JOHANNESBURG – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday rejected a newspaper report that he failed to stop R1.9 billion ($132 million) being illegally siphoned from VBS Mutual Bank. City Press reported on Sunday that sources close to a major VBS shareholder said the shareholder had informed Ramaphosa about what was going on when he […]

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan – who are currently in Australia – are expecting their first child in the spring of 2019, around a year after their glittering wedding injected Hollywood glamour into the British royal family. Kensington Palace announced Monday morning: “Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very pleased […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa says the South African government is intensifying the implementation of land reform and restitution programmes so that South Africans can leverage land for the betterment of their lives and the growth of the economy. Ramaphosa led a land restitution ceremony on Sunday. He handed over 4 586 hectares of land to the […]

The South African Police Service (SAPS) has published a statement about the arrest of a major criminal gang which preyed on and kidnapped several OLX advertisers in SA. OLX has also issued a response to Sunday night’s Carte Blanche show, in which the current affairs team helped unmask the criminals, in a risky undercover sting […]

Heavy hail and rain in Gauteng, South Africa, over the past 24 hours has had some social media users doubting the authenticity of photos of the storm. One Facebook user called for someone to be blocked and reported after the person posted photos from Laudium, Pretoria, that seemed too unreal to be true! But the hail […]

A professional pipe bomb – probably planted by poachers – was found and detonated in the Kruger National Park early on Friday, according to local South African news reports. According to EWN it was “not a homemade device”, and once identified it was detonated by the bomb squad. The device was found after park rangers, […]

WINDSOR, England – Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter Princess Eugenie married Jack Brooksbank at Windsor Castle on Friday in front of celebrities and Britain’s senior royals including Prince Harry and wife Meghan who wed at the same venue in May. Eugenie, 28, younger daughter of the queen’s third child, Prince Andrew, and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, the […]

HANOI – Authorities in Vietnam seized 13 rhinoceros horns and related items from South Africa on Friday, just two weeks after the seizure of a ton of illegal wild life products, state media said. Vietnam is a major consumer of rhino horn (which is mistakenly believed to have medical powers) and is a transit point […]

CAPE TOWN – Beloved anti-apartheid cleric and Nobel laureate, Desmond Tutu, was discharged from hospital in South Africa on Friday after almost two weeks of routine tests, his foundation said. Tutu, who spent his 87 birthday in hospital, has had prostate cancer for roughly two decades and has largely withdrawn from public life. His foundation […]

Pik Botha, South Africa’s former Foreign Minister during the apartheid era, has died at the age of 86 after a lengthy illness. Botha’s son – Piet – confirmed to local media that his father had died during the night. Born Roelof Frederik Botha in 1932 in Rustenburg, Pik Botha served as Foreign Minister for 17 […]

WASHINGTON – Rapper Kanye West, with a stream of consciousness speech in the Oval Office and a burst of profanity, defended his support for President Donald Trump on Thursday, to the great delight of Trump himself. The event was billed as a lunch at the White House to discuss prison reform, jobs for African-Americans and […]

Crime levels in South Africa during the past year have unfortunately increased, compared to the previous year’s statistics… according to the 2018 Victims of Crime Survey (VOCS). The results of the survey were released today by Statistics South Africa, indicating that aggregate crime levels in the period 2017/18 increased. “It is estimated that over 1.5 million […]

DAR ES SALAAM – A Tanzanian businessman and former member of parliament was seized by unidentified men in Dar es Salaam at a luxury hotel on Thursday, the regional commissioner said. The 43-year-old kidnapped man, Mohammed Dewji, is known as Africa’s youngest billionaire. Dewji is the owner and president of the multi-billion dollar revenue Mohammed […]

A historic and successful liver transplant from an HIV positive mother to her HIV negative child, at Wits University in South Africa, has received resounding praise. SA Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane congratulated the team of researchers from Wits University, who performed the historic surgery. The team of doctors, who performed the surgery included Professor Jean […]

JOHANNESBURG – Steinhoff’s shares fell more than 9 percent on Thursday to a near two-month low after a global market rout and a report by Bloomberg saying the retailer’s former CEO advised friends to sell the firm’s stock days before the shares collapsed. Traders said the retailer’s losses were exacerbated by a Wall Street rout […]

Two Sophiatown police officers will on Thursday appear in court on charges of murder and defeating the ends of justice, the South African Police Services (SAPS) said. The charges against the two officers relate to the alleged murder of Westbury resident Bradley Sauls (21) while walking on 24 July 2018. Westbury residents in late September […]

One brave South African guy on a motorbike managed to do what every frustrated motorist wishes they could do – he stopped a minibus taxi driving dangerously on the wrong side of the road in Bryanston, Johannesburg… and just refused to budge. He did also get some welcome help from a lady in a silver […]

Extremely powerful Hurricane Michael crashed into Florida’s northwestern Panhandle coast on Wednesday, flooding towns and ripping up trees with 249 km per hour winds and the potential for a devastating storm surge. Michael, which had caught many by surprise with its rapid intensification as it churned north over the Gulf of Mexico, was the most […]

Eskom has issued a media statement announcing the tragic death of one of its employees in Wednesday’s explosion at a plant in the Free State, South Africa. Eskom said: “It is a sad day as Eskom loses one life at its Lethabo power station.” The power utility said it is in the process of investigating […]

The audiobook for a story set in South Africa – ‘The Zebra Affaire’ – has been nominated for a prestigious Voice Arts Award, which is the equivalent of the voice over and narration industries’ Grammy Awards. The story is written by Californian-based South African expat Mark Fine from Joburg, and read by Capetonian and fellow […]

The DA has challenged the EFF to set the record straight and publicly confirm whether or not it has ever received money from VBS Mutual bank to fund its operations.   DA National Spokesperson Solly Malatsi said in a media statement: “The EFF has not been shy in their repeated and public defence of VBS […]

The DA says that President Cyril Ramaphosa must “come clean” and turn himself in before the State Commission of Inquiry. Yesterday Ramaphosa told the nation that for South Africa to move forward “we need to establish the full extent of state capture, identify those responsible for facilitating it, and take decisive steps to prevent it […]

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – South African actress and singer Regina Mary Ndlovu, together with five other African women with albinism with whom she made an attempt on the continent’s highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro, said on Tuesday the trek was just the beginning of efforts to raise awareness and dispel negative images of people with […]

President Cyril Ramaphosa has received a stamp of approval from the South African Post Office – his very own stamp! The President was presented with a commemorative stamp bearing his image by the SA Post Office at Tuynhuis in Cape Town on Tuesday… which happens to be World Post Day. Ramaphosa becomes the fifth Head […]

The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs is set to resume the investigation into the (questionable) process followed in the naturalisation of the Gupta family. Last week, the committee said it had concluded the initial phase of the inquiry, which included the collection of all relevant information. However, the committee said it had identified gaps which […]