The Weekend View

The Springboks defended/ their home turf with a 31 - 27 win over All Blacks in an epic Castle Lager Rugby Championship match at the iconic Ellis Park Stadium yesterday. New Zealand played a great game of rugby, but could never quite bury the Springboks who kept plugging away and remain undefeated in the championship.

The Two-pot retirement system kicks in today. The system has however been criticised by labour federations including SAFTU who are not happy with some aspects of the scheme and say the second pot should not only be accessible at retirement age. 

The national, provincial and local government, the SAPS, the City of Cape Town, community organisations and private security companies will collaborate and share resources, technology and intelligence as part of efforts to improve policing and community safety for all the residents of Cape Town. By drawing on each other's expertise, it is hoped that crime fighting agencies will be able to do much...

The greatest rivalry in world rugby gets underway in Johannesburg TODAY when the Springboks face the All Blacks at Ellis Park stadium. The Rugby Championship Test match will be the 11th time the old rivals meet at the iconic venue since South Africa's reintroduction to the Test fold in 1992. Springboks coach, Rassie Erasmus, THIS WEEK made nine changes from the team that won against the Wallabies...

The Stop Stockouts Project says it has found that in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, almost all women and girls who were surveyed did not receive the contraceptives they requested. The project says some of its findings are that poor national procurement planning continues to be the main driver of contraceptive shortages and stockouts. The Stop Stockouts Project says access to contrac...

The National Credit Regulator ("NCR") says consumers must be vigilant of debt counsellors engaging in the deceptive or misleading practice of placing consumers under debt counselling without their knowledge or consent. The NCR says it has been receiving alarming complaints that Debt counsellors are duping consumers into debt counselling without a full understanding of the process which they are en...

President Cyril Ramaphosa has welcomed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the three spheres of government to combat crime in the Western Cape. Ramaphosa attended the pledge signing event in Cape Town. This will see cooperation between the national government, provincial government of the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town to pull together ideas and resources to fignt crime. 

A container ship THIS WEEK lost part of its cargo in bad weather off the coast of Port St. Johns in the Eastern Cape. The MSC Antonia, sailing under the flag of Liberia, encountered severe weather conditions while en-route from Colombo, Sri Lanka to New York on Wednesday and lost 46 containers overboard. 305 other containers were also damaged.  The vessel is now expected to arrive in Cape Town TOM...

Floyd Shivambu is now the National Organiser of the Umkhonto WeSizwe (MK) party. The former EFF deputy president announced last week that he would be joining the MK party. The party's President is Jacob Zuma and Dr John Hlope is Deputy President. The uMkhonto WeSizwe Party will be led by the National High Command which will be comprised of commanders of different skill sets and experiences. The hi...

Since Thursday the Chinese hospital ship - Peace Ark -  has been docked at Cape Town's V&A Water Front. The gigantic medical vessel will be docked in the area until Wednesday, 29th August. In conjuction with the South African Military Health Service, the ship will be providing health service to the visiting local community of Cape Town and its outskirts. 

Experts are warning of a spike in fraud targeting retirement funds with the Two Pot system arriving on 1st September. The system will enable withdrawals of up to a third of your retirement contributions once a year from R2,000 up to the full balance of your savings pot. But without advanced biometrics, the security of such withdrawls can be compromised. Experts say Signatures on forms can be faked...

Ongoing load reduction and electricity challenges, water constraints, unemployment and crime were some of the many issues raised at the Presidential Imbizo YESTERDAY. Scores of  residents from Ekurhuleni and the surrounding areas, flocked to the Tsakane stadium for the Gauteng leg of the Imbizo. The meeting, which is led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, is held between the country's executive and com...

A new book, Life Esidimeni - Portrait of Lost Lives, will be launched in Johannesburg TODAY. The book is a graphic and detailed work to preserve memory of the 144 people with mental illness who died from neglect and starvation while in the care of Gauteng's public health system in 2016. In the course of 4 years, the author Harriet Perlman and photographer, Mark Lewis, travelled to meet the familie...

After 40 years in captivity, the last elephant in South Africa's national zoo has been released back into the wild. The elephant, named Charlie, was captured in 1984 from Zimbabwe's Hwange national park when he was two years old. He was taken to Boswell Wilkie Circus here in South Africa and trained to perform tricks. In the early 2000s he was transferred to the Pretoria Zoo. Thanks to the work of...

When Floyd Shivambu announced on Thursday that he was leaving his post as deputy leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters to join the uMkhonto Wesizwe Party, many analysts described the move as the biggest shake-up in the Red Berets' camp since their launch 11 years ago.  Accepting his resignation, EFF leader Julius Malema said Shivambu's departure was 'painful' and 'shoking'. The MKP on their part...

Diabetes is an escalating public health crisis in South Africa. This is according to the outcomes of the 2023 Diabetes Summit Report which has found that Diabetes-related mortality is on the rise in South Africa, and the management of the condition remains suboptimal, even within the private healthcare sector. Experts say despite the high burden on healthcare resources, numerous cases go undiagnos...

Scientists, THIS WEEK, discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars. The findings come from a new analysis of data from Nasa's Mars Insight Lander, which touched down on the planet back in 2018. While there is water frozen at the Martian poles and evidence of vapour in the atmosphere, this is the first time liquid water has been found on the planet. The scientists point out that the location of...

The Springboks are just a few hours before they battle against Australia in their second Rugby Championship match. Coach Rassie Erasmus has defended his decision to make 10 changes to the starting line up. The Boks are looking to build on their comprehensive 33-7 victory in Brisbane last weekend in their rematch against the Wallabies at the Optus Stadium in Perth THIS MORNING. The game kicks off a...

Zimbabwe is TODAY hosting the 44th SADeC heads of states and government summit in the capital, Harare. Some civic society organisations meeting in Harare ahead of the summit have called for the revival of the SADeC tribunal or formation of a new entity which would be mandated to hold member countries accountable for their actions. 

ANC chairperson in Johannesburg and Finance MMC Dada Morero has been elected as the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg during a special council meeting last night. Morero who was up against the DA's caucus leader, Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku received an overwhelming 189 votes while Kayser-Echeozonjoke received 60 votes. Five parties, the ANC, EFF, PA, IFP and ATM nominated Morero. Morero takes over K...

Anti-Financial Crime Experts say Generative AI technology has spawned increasingly sophisticated methods of deception, with deep fake technology emerging as a significant threat in South Africa. Criminals are creating more advanced versions of impersonation fraud using AI-generated video and voice.  They say they are so convincing that businesses have been duped into transferring millions to scamm...

The ministry of cooperative governance & traditional affairs (Cogta) has called for public comment on the municipal structures' amendment bill which seeks to give guidelines on how municipalities are governed. The Bill was introduced to deal with the instability and dysfunction that has been associated with local coalitions, and specifically in several metros. The bill proposes changing munici...

South Africa has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy globally, with nearly one in four girls falling pregnant before turning 20 years old. This is according to data provided by the World Health Organization.  Meanwhile, figures released by the department of health show that more than 2 700 girls, aged between 10 and 14, are now mothers after giving birth at public healthcare facilities a...

Botswana's recent ban on South African fruit and vegetable imports, including citrus, has drawn criticism from the Agricultural Business Chamber of SA (Agbiz). Agbiz warns that the restrictions not only disrupt trade, affecting less than 0.5% of SA's citrus exports but also strain political and economic ties between the two nations. Botswana has announced a temporary ban on orange imports, effecti...

The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, Mosa Chabane, has  welcomed the preliminary investigation into the citizenship status of Miss SA contestant, Chidimma Adetshina. However, he has voiced concerns that the update raises more questions than answers and has called on the department to finalize its investigation. This comes after Home Affairs found prima facie evidence suggest...