First Take SA

ESKOM's profits fell from 7.1 billion Rands the previous year to 3.6 billion Rands this financial year. The company says the losses were as a result of debt owed by municipalities, loss of industrial customers and delays in commissioning of the power plants. The utility also plans to borrow 20-billion Rand from the domestic market and international bond markets.

Filling stations in Gauteng will continue to run dry in the next few days, while the rest of the country remains unaffected by the fuel shortage. Fuel Retailers Association CEO Reggie Sibiya says unleaded petrol and diesel are affected. He says over 100 service stations have reported running dry. Sibiya says over and above the planned shutdown at the Engen Refinery in Durban, disruptions have occu...

World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from 1 to 7 August in more than 170 countries to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies around the world. Unicef has found that breastfed babies have a six times greater chance of survival in the early months than formula-fed children. However, many women around the world face prejudice and stigma in public and work places in a bi...

The government is meeting with labour unions and mining companies in Pretoria to find a way of saving jobs. Mining minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi says the meeting will carry on until something is committed on paper. Ramatlhodi says he hopes to lift the suspension imposed this week on Glencore's Optimum coalmine if the mining giant meets government directives over jobcuts. The talks come as the Nationa...

Economic Freedom Fighter leader Julius Malema is a free man for now. This after his fraud and corruption charges were struck off the roll in the high court in Polokwane. Judge Billy Motlhe ruled tha the case has dragged on for too long and rejected an application for another postponement by accused number five Kagiso Dichabe.

Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela has denied that she has allowed herself and her office to become a political football in the battle against the ANC and some opposition parties. She was responding to questions at a media briefing called to clarify what she says is the confusion regarding whether or not in her remedial action she requested President Zuma to ask Police Minister Nathi Nhleko...

Many people do not think that a verbal agreement is binding. However, the laws of our country state very clearly that both oral and written agreements are legally binding. Thembikhaya Zama from Lady Frere in the Eastern Cape found this out the hard way after he spoke to a sales consultant from Standard Bank.

Gauteng Community Safety MEC Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane says the re-introduction of specialised police units will help in fighting violent crimes in the province. Gauteng has recently experienced a spate of violent crimes and at times communities have been forced to take the law into their own hands. Nkosi-Malobane has condemned the murder of two officers in Gauteng in just 24-hours, saying this may...

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has been re-admitted to a Cape Town hospital after compaining of discomfort. His family says the 83-year-old popular cleric has been put on bed rest while doctors obeserve his condition. Chris Mabuya reports...

National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega strongly disagrees with some of the findings of the Marikana report released by President Jacob Zuma last month. Phiyega has released a detailed statement in reaction to the findings and recommendations of the report. She says the insinuation that police management went to work on August 16, 2012 with murderous intent has no substance. For more on this we...

Bobbi Kristina Brown, 22-year-old daughter of the late Whitney Houston, has died six months after suffering brain damage in an incident at her home. Aphiwe Honono and Nkensani Hlangwane filed this report.

Lonmin is set to shed six-thousand jobs, including contractors, as it's planning to close or mothball several mine shafts in South Africa. The platinum producer is reported to have told a union in a letter that four-thousand-500 members of the Lonmin workforce could be laid off. The union hasn't been named. Lonmin shares on the London Stock Exchange have fallen by more than seven percent to an all...

Lonmin is set to shed six-thousand jobs, including contractors, as it's planning to close or mothball several mine shafts in South Africa. The platinum producer is reported to have told a union in a letter that four-thousand-500 members of the Lonmin workforce could be laid off. The union hasn't been named. Lonmin shares on the London Stock Exchange have fallen by more than seven percent to an all...

The Department of Health recently suspended two doctors after they performed a Caesarean section on a teenager in a general ward at Evander Hospital in Mpumalanga. Ordinarily, this would have been performed in a theatre. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi opened a criminal case against the two doctors, saying they had "a tendency to disregard instructions with impunity". However, health union the So...

Chairperson of the Nkandla ad hoc committee Cedrick Frolick has acknowledged that the much talked about "firepool" at President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla home is also a recreational facility. He made the remark after inspecting Zuma's private home. He quickly added that it could also be utilised to fight fires. Government has been at pains to explain why the firepool should be seen as a security featur...

A national flag bearing the colours blue, white and red will be raised in Washington later today and it's not the American flag. Cuba's 'standard' will for the first time in 54 years again fly outside the country's stately embassy in the U.S. capital to formally reflect the re-establishment of diplomatic ties between Havana and Washington. Some 500 guests including South Africa's Ambassador have b...

It's all systems go for tomorrow's controversial presidential elections in Burundi. Opposition politicians have accused President Pierre Nkurunziza of violating the constitution by running for a third term and are boycotting the vote. Last minute peace talks called to solve Burundi's political crisis were derailed yesterday following a boycott by the Burundi government. Dozens of people have alrea...

The Railway Safety Regulator has just released its preliminary report into Friday's train accident in Booysens this afternoon. About 200 people were injured in that crash. The regulator has raised concern about the lack of maintance of ageing equipment. Metrorail is also expected to release details about it's investigation into the accident.

The City of Johannesburg's Emergency Services says striking fire-fighters are not affecting their services. The fire-fighters have vowed to continue clocking in at 8am and knocking off at 4pm, leaving stations understaffed for three hours until management takes their overtime grievances seriously. Joburg EMS's spokesperson, Robert Mulaudzi, says they are using reservists to cover the three hours p...

Protesting residents of Vuwani in Limpopo have handed a memorandum of their demands to the MEC for Health Dr Phophi Ramathuba in the area today. Ramathuba received the memorandum on behalf of premier Stan Mathabatha. Residents blockaded main roads demanding that the Municipal Demarcation Board reverse its decision to merge their area with Malamulele to form a new municipality. Ramathuba promised t...

In our Arts and Culture section this week.....Number 43, Trelawney Park, a modest house in a suburb of Manzini, Swaziland, was for many years a vital base of operations for the ANC. Told in the first person, Elias Masilela's book puts a tragic, and in some ways nostalgic, human face life in exile during the apartheid years. The book tells the stories of the ANC and PAC cadres who passed through Nu...

Numsa says Cosatu unions opposed to the expulsion of Numsa and former general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi are meeting today to chart a way forward after suffering massive losses at the Cosatu special national congress currently underway in Midrand, north of Johannesburg. They failed to push for the agenda of congress to include debate on the expulsions

Negotiations are continuing between the embassies of South Africa and Britain and Chinese authorities over the arrests of 20 people - ten of them South Africans - in Inner Mongolia. Chinese authorities have accused them of having links to a terror organisation, but have since released eleven people. Five South Africans remain under arrest. According to the Gift of the Givers group the group was on...

COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini says expelled affiliate NUMSA wants to destroy the federation. Dlamini called on affiliates supporting NUMSA to come back to the Central Executive Committee - they have been boycotting since NUMSA was booted out in November last year. But disgruntled unions also hit back during the open debate

Cosatu's Special National Congress is expected go to vote on whether newly formed metalworkers union LIMUSA and Second Deputy President Zingiswa Losi stay in the Congress. It is understood that unions sympathetic to expelled NUMSA and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi would not accept the credentials until LIMUSA and Losi are excluded. The Congress was discussing credentials behind closed doors af...