently execute a turnaround plan in four of the country’s provinces with “worryingly high crime rates”. The four provinces are: Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and the Western Cape provinces. Police Minister Bheki Cele, who released the 2020/21 third quarter crime statistics on Friday, said […]

The latest farm attack and farm murder statistics for South Africa show that the crime continued relentlessly despite the Coronavirus pandemic and ensuing Lockdowns leading to an overall decrease in most other crimes. AfriForum on Wednesday released comprehensive farm attack and murder statistics for 2020, revealing that there were almost 20 more farm murders in […]

Proud South African Walter Jackson, who is currently living in the USA, has posted this video from Arizona with tips on how to braai (or barbecue) like a South African! Like any good South African abroad, he’s stuck to his “nou gaan ons braai” attitude… despite the freezing cold snow that’s currently blanketing parts of […]

Free State Agriculture (FSA) have expressed outrage at the announcement made during the State of the Nation Address Debate, by former Minister of Agriculture Tina Joemat-Pettersson, that MK veterans will receive expropriated farms. “This is nothing more than a repetition of Zimbabwean land policy,” said the FSA, accusing the ANC have hanging out “their Zimbabwe […]