The Weekend View

The towns of Welkom, Matjhabeng, Bothaville, Nala, and the Moqhaka municipality have been facing days without water after not being able to pay Sedibeng water. Some clinics in Mangaung were forced to close as severe water shortages continued to wreak havoc on primary health centres. BloemWater was forced to implement water cuts after not being paid an agreed amount of 20 million rand a month. Udo...

 This week marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of international NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders. Since its inceptions in France in 1971, MSF has gone on to help millions of people worldwide in the international emergency aid sector. The organisation received countless accolades over the past five decades including a Nobel Peace Prize. For a look at...

South African's have been warned to brace for higher food prices as fuel prices surge. According to data released by the Automobile Association of South Africa, the price of 93 unleaded petrol inland has risen by just over 91 percent in the last 10 years, and 41 percent in the last year. Higher electricity tariff hikes are also looming which will put added pressure on consumers. Udo Carelse spoke...

Cricket South Africa has to find a new director of cricket and new head coach. This is the view of former SA cricketers Association President Omphile Ramela. The former first class cricketer was one of the loudest voices to question the respective appointments of Graeme Smith and Mark Boucher when he testified during CSA's Social Justice Network. The ombud of the SJN Dumisa Ntsebeza delivered his...

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has expressed concern over the continued poaching of rhino, with the latest 23 having taken place over a 36-hour period. Mpumalanga and the Kruger National Park accounted for seven of the poached rhino, while KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape accounted for six and four, respectively. The country has seen thousands of rhino poached for thei...

Today marks International Migration day. South Africa hosts the largest number of immigrants on the African continent. According to official estimates, the country is home to about 2.9 million immigrants, which would account for slightly less than 5 percent of the overall population of 60 million people. However, this number is thought to be an underestimate because of the presence of large number...

This week, South Africans commemorated Reconciliation Day, a day steeped in a painful and often layered history. To help us unpack what the architects of our democracy intended with the day and what reconciliation means in 2021, Udo Carelse spoke to former cabinet member of the last Apartheid Government, negotiator at CODESA, Leon Wessels and Khulumani Support Group, National Director Dr...

Traffic officials have warned that authorities are implementing a zero tolerance approach to lawlessness on the country's roads this festive season. This comes as thousands of South Africans head to their holiday destinations for the festive season. By Wednesday morning, over 1500 vehicles had been recorded at one of the country's busiest plazas, the Kranskop toll plaza, near Modimolle, Limpopo. U...

Former President Thabo Mbeki says the local economy is in crisis as it is failing to grow and create much needed  jobs. Mbeki was speaking during a lecture in honour of Chief Nkosi  Albert Luthuli on the 60th Anniversary of his receipt of the Nobel Peace Price. 

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.