The Weekend View

The South African Tourism industry could possibly lose between 20 and 30 billion rand this festive season. This is due to the high number of booking cancellations, following the discovery Omicron - the latest COVID-19 variant.  Several countries including the United States and United Kingdom imposed travel bans to and from South Africa, during the peak holiday season.  With a rapid incre...

The South African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) says its turnaround strategy is working wonders as its licence and royalties collection grew by 4% from R325.8 Million to R338.8 Million in 2020. The organisation also says that its online revenue has increased by 110% and that it has also improved its solvency position due to lower debtor and cash management. SAMRO is also calling for pubs, mobi...

Community service doctors for 2022 have threatened to haul the National Department of Health before the high court if their demands for clarity on their placements are not met, The threat of legal action is a result of the department's lack of funding to put community service doctors on placements after the department said that it had 2 252 posts that needed to be filled, but could only fill 1 588...

South Africa is officially on the fourth wave of the covid 19 pandemic. Health Minister Joe Phaahla made the announcement. He says, while they are still trying to understand the newly discovered Omicron variant, what they have discovered so far is that the variant is highly infectious. Phaahla has raised concern over the sharp increase in the number of positive cases in Gauteng and fears that the...

President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned the recent travel bans on South Africa and other African nations after the detection of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron. Ramaphosa warned against the risk of "health apartheid" as he took aim at travel bans imposed on Southern African countries after it detected the new variant. On a visit to Ivory Coast, he said the curbs, which many countries have also ap...

Since March 2020…..Covid -19 has cost many providers their livelihoods…. Freelancers can be categorized as full-time independent contractors, temp workers employed by staffing firms, gig workers, project-based workers, self-employed business owners, and people working in a mix of these areas and in traditional employment. Yet in some countries like the USA we have also seen a growth...

Trucking companies have called on government to sort out the severe and adverse congestion on the Maputo Corridor that has seen them lose over R 1.3 billon a year. Companies say the congestion is due to long delays in crossing the border due to lack of a 24 hour service amongst others. The queue of trucks between Komatipoort and Lebombo is reportedly about 7 and 15km long on a regular basis. Meanw...

South Africa has the biggest HIV epidemic in the world, with 7.7 million people living with the virus. South Africa has also made huge improvements in getting people to test for HIV in recent years. It has now met the first of the 90-90-90 targets, with 90% of people living with HIV aware of their status in 2018. However, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and responses to it, there was a su...

Gender-based violence (GBV) continues to plague communities across South Africa. Higher education institutions are not immune to this alarming trend of sexual violence, with increasing incidents being reported across our campuses and their surrounds frequently. Dr Ruby-Ann Levendal of Nelson Mandela University says although greater awareness about GBV exists both in society and in higher education...

Health Minister Doctor Joe Phaahla, says there is a possibility of an inter-provincial travel ban this festive season as a result of the rising number of COVID-19 infections. More than 2-thousand 8-hundred cases were recorded today, with 12 deaths. More than 80-percent of the new infections are in Gauteng. However the Health Department says the new variant is spreading rapidly across the country

The South African government will hold high level talks this weekend on how to respond to the new Coronavirus variant. There are already concerns of a possible national lockdown -- and how this could have a devastating impact on local and international travel as well as tourism. The United Kingdom has already imposed a travel ban on visitors from six southern African countries, including South Afr...

There has been an increase of over a thousand murders in South Africa between July and September this year, compared to the same period last year. This is an increase of just pover 20 percent. These figures were revealed during the release of the second quarter crime statistics, to members of parliament's Police Portfolio Committee. So has attempted murder, rape, and assault with the intent to cau...

World soccer governing body FIFA has confirmed that it will review South Africa's appeal for a replay with Ghana in World Cup qualifying. The South African Football Association has demanded an investigation after Bafana Bafana lost one-nil in a qualifier in a controversial fashion against Ghana, prompting SAFA officials to suspect the involvement of match-fixing. Egypt, Algeria, Cameroon and other...

November is celebrated globally as Disability Awareness Month. It is estimated that 10% of the global population live with disabilities. While their able-bodied peers enjoy access to quality education and employment opportunities, people with disabilities receive less support and are often excluded from schooling, employment and broader society. The Deputy Director and Head of Universal Accessibil...

Old flames and new faves".  #HappinessEverAfter brings together Khanyi Mbau, Renate Stuurman and Nambitha Ben-Mazwi for this tale of sisterhood, love and self-discovery. Released on Netflix this past Wednesday November 10th, the sequel to "Happiness is a Four-Letter Word" finds Zaza, Princess and Zim living new chapters of their lives amid loss, family grudges and new love. If you have not se...

The Government Employee Pension Fund has announced that it has reached a market value of just over R2 Trillion since the start of the current 10 year cycle. The fund says last year alone its investments increased by R451 Billion amidst the economic turmoil caused by Covid. The fund has in the past been engulfed by reports of corruption due to poor oversight and monitoring.

Newly crowned Miss South Africa Lalela Mswane will represent South Africa in the Miss Universe pageant in Israel despite backlash from civil society groups. Calls are mounting for the beauty to pull out of the event because it is occurring in a country that has been accused of apartheid-like human rights crimes against the Palestinian people.

A number of countries in the continent are opting to reserve certain jobs and businesses for the locals. One of the most protectionist countries in the region used to be Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe had a 51% local ownership for all businesses. However, many Zimbabweans feels that the poor perfoming economy of their country is because of the protectionist policies. Meanwhile, South Africa is following suite...

President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to the last apartheid era President, F.W De Klerk - hailing him for his contribution to South Africa's transition into a democratic state. De Klerk died of cancer at his Fresnaye home, in Cape Town yesterday morning. He was 85. Ramaphosa was speaking outside Parliament after Finance Minister, Enoch Godongwana's mid term budget speech. He has sent condolen...

You have to have long-term and quick and short-term solutions at the same time". That was one of the key takeaways in a discussion with an international energy policy advisor on the current power crisis gripping the country. Ignacio Fernandez is a senior advisor at the primary electricity supply company in south California - the most populous state in the United States and by itself, the world's f...

Electricity blackouts not only lead to frustration due to the unavailability of power, but many are forced to spend thousands to repair damaged electrical appliances or buy new ones.  And if the appliances are not insured this could mean being without a flat-screen TV, computer, microwave, or fridge while trying to save some money.  Johannesburg's City Power says last year's stage 6 load...

City of Johannesburg's City Power has threatened legal action if Eskom did not heed its call to exempt Joburg residents from the lower stages of loadshedding. The City had written a letter to Eskom to notify it of the added capacity and thus requesting exemption from loadshedding. The municipality had recently secured additional power supply capacity of 220MW from the privately-owned Kelvin power...

Eswatini's main political opposition has generally welcomed President Cyril Ramaphosa's meeting with King Mswati in the small Kingdom this week, in which they agreed on arrangements for a national dialogue to negotiate a way out of the country's political impasse. Ramaphosa met with King Mswati in his capacity as the chair of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) organ on politics, def...

Political Parties have started negotiations to form coalition partnerships. Some parties will likely be forced to swallow their pride and work with their opponents. But others have made it clear that they will not compromise their principles to form a marriage of convenience to govern in local government.

One South Africa Movement Leader Mmusi Maimane has rejected Parliament's claims that OSA accused the national legislature of being in contempt of court. This comes after the Constitutional Court  gave Parliament 24 months to correct the defect in the Electoral Act. The "New Nation Movement NPC" and others who support Independent Candidates, -  successfully challenged the constitutionalit...