The short-lived minister of finance, appointed by President Jacob Zuma to take over from Nhlanhla Nene, has been staying at a luxury boutique hotel in Pretoria with his family since the beginning of the year – at a cost so far of R500,000 – according to a news report on Friday. Even though Des van […]

The uproar created in the media over the past few days over the news that some R9 million had been spent from the police budget to buy cars for President Jacob Zuma’s four wives has got a quick reaction from him. His office announced on Friday that there will be a review of these policies, […]

Hollywood star, seven-time Mr Olympia and former Governor of California  Arnold Schwarzenegger was spotted strolling through Sandton City this afternoon. He’s in the country for the inaugural Arnold Classic Africa 2016 which is showcasing some of South Africa’s top boxing talent along with 46 other sports codes. (UPDATE: Watch Arnold Schwarzenegger gets chased by elephant on […]

Lots of countries around the world are upping their flights to South Africa, but none more so it seems than the United Kingdom. British Airways (BA) had barely announced it would begin three weekly flights from Gatwick to Cape Town when it said it would add more flights from London over the summer as well […]

About 300 South African firefighters will leave on Sunday to join a group from the US and Canada to battle the massive wildfire in the province of Alberta, according to news reports this week. The fires, which have been raging for several weeks now, reportedly cover more than 5,000 square kilometres. The 80,000-resident town of Fort McMurray […]

Four suspected poachers were arrested in Kruger Park after a SA National Parks helicopter had been fired on five times, marking a “dramatic escalation” in the fight against rhino poaching, the minister of environmental affairs said in a statement on Thursday. Minister Edna Molewa congratulated the parks and law-enforcement authorities for “averting a catastrophe”. According […]

Photographer and videographer Johnny Miller is quite upfront about what he set out to do when he began filming in April – a series on inequality in three Cape areas – where people of vastly different means live almost side by side, except it’s often easy not to see that. But from the air, the discrepancies become strikingly […]

EAST LONDON – The captains of three Chinese trawlers intercepted by the South African Navy and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries appeared in an East London magistrate’s court on Wednesday over an alleged illegal haul of squid worth R48 million, it was reported. The three were charged with contravening the Marine Living Resources Act and […]

The South African high commissioner to Australia, who is facing charges of corruption and fraud, has been recalled by the government, according to news reports on Wednesday. Sibusiso Ndebele, South Africa’s former transport minister, has been charged with corruption for allegedly accepting more than R10 million in kickbacks, according to news reports. Ndebele, who was a […]

The story of three Chinese chokka long-line trawlers allegedly fishing illegally in South African waters, nabbed by the navy and escorted to East London was one of the highest-read stories on an international website earlier today, with the issue driven by a determined group of “armchair warriors” along the SA coast. The three vessels have […]

CAPE TOWN – Some R9 million of the police budget between 2013 and 2016 has been used to buy 10 vehicles for the wives of President Jacob Zuma, parliament was told on Tuesday. The vehicles – which included Range Rover SUVs, two Land Rover Discovery SUVs and five Audi SUVs and sedans – were necessary “to provide comprehensive protection […]

LONDON – The magnificent display of South African wildflowers put together by the SA National Biodiversity Institute at Kirstenbosch has received a gold medal at the 2016 Royal Horticultural Society’s flower show, which opened today. The team sent out a tweet a few hours ago saying “Our #RHSChelsea Flower Show exhibit received a gold medal!” It […]

If you’re a South African living abroad and you’re registered to vote in this year’s municipal elections, book your tickets home for early August! Local elections will take place on 3 August 2016. The date was proclaimed yesterday by Minister Des van Rooyen (who was famously appointed as Minister of Finance by President Zuma for a couple of […]

In 2014 President Jacob Zuma, while defending state money spent on Nkandla, referred to former president PW Botha having George airport built near his private home in Wilderness – obviously saying that if Botha could do it, so could he. Two years later, the comparisons between the two men have only multiplied. 1. Botha was leader of the ruling […]

While President Jacob Zuma urged all South Africans to pray for “peace, unity and tolerance” in South Africa yesterday, those words appear to have fallen on deaf ears in Hammanskraal where at least two people, possibly more, are reported to have been fatally wounded today in shocking protests. As horrific photos of burning buses and bodies […]

Standard Bank has been the victim of a major fraud in Japan, where 1.4 billion yen (R200 million) in cash was stolen from some 1,400 ATMs in convenience stores across Japan over a short period earlier this month, it has been reported. According to Business Day on Monday, Standard Bank confirmed that it was the bank referred to in a story […]

PRETORIA – While dismissing news reports that finance minister Pravin Gordhan was under any threat of arrest, the National Prosecuting Authority on Monday also said it would appeal a High Court ruling last month that fraud and corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma be reinstated. In April the High Court in Pretoria found that a 2009 court decision […]

The Minister of Defense apparently smuggled a Burundian woman into South Africa after she had acquired illegal documents provided by the minister’s sister, according to the Sunday Times. Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the minister of defense and military veterans, reportedly flew on a South African Air Force plane from Waterkloof Air Force Base to the Democratic Republic of […]

Plastic pollution – particularly in the oceans around Africa – will thank goodness be in the spotlight during a two-day event in Port Elizabeth this July. Just this week, Durban was forced to temporarily close its beaches as piles of pollution and debris washed up on shore, and in the Western Cape seals have been seen caught […]

Cape Town and Johannesburg are the cheapest cities in the world to buy cigarettes and beer, beaten only by Manilla in the Philippines, according to an annual Sin Index done by Deutsche Bank. According to the survey, the most expensive city is Melbourne, Australia, where five beers and a pack of smokes costs $65 (R1,016). Cape Town and […]

The European Space Agency has released a rare cloud-free image of Africa taken from space. The “African mosaic” is made up of 7,000 images captured by the Sentinel-2A satellite. The ESA said on Thursday that majority of the images used in the mosaic – the first mosaic of Africa generated through ESA’s Climate Change Initiative Land Cover project – were taken between […]

The American republic survived Richard Nixon. South Africa’s will survive Jacob Zuma. Of that John Campbell sounded confident when I spoke to him this week about his new book. He has called it Morning in South Africa. No “u”. If you’re looking for a Washington establishment view on South Africa, Campbell is a good place […]

South Africans were the biggest winners at the 2016 global World League of Beauty & Fashion pageant in Bodrum, Turkey on Saturday night, walking away with an unprecedented five titles! In a message to SAPeople, SA pageant organiser Carolyn Baldwin Botha said: “I am more than SUPER PROUD of #TeamPageantsSA #PageantsSA.” Zenande Mncwabe (7) from Richard’s Bay won Little […]

U.S. health officials announced on Wednesday that an experimental AIDS vaccine that has worked better than anything else so far will undergo “largescale” testing in South Africa – “where HIV is more pervasive than anywhere else in the world” – from November, the first such test in seven years. In its statement, the National Institutes of Health, […]

Two of Julius Malema’s bodyguards allegedly managed to sneak into the national assembly with the parliamentary protection service members to remove the EFF Tuesday – in a scuffle that grew violent – according to the Democratic Alliance, who called it a “devious plot” showing the EFF could not be trusted to uphold the rule of law. DA chief whip […]