Following the clash between student protesters and police outside parliament Wednesday, the widespread protests at universities in South Africa are making headlines around the world. The protests have rapidly evolved in less than a week from #WitsFeesMustFall (where it all began) through various universities’ #FeesMustFall to today’s #NationalShutDown…and #ANCMustFall. Several universities – from Wits to UCT, Fort Hare, Nelson […]

In an address to a group of schoolchildren this morning Reeva Steenkamp’s mother said she harbours no feelings of revenge towards the man who killed her daughter on Valentine’s Day 2013. Speaking at Reeva’s old high school – St Dominics in Port Elizabeth – June Steenkamp made her first public comments since Oscar Pistorius was released […]

Springbok wing Bryan Habana on Tuesday paid tribute to Zukisa Kela, a teacher from Johannesburg who died in tragic circumstances over the weekend following a gang attack. The 25-year-old Kela was a teacher at Westbury Secondary School. According to media reports, his last words to his principal before he left school at the weekend were […]

A group of protesters at the University of Cape Town booed and shouted at Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane as they pushed to make him leave the campus today. See video below. The DA leader had gone to UCT to meet with the latest of a growing number of students protesting fees at universities across South Africa. The […]

Oscar Pistorius was released into correctional supervision last night, a day ahead of the schedule announced by the South African Department of Correctional Services last week. This morning Pistorius family spokesperson, Anneliese Burgess, stressed to gathered media in Pretoria that Oscar’s sentence “has not been shortened” and that he will adhere to strict conditions. Reading from a family […]

Oscar Pistorius is to be released under correctional supervision on Tuesday. In a media statement today, the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Supervision and Parole Board (CSPB) said they had “approved the placement of offender Oscar Pistorius under correctional supervision as from 20 October 2015.” The former Olympian has been held at Kogosi Mampuru II since […]

BEIJING – China has said it is banning the import of ivory obtained through hunting for the next year, according to a statement on Thursday by its forestry agency. The statement comes only days after the Chinese authorities announced the forestry police had seized almost $4 million in trafficked ivory and arrested 16 people, and other news that […]

Prime global residential rents are struggling to grow, but Cape Town and Zurich have substantially bucked the trend, according to the latest Knight Frank global rental index. In Cape Town prime rents – the top five percent of the market – ended the year to June 2015 10.2 percent higher, compared to the world average […]

PRETORIA – President Jacob Zuma has appointed an acting chief of the South African Police Service after suspending General Victoria Phiyega pending an enquiry into her fitness to hold office. The Acting National Commissioner will be Lieutenant-General Johannes Khomotso Phahlane, currently the Divisional Commissioner for Forensic Services, it was announced by the president’s office on Wednesday. A […]

Photos of a bridge which has collapsed in Sandton, Gauteng, are going viral on social media this evening, Wednesday. The temporary pedestrian bridge, constructed by Murray & Roberts, collapsed on the M1, close to Grayston Drive at about 4pm this afternoon. The company confirmed in a statement that there have been two fatalities. Emergency services estimate approximately 20 people […]

JOHANNESBURG – Crowds of protestors took to the campus of Wits University on Wednesday over plans to raise fees by more than 10 percent. The increases are meant to go into effect from 2016, and have been caused, among other things, by reduced subsidies by government, according to reports. A flood of messages about the protest, which began this morning, […]

BEIJING – In a sign that China may be taking a harder line on the trade in wildlife products, police there have seized one of the biggest hauls of smuggled ivory and other rare animal parts and have arrested 16 people, it was reported on Monday. Police in Beijing took possession of 804 kilograms of ivory, 11 kilograms of rhino […]

LONDON – The South African brewer SABMiller has agreed to a $104-billion takeover bid by its larger rival Anheuser-Busch InBev, it was reported on Tuesday. It will apparently be the largest-ever takeover of a British-listed company. According to one news report, the takeover is also one of the top five mergers in corporate history, and will […]

TORONTO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Contrary to reports that Chinese firms were buying or leasing millions of hectares of prime African farmland, Chinese investors have acquired only about 240,000 hectares, according to a book published on Monday. Deborah Brautigam, director of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, analyzed media reports that Chinese […]

JOHANNESBURG – South African companies are more likely than their counterparts abroad to stay away from potentially corrupt deals and will pull out of a deal they discover is corrupt even if they have already invested in it, but also feel strongly that not paying a bribe could hurt business, according to a new survey. The annual ‘International attitudes […]

CAPE TOWN – The city of Cape Town has reopened a walkway near Boulders Beach to dogs after temporarily closing it following the death of 22 more penguins north of Seaforth Beach near Simon’s Town, although it says it will increase monitoring of the area. Since the beginning of the year 42 endangered African penguins […]

KATHMANDU – The deputy leader of the Democratic Alliance in North West whose two-person aircraft did not return from a flight in Nepal earlier this week remains missing, according to a statement by the party. The ultralight aircraft with Petro Nel and a Russian pilot on board went missing on Thursday during a morning flight out of Pokhara, about 150 km west of Kathmandu, […]

MIDRAND – The African National Congress has seen its membership fall by about one-quarter since 2012 – from 1,220,057 to 769,870 – President Jacob Zuma said today, addressing the party’s National General Council. Zuma said that party members were growing tired by the impression of a “lack of discipline”, infighting and divisions in the ANC. There was reportedly […]

DAR ES SALAAM – A Chinese woman known as the ‘Queen of Ivory’ has been arrested in Tanzania, the most important ivory trafficker ever caught in the country, according to a statement released on Thursday. Yang Feng Glan, 66, has been followed by Tanzania’s National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit for over a year, and was […]

BLOEMFONTEIN – The South African Broadcasting Corporation chief Hlaudi Motsoeneng should be suspended while a disciplinary hearing is conducted into his alleged breaches – a huge salary increase and fake matric papers – according to a Supreme Court of Appeal Court ruling on Thursday. Motsoeneng‚ the SABC and the Communications Minister had challenged a lower court’s decision that, following a report by […]

The Democratic Alliance and the African National Congress have both been clamouring over the past week for the other party to take immediate action after news broke of serious problems within their ranks, namely the ANC’s possible involvement in a deal with Hitachi and a DA parliamentarian’s indiscrete tweet that has been called racist. On Thursday (today) […]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer, has promptly rejected an improved offer from bigger rival Anheuser-Busch InBev, saying on Wednesday that its 68 billion-pound valuation was insufficient. Earlier Belgium-based AB InBev said it was willing to pay 42.15 pounds in cash per SABMiller share, having already made two prior offers at 38 […]

PRETORIA – A panel led by a judge has upheld a decision not to let athlete Oscar Pistorius be transferred to house arrest and have sent his case back to the parole board for review again, a move his family reportedly said “flies in the face” of justice.   Pistorius was sentenced to five years in jail […]

PRETORIA – After a meeting with the leaders of some of South Africa’s universities on Tuesday, President Jacob Zuma said that while it was the right of all students to protest, they should do it responsibly. Zuma also said that Afrikaans was as African as South Africa’s other official languages, which immediately started a debate on […]

People in Africa are healthier and the continent more democratic than 15 years ago, but progress in certain areas has stalled over the last four years, according to an important new governance survey released by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation on Monday. “It is wrong for people to buy elections.” Mo Ibrahim pic.twitter.com/91bNVNF2tU — Mo Ibrahim Fdn […]