Africa should be able to have the capacity to manufacture and distribute its own biotechnology to develop vaccines as COVID-19 continues to sweep the globe, says South African Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize. Speaking during the webinar on World Health Day on Wednesday, Dr Mkhize said depending on other continents should be the thing of […]

The trial of South Africa’s Speaker of Parliament, Thandi Modise, has been postponed until the end of April on the request of her defence team. AfriForum, which is privately prosecuting Modise, said in a statement on Wednesday that the trial at Potchefstroom Regional Court has been postponed until 28, 29 and 30 April. AfriForum’s Private […]

Housing activists demand answers eight months after Sisulu’s budget vote announcement… By Liezl Human In July 2020 Minister of Human Settlements Lindiwe Sisulu announced during her budget vote speech that R600 million would be allocated towards rent relief for tenants facing “financial distress” due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Eight months later, no money or information about […]

South Africa has signed a deal for the procurement of 20 million doses of Pfizer vaccines. According to the announcement made by Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, payment processes are also underway to close the deal in the next few days. In addition, with the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) agreement also fully concluded, Mkhize believes […]

Tony Leon is the most prolific of all former leaders of the Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa’s main opposition party, as befits the chair of a communications company. In his latest and fifth book, Future Tense: Reflections on my Troubled Land, he comes across as articulate and persuasive. The Democratic Alliance has, ever since its […]

Norwegian Cruise Line today announced its highly-anticipated return to service, with new itineraries sailing Europe and The Caribbean beginning July 25, 2021. The Cruise Line will restart operations at a reduced capacity with Norwegian Jade, Joy and Gem as the first of its 17-ship fleet to welcome guests back on board. Travellers long-awaiting a return […]

Appealing for public support to feel at home in their body, Siv Greyson (23) – who is an artist, activist and academic from Gardens, Cape Town – has penned an emotional open letter on their BackaBuddy campaign, detailing the trials and tribulations of growing up queer in South Africa. “Growing up queer wasn’t easy” “Growing […]

The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) says it has registered the COVID-19 Johnson & Johnson vaccine, known as Janssen, with conditions. “This registration signals a significant step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,” said SAHPRA CEO, Dr Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela. According to Dr Semete-Makokotlela, the authorisation is based on acceptable safety, quality and […]

Fifty three years ago, on 4 April, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated as he stood on his balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Barely sixty feet away was the only photographer on the scene, South African Joe (Joseph) Louw, who was staying in a nearby room and making a documentary about […]

The price of petrol in South Africa is set to increase by between R1 and 95 cents a litre as of tomorrow, Wednesday 7 April, the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has announced. The department attributed the increase to various global events, including the Ever Given vessel which blocked the Suez Canal. “The […]

In an average year, 1.35 million people die on the world’s roads and another 50 million are seriously injured. Most (93%) of the deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, and sub-Saharan Africa is the global hotspot in the road death pandemic. In South Africa 26 out of every 100,000 people die on the roads […]

Thirty Banded Mongooses that inadvertently ‘hitched’ a ride from Mabula Game Lodge for 170km to a house in Silverlakes, Pretoria, have been successfully rescued and returned by the Owl Rescue Centre. As the Centre says, this “unusual” (and uniquely South African!) story should make it into the Guiness World Book of Records. The mongooses’ adventure […]

About 7,000 families are living on the railways in Langa, Cape Town. The Siyahlala informal settlement calls the tracks their home, and they blame the City of Cape Town municipality for not providing services. Meanwhile their shacks are blocking the trains. The South African government wants them to leave, but they have nowhere to go. […]

Jeffrey, the baboon that’s become a household name – and visitor to some Joburg residents’ gardens – has been successfully and safely trapped. CLAW (Community Led Animal Welfare), which has been tracking Jeffrey’s movements, confirmed Jeffrey was captured yesterday and will soon be released. Jeffrey has been wandering the Johannesburg suburbs for the past few […]

When a young Groblersdal farmer was murdered in October last year, it was labelled a farm attack. But everything changed when the widow’s friend was arrested a month later. Carte Blanche investigates the full story this Sunday. You can watch the show on Sunday 04 April in SA on DStv Now or stream it overseas […]

Former Democratic Alliance (DA) Leader Mmusi Maimane has responded on Twitter to remarks made in a South African newspaper interview by fellow former DA Leader Tony Leon, who led the DA until his retirement in 2007. In an interview with News24 about his new book Future Tense, Leon reportedly declared that Maimane was “an experiment […]

A heartbreaking message from a proud South African Airways (SAA) pilot has been going viral on social media in the last few hours as SAA pilots go on strike for the first time in history, something he says they had never “lowered” themselves to do before… but desperate times call for desperate measures. The strike […]

South Africans have donated over half a million rand today, in just eight hours, to help save the life of much loved Doctor Sindi van Zyl. Dr Sindi, a general practitioner and public figure in SA, has been fighting Covid-19 over the past few weeks. Update 10 April 2021: Dr Sindi van Zyl has sadly […]

Howard Dembovsky, the founder of Justice Project SA (JPSA), has sadly passed away in the early hours of Friday morning. The news was broken on Twitter by Arrive Alive who sent their condolences to the family, colleagues and friends of Mr Dembovsky. Carte Blanche senior journalist Tony Beamish said: “My friend Howard Dembovsky, founder of the […]

The indigenous San communities of southern Africa were originally hunting and gathering peoples. One of the greatest testaments to San history is the rock art found throughout the subcontinent. The oldest rock art in southern Africa is around 30,000 years old and is found on painted stone slabs from the Apollo 11 rock shelter in […]

The award-winning Ndlovu Youth Choir have done it again. The South African choir from Limpopo, who rose to worldwide fame on the America’s Got Talent stage, have released a hauntingly beautiful production of Indodana – a traditional isiXhosa Easter Hymn. Watch below. The Choir explained on YouTube: “It is a prayer asking God to be […]

South Africa’s first chef to ever receive a Michelin Star (in 2016) today officially opens his much-anticipated new restaurant in the Kalahari, South Africa. It’s called Klein JAN… because of Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen’s grandmother who helped inspire  to become the world-class chef he is today, with a Michelin-star restaurant in Nice, in the […]

Here, once a month, the scent of milk tarts, cupcakes, or doughnuts can be discovered. Located about 30km from Cape Town city centre, Wolwerivier is a low-cost housing development for people who have been evicted, mostly from informal settlements, and have nowhere else to go. But within these dust-ridden streets, the home of Magdalene Minnaar […]

It looks like an ordinary domestic scene of pet dogs being fed beside a swimming pool in South Africa, until you look a little closer and realise amongst the dogs are some very obedient warthogs who’ve learnt how to sit obediently to receive their snacks! “Sit Varkie (Piggy),” the woman feeding the animals can be […]

A year ago, JP Engelbrecht bought a ticket in SA Rugby’s #StrongerTogether for R32-12 raffle, a response from SA Rugby to assist those hit the hardest when the COVID-19 pandemic swept through South Africa in 2020. Due to various factors out of our control, Engelbrecht could only “receive” his prize this week – the delivery to his […]