JOHANNESBURG – The United States warned its citizens on Saturday of possible attacks by Islamist militants on U.S. facilities or shopping malls in South Africa during the upcoming month of Ramadan, but the South African government said the country was safe. It was the second such warning in under a year from the embassy, which issued […]

Voluntary unpaid animal and conservation lovers working in tandem with the national parks contributed a record R48 million in services and money over the past year, SANParks Honorary Rangers said this week. In a statement on Wednesday, SANParks said it welcomed the R48 million “in cash, kind and services” in its 21 national parks done […]

Pretoria – South Africans are celebrating this evening as ratings agency Standard & Poor’s have announced that South Africa’s credit rating will be kept unchanged at investment grade, averting junk status. South Africans had been counting down the hours to the announcement although Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, had said he believed the country had done enough to pass […]

South African Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom was awarded with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany at a ceremony in South Africa yesterday evening. German ambassador, Walter Lindner said the award – which is the highest bestowed by the German government to individuals for services to the nation – is “well deserved”. […]

The South African contingent performed spectacularly in Rome today with Wayde van Niekerk, Sunette Viljoen and Caster Semenya ALL winning gold in their events. The SA team was competing in the 2016 International Association of Athletics Federations Diamond League (IAAF DL) event in Italy, the fifth leg of the international track and field campaign. Caster Semenya, who was tipped […]

South African athlete Wayde van Niekerk has won the 400m in Rome, Italy, this evening. In an interview this week he said his focus now is on the 400m… and he meant it! Wayde – who made sprinting history in March when he became the first man to ever run faster than 10 seconds for 100m, […]

The success of Emirates’ anti-poaching wildlife message has truly gone sky-high with the fifth A380 to join the campaign unveiled on Monday… although this jet will be grounded! It will be featured at the famous traffic roundabout leading to London’s Heathrow airport. The site – as most South Africans who’ve travelled to London know – is […]

Cape Town’s well-known adventure park and scary-ride central Ratanga Junction will close and be replaced by a R1 billion development in the successful Century City precinct, according to news reports on Wednesday. The 20-hectare theme park would close by 2018, a spokeswoman for the Rabie property group, developers of Century City, was quoted saying. The […]

The Western Cape has received the highest percentage of clean audits of its municipalities, scoring 73 percent, with the next-nearest provinces, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, getting 30 percent or just over, according to a report by the auditor general released on Wednesday. “Today’s release of the Auditor-General’s (A-G) audit report into municipal financial management for 2014/15 […]

As more and more celebrities like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian – and even US First Lady Michelle Obama – wear their African designs, South African and other African designers are turning heads in the fashion world. From Ankara print dresses to Xhosa-inspired cardigans, these hip designs are not just hitting the catwalks but also store shelves. While designers […]

JOHANNESBURG – The world’s largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev gained conditional approval on Tuesday for its $100 billion-plus acquisition of SABMiller from South African anti-trust regulators, bringing the deal closer to fruition. Conditions attached to the deal include a binding one that no South African employee be laid off because of the merger, the Competition Commission […]

The involvement of international, sophisticated criminal groups in wildlife crime has been confirmed in the World Wildlife Crime Report – the first ever global assessment of wildlife crime, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The report shows what a devastating impact corruption has had, and concludes that “trafficking of wildlife is increasingly […]

In a heated and sometimes odd exchange with the South African journalist Jane Dutton on Al Jazeera, SA’s Minister of International Relations and Co-operation said she had a hole in her head from carrying water buckets when she was a child, that she had a lot of respect for President Jacob Zuma, and expressed disinterest in the […]

The Democratic Alliance has posted the 60-second video it says the SA Broadcasting Corporation has refused to air. The DA said in a post of Facebook on Monday, “Another DA TV advert they are refusing to show South Africa.” The video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media since it was […]

New Springbok coach Allister Coetzee has appointed his first Springbok captain – Vodacom Bulls player, Adriaan Strauss. The hooker will become the 57th Springbok captain and will lead South Africa in the Castle Lager Incoming Series against Ireland, which starts on 11 June in Cape Town. Coetzee made the announcement on Monday afternoon in Stellenbosch, where the national […]

The Department of Energy has called on the public to use petrol efficiently during the tough times ahead, as the country braces itself for a hike of 52 cents per litre from Wednesday, 1 June 2016. In a statement the department said fuel prices are adjusted on a monthly basis, informed by international and local […]

Almost 300 South African firefighters arrived in Edmonton, Alberta, in western Canada on Sunday night, heading to help battle the massive fires spreading across the province – and their first reaction was to immediately burst proudly into song. The 281 firefighters, who have helped out in Canada before, will join a team from Canada and the United […]

Tributes have poured in for South African expat Marisa ‘Maria’ Strydom who tragically passed away on Mount Everest last Friday. On Sunday night her husband, who was with her when she died, gave a heartbreaking interview to Australia’s Channel 7 about the tragedy. (Watch the video below.) The Melbourne-based couple – who met at university in […]

I have been on many tours, and I’ve been to many museums around the world, but I don’t think any of them had me as psyched as the one I did today – the infamous and iconic Ponte City in Johannesburg. Ponte’s designer, the 29-year-old Rodney Grosskopf, probably didn’t start out with the intention of creating something iconic, but because […]

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 […]