First Take SA

All teachers, who were granted concessions to work from home during the nationwide lockdown, have to report back to school this morning. The Basic Education Department gave 22-thousand-500 teachers permission to work from home as the country battled the Coronavirus pandemic. Substitute teachers were employed in their absence. The teachers' return to school coincides with the country's move to Lock...

Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize has urged the public to not be complacent but rather continue to practice extreme caution by sticking to the covid-19 health guidelines. This as the country enters level one of the national lockdown which was initiated as a response to the fight against the corona virus pandemic. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced last week that the country would ease its regulati...

ANC politician Andile Lungisa has started serving his two-year prison sentence while awaiting his bail hearing at the Grahamstown High Court in Makhanda slated for Monday. On Tuesday this week, the NPA gave Lungisa 48 hours to hand himself over after his appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Appeals last week. Lungisa was sentenced to two years imprisonment for assault with intent to do gri...

Humanitarian organisation, Oxfam South Africa, has called on pharmaceutical companies to provide a people-based vaccine as rich nations race to buy Covid-19 vaccine stock. This as over fifty percent of doses expected to be available for supply post successful trials have been snapped up by the US, Britain, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, Israel, the EU, Hong Kong and Macaue. Oxfam, together with va...

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that there will be a gradual easing on restrictions on international travel from the first of October. However the President said travel will be restricted to and from certain high risk countries. #I amTourism has welcomed the reopening of borders saying it will bring about the return of business travel, conferences and expanded trade. Elvis Presslin spoke to it...

Sporting fans who were hoping that they would be able to go to stadiums to support their teams on the field as the country moves to Lockdown Alert Level 1, have been dealt a major blow. President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that sporting restrictions will remain in place for now. Super Rugby has been the hardest hit despite the return of some domestic cricket games and soccer matches which saw t...

The Public Protector's Office will go ahead with an investigation into the use of state funds and resources for party interests by the ANC delegation which traveled to Zimbabwe last week. This is despite the governing party apologising and agreeing to pay back to the state the costs incurred for the trip after the ANC delegation used a SANDF plane to transport its officials to a meeting with the r...

The Public Protector's Office will go ahead with an investigation into the use of state funds and resources for party interests by the ANC delegation which travelled to Zimbabwe last week. This is despite the governing party apologising and agreeing to pay back to the state the costs incurred for the trip after the ANC delegation used a SANDF plane to transport its officials to a meeting with the...

'Africa 4 Palestine' to picket outside the embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Pretoria to protest against the Israel-United Arab Emirates normalisation agreement, or the Abraham Accord. The agreement was signed on Tuesday in Washington by US president Donald Trump and the leaders of Israel and UAE. The accord, which normalises relations between Israel and UAE is seen by others as a a 'stab in...

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has warned that the South African economy faces tough times ahead and that painful sacrifices will need to be made going forward. Mboweni wrote an opinion piece in a Sunday newspaper where he called for structural reforms of the South African economy. This follows the GDP shrinking by a record 51 percent in the second quarter, its forth quarterly contraction in a row....

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi is to table in parliament amendments to the electoral laws that could pave the way for the introduction of electronic voting over and the above the traditional method of polling. Motsoaledi has disclosed this in a notice on the government gazette. The IEC told parliament in July that it was also considering piloting e-voting. However, such a pilot project wou...

The EFF has called off the protest action at Clicks stores with immediate effect. The party met with executives from both Unilever and Clicks in separate meetings at its headquarters in Braamfontein, Johannesburg yesterday. Clicks committed to drop all Tresemmé SA products from all its stores and replace them with locally produced products, while Unilever promised to withdraw the products from all...

With the unemployment rate expecting to worsen in South Africa and many people struggling to put food on the table, some communities are now setting up groups in an attempt to assist one another. Income deprivation and lack of jobs are becoming more acute, 5 months into the Covid-19 pandemic and lock-down.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has reassured South Africans that the change they want to see in the country will happen. Ramaphosa was speaking to editors in an engagment with SANEF, where he said the work government is doing will reveal itself.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says South Africa will "forever remember" the contribution of veteran human rights lawyer, George Bizos. Ninety-two-year-old Bizos died at his home in Johannesburg yesterday afternoon. Ramaphosa has described Bizos as an incisive legal mind and architect of the country's democratic constitution. And in the words of his late friend, Nobel Literature laureate Nadine Gordime...

Former board chair of Eskom, Zola Tsotsi, yesterday concluded his evidence at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. Tsotsi was grilled for two days regarding governance, allegations of corruption at the power utility and how Eskom was captured by the Gupta's. He also gave damming evidence of how former Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown and former President Jacob Zuma, interfered i...

Former Eskom board chair Zola Tsotsi has told the commission of Inquiry into State Capture he received pressure from government regarding how the Eskom board was to be run. He explained how various ministers and the president interfered and gave instructions in board related matters at the power utility. The former board chair also detailed his relationship with the Gupta brothers and how that rel...

The EFF has vowed to continue with its protest against Clicks until Friday. The party says the Johannesburg High Court interdict granted to Clicks does not bar them from protesting. On Monday several stores were damaged when the campaign against an advertisement that denigrated black people's hair was published online by Clicks. The company has since withdrawn the ad and apologised. It has also su...

The Democratic Alliance has defended the party's adoption of non-racialism in its policy to deal with the country's economically excluded. Following its two day virtual policy conference this weekend, the party has resolved that it will champion policies of redress without being racially-specific. It has lauded its conference as the most inclusive it has ever held and dismissed reports of purging...

Exposure to other serious diseases in the past may have created an immunity to COVID-19 for many South Africans. That's according to Professor of Vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Shabir Madhi. He's currently looking into why South Africa's death rate is far lower than was initially predicted. This comes as the number of daily new infections has also dipped sharply.

Several Clicks stores were yesterday vandalised and petrol-bombed amid the nationwide protest by the EFF following a controversial online advertisement. The company placed an advertisement labelling black natural hair as 'dry, damaged and frizzy', while white natural hair was depicted as 'normal'. The pharmaceutical retailer has however apologised and removed the advert. Clicks has also had its Hi...

The EFF has threatened to shut down all Clicks stores across the country from today if it continues operating. The party has called for the closure of the health and lifestyle retailer's stores for five days after it failed to meet its list of demands for corrective action over its controversial online advert. On Friday, Clicks caused social media outrage after an image of a black woman's hair was...

The KwaZulu-Natal Health Department says it will close the temporary field hospital at the Royal Showgrounds in Pietermaritzburg as the province has started recording a decline in Covid-19 infections. Provincial Health MEC, Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu, says the department is also looking at cancelling contracts for some of the rented facilities including lodges and B&Bs, that have been used as quaranti...

Former Environmental Affairs Minister Nomvula Mokonyane has admitted that she had her birthday dinner at the Victoria Guesthouse. It was her second appearance before the commission on State Capture since July when she denied having any party at the venue. Last month the Victoria Guesthouse owner Frederick Coetzee testified that his guesthouse accommodated a function for Mokonyane's 40th birthday i...

DA interim leader John Steenhuisen says the party's former Gauteng Provincial Leader, John Moodey has spread falsehood and untruths to justify his reasons for leaving the party. Steenheisen was briefing the media responding to Moodey's resignation. Moodey, who was a contender for the DA's top job with Mbali Ntuli and Steenhuisen, resigned on Wednesday. He said he no longer felt at home in the part...