Stewart, knighted in 2010 by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to drama, died at his home in Los Angeles, according to a statement on his X account.

“We announce with great sorrow the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday [Wednesday] at his home in Los Angeles, in the loving care of his beloved wife, Sunny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia,” it said.

Stewart became an actor at age 18 and gained acclaim on the stage as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company beginning in the 1960s. But it was not until after he was hired at age 47 for Star Trek: The Next Generation — a TV series that ran from 1987 to 1994 as a sequel to the original 1960s Star Trek — that he gained mainstream fame, acting into his 80s.

“Make it so,” his character Picard often said, instructing a subordinate to carry out a command or sometimes deploying the similar catch phrase “Engage”.

It was a role he had debated taking after his long-time friend and fellow Shakespearean Ian McKellen advised him to spurn Star Trek and remain in theatre. Stewart did take the role and became a fan favourite and an indispensable part of a lucrative sci-fi franchise, playing Picard not only in 176 episodes over seven seasons of that series but also in several Star Trek films and in the later streaming series Star Trek: Picard that began airing in 2020 when he was 79.

“As the seven seasons of TNG (The Next Generation) went by, the distinction between Jean-Luc Picard and Patrick Stewart became thinner and thinner, until it was impossible for me to know where he left off and I began. So much of what I believed and felt went into that show,” Stewart told the Guardian newspaper in 2022.

Stewart also initially baulked at being cast as the wheelchair-using mutant Professor X in the X-Men movies, based on the popular Marvel comic book character.

“I said, ‘Look, I know this isn’t science fiction, but it’s fantasy, and I’ve done that.’ But they persuaded me that it wouldn’t be like Star Trek, so I did it. And yet again I was proved wrong,” Stewart told the Guardian.

He became a critical part of another big-money franchise, starting with the first entry X-Men in 2000, and followed by several more.

Acting was a safe space

Stewart was born on July 13 1940, in the English town of Mirfield in Yorkshire. He was raised in poverty, with a father who he said returned from World War 2 an alcoholic who suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and physically abused Stewart’s mother. Stewart recalled putting his body between his father and mother to try to protect her.

As a child, Stewart said, acting became a “safe space” after a schoolteacher introduced him to Shakespeare — specifically The Merchant of Venice — during a class when he was 12. He started losing his hair at age 17 and was bald by 19. He was embarrassed at the time, but eventually embraced it.

Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry, presented a hopeful vision of the future, with humankind venturing into the cosmos in spaceships exceeding the speed of light and encountering alien races. The enduring popularity of the original series and the success of spinoff films prompted Roddenberry to create The Next Generation sequel series.

The Picard character was the opposite of the swashbuckling and sometimes unintentionally buffoonish Captain James T Kirk, played by William Shatner, of the original series — envisioned as more cerebral and disciplined, though sometimes coming across as stuffy, humourless, or self-important.

Stewart recalled being a bit too serious towards his cast mates early on.

“I tell the story of calling a meeting of my principal fellow cast members and telling them that I thought we were not disciplined enough, that we should not be fooling around on the set as much as we were but taking everything seriously,” Stewart told the New Yorker in 2023.

“And one of the cast members said, ‘Oh, come on, Patrick, we’ve got to have some fun.’ And I thumped the chair and said, ‘We are not here to have fun’ — which they have never let me forget. They taught me so much about loosening up and being freer,” Stewart added.

Stewart also felt the series improved as it went along, faulting his own portrayal of Picard in the first two seasons.

“I found it lacking intimacy. It was very authoritative, but there were few other qualities in him,” Stewart said, adding that his work got better in subsequent seasons.

In fact, the finest work for the entire cast may have been the two-part, time-bending series finale.

He became Sir Patrick Stewart when he was knighted by the queen at Buckingham Palace in 2010. He told reporters that his heroes were British actors Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Alec Guinness, who also had been knighted, adding that being “in that company is the grandest thing that has professionally happened to me”.

Stewart was married three times and had two children. His third marriage, in 2013, was to American musician Sunny Ozell.

Reuters

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More than a dozen officials from the South African Revenue Service (Sars) spent less than half an hour on a search and seizure operation in the office of City of Tshwane CFO Gareth Mnisi on Thursday morning.

The officials, clad in Sars-branded clothing, descended on Tshwane House, requesting access to Mnisi’s office for their operation.

Mnisi’s laptop and his mobile phone were among the personal gadgets that were confiscated during the raid before the officials left Tshwane House with the CFO apparently going to his residential property.

“There were about 14 officials from Sars that conducted the raid which was done within 30 minutes,” an insider said.

The operation was swift and limited to Mnisi’s office, according to an eyewitness.

Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo could only confirm the raid and would not comment any further.

Mnisi came under the spotlight earlier this year when it emerged that he owned multiple luxury vehicles.

His fleet of luxury vehicles included two Porsches, including a 2023 Porsche 911 Turbo worth R6m, two Range Rovers and two BMWs, among others.

The Sars raid comes barely three months after he returned to office after he was slapped with a warning following a suspension after his testimony at the Madlanga commission of inquiry earlier this year.

Sars declined to share any details about its operation.

“Given the Chapter 6 provisions of the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 on the prohibition of disclosure of confidential taxpayer information, Sars would neither confirm nor deny that it conducted operations against the taxpayer [Mnisi],” said Sars spokesperson Siphithi Sibeko on Thursday afternoon.

Mnisi could not be reached telephonically for comment on Thursday.

Earlier this year, a forensic report commissioned by the City of Tshwane stopped short of finding Mnisi guilty of financial misconduct, despite identifying procurement irregularities and recommending disciplinary action against him.

The report follows allegations that emerged during testimony before the Madlanga commission of inquiry into political interference, criminality and corruption, where he appeared in March.

While investigators identified several breaches of municipal rules and procurement processes, they found no evidence of impropriety by Mnisi, whose sanction was a final warning, a move which the Democratic Alliance opposed.

The report found that Mnisi failed to declare directorships in companies and his role as a trustee and beneficiary of the Mnisi Family Trust during the 2024/25 financial year.

Investigators also concluded that he failed to disclose his relationship with Ngaphesheya Construction and Projects, amounting to a breach of clause 5A of Schedule 2 of the Code of Conduct for Municipal Staff Members and clause 15(2)(e) of the City’s Supply Chain Management Policy.

Mnisi was further found to have taken no action against director of performance management Victor Kgopa, who chaired a bid evaluation committee, despite concerns that his conduct could be viewed as compromising the integrity of the procurement process.

On the issue of unpaid invoices, the report found that Mnisi failed to refer Tshwane Metro Police Department deputy commissioner Umashi Dlamini to the chief of police after Dlamini shared Gubi 585’s invoice with disgraced former police officer, Fannie Nkosi.

He was also found to have failed to prevent Nkosi from becoming involved in the city’s internal affairs.

The Buccaneers thumped Milford FC 3-0 in their Carling Knockout Cup last 16 match and Amakhosi returned to winning ways to beat TS Galaxy by the same scoreline at FNB Stadium, the venue of Bucs’ home Betway Premiership derby on Saturday (3.30pm).

Pirates are classified as favourites because of their recent strong record. They have won seven matches and lost one of their last eight in all competitions, with coach Abdeslam Ouaddou’s young Bucs also possessing the Premiership title.

“Being favourites doesn’t give you the guarantee that you are going to win the match because football is open and we know Chiefs is a big club,” Ouaddou said on Thursday.

“We are also a big club and among three of the biggest teams in Africa. We must bring the fighting spirit to the table and represent our fans very well.”

Pirates captain Nkosinathi Sibisi says recent results doesn't count in Soweto derby.

WATCH more on #PrimeSportsWithMahlatseTV ➡️➡️➡️https://t.co/44VuwptVFI pic.twitter.com/uhMGrTRC8k

— Mahlatse Mphahlele (@BraMahlatse) October 29, 2026

Chiefs, on the other hand, have been inconsistent over the same period with two wins, as many draws and four defeats in their last six games ― which also included Friday’s blow of being booted out of the Caf Confederation Cup in the final stage before the group phase ― but they usually rise to the occasion in the Soweto derby.

One of the issues that has kept under-pressure Chiefs coach Fernando Da Cruz up at night was not putting away enough goals, but striker Wandile Duba found his scoring touch by netting a hat-trick against Galaxy.

One of the debates that has dominated the derby build-up is which side is under more pressure given their contrasting recent results.

Ouaddou and Da Cruz said their players cannot escape pressure in a big game and they asked them not to be overwhelmed by the weight of expectation.

“When you are in sports, you need to have positive pressure to bring happiness to yourself and those around you,” Ouaddou said. “I told my players pressure must not stop them from doing good things and showing their capacity to play.

“This is not only the biggest derby in South Africa but one of the biggest in the world. We have to give everything on the field by being physical and playing entertaining football. We will have to play with high intensity and try to reach a level.

“When you are going to play high-level football against Chiefs, it is important to have mental comfort and be able to express yourself on the pitch. If you allow bad pressure to stop you from playing, you will encounter problems.”

Chiefs midfielder Mfundo Vilakazi on showboating.

WATCH more on #PrimeSportsWithMahlatseTV ➡️➡️➡️https://t.co/yLZ8fHQnVY pic.twitter.com/NbPG22D3Mm

— Mahlatse Mphahlele (@BraMahlatse) October 29, 2026

Da Cruz agreed with his Pirates counterpart, adding that the Chiefs players have to find a way of managing the expectations for the huge occasion at the packed, 94,000-seat 2010 World Cup final venue.

“I cannot answer for the opponents [about which team is under more pressure], but for our players it will be positive pressure. The players must manage it so they are able to play a good game with intensity and commitment.”

Da Cruz said the win over Galaxy has boosted his team. “We are going into this game with confidence because we won our last game and didn’t concede. When you keep a clean sheet, it helps with confidence, but there is always a reason to improve the team even when we win.

“Orlando Pirates have more experienced players in their squad. Some of them have played international competitions with the club or Bafana Bafana. Experience does not only come from age but from how many times you have played matches of consequence.

“But we also have young players who are used to playing in the derby and they will be ready to play on Saturday.”

Da Cruz said Amakhosi will try to throw off any form of underdog mentality by attempting to impose themselves on the game.

“We want to play a good game in front of our fans. We know it is going to be an emotional game with lots of passion around the field, but the most important thing is to be focused on how we want to play the game.”

In the last derby, the match turned physical with Chiefs midfielder Siphesihle Ndlovu dishing out unsporting tackles. Pirates captain Nkosinathi Sibisi expects a competitive but clean game.

“We were caught by their level of physicality and I think some of their challenges were over the top and not fair. I don’t think as Pirates we should be judged by such things. As Pirates, we just want to play football.

“If a team comes with a different approach it is on them; we will just try to create as many chances as possible and score as many goals as we we can.”

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When Zolani Zondani set off on his 1,071km walk from Gqeberha to Johannesburg, some people mocked him and called him names.

Fifteen days later, with his sneakers wearing thin and strangers helping him along the way, he is less than 200km from his destination.

The journey has tested his physical and emotional endurance, but Zondani is determined to finish what he started: raising awareness about men’s mental health and substance abuse and encouraging men to seek help before they reach breaking point.

In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked South Africa among the 10 countries with the highest suicide rates globally, at 23.5 deaths per 100,000 people.

The country recorded an estimated 13,774 suicide deaths that year, the third-highest figure in Africa. Men accounted for the vast majority, with 10,861 deaths compared with 2,913 among women.

Speaking to the Sunday Times during a break after leaving Kroonstad in the early hours of the morning, Zondani said the walk was deeply personal, shaped by childhood experiences, bereavement and the loss of his brother to substance abuse.

We live in a society where men are often expected to be strong, provide, endure pain in silence and carry their struggles without asking for help. Unfortunately, many suffer silently because they fear being judged, misunderstood or perceived as weak.

Zolani Zondani

“Growing up without a father figure, losing my mother and losing my brother to substance abuse taught me that some of the battles men face are not always visible,” he said.

“We live in a society where men are often expected to be strong, provide, endure pain in silence and carry their struggles without asking for help. Unfortunately, many suffer silently because they fear being judged, misunderstood or perceived as weak.”

This is not his first long-distance walk for the cause. In October 2025, he walked about 700km from Gqeberha to Cape Town to raise awareness about men’s mental health and substance abuse.

That journey showed him that his mission was bigger than himself.

“Along the way, I encountered ordinary South Africans who offered me food, accommodation, encouragement and stories of their own struggles. Those encounters reminded me that humanity still exists in the people we often overlook, and that sometimes a simple act of kindness can give someone the strength to keep going,” he said.

His latest walk is a continuation of that mission through Broski Brotherhood NPC, a non-profit organisation he founded to create safe spaces where men can speak openly about their struggles and seek help without shame.

“I want us to move beyond talking about men’s mental health only when another life has been lost. We need to act before someone reaches the point where they feel ending their life is their only escape,” he said.

The journey is also a personal challenge, pushing him beyond the limits he had placed on himself and turning his convictions into action.

It has not been without hardship. Zondani has endured blistering heat, thirst, dry winds and the constant danger of sharing busy roads with cars and trucks. He has also had to contend with doubt and a lack of support from some of the people he expected to stand behind him.

“There have been moments when I had to confront not only the road ahead of me but also the battles within me. I have questioned how much further I could go and whether the sacrifices I was making would eventually make a difference,” he said.

“Yet whenever I found myself close to giving up, I had to remind myself of where I come from, the life I have lived and the experiences that shaped me into the man I am today.”

His feet began blistering early in the journey, which he attributed to the heat, a new pair of sneakers and the pace at which he was walking. He has since adjusted his pace and the way he positions his toes to prevent further blisters.

He has worn the same pair of sneakers throughout the journey, and they are now nearing the end of their life.

“I was hoping that the right people with influence could help me, even Adidas, since the sneakers are from there. Now they are on their final stretch because they are wearing out,” he said.

One of his toughest challenges was the 98km stretch from Cradock to Middelburg, the longest distance he had covered in a single day.

The experience has exceeded my expectations. People have shown me Ubuntu, and men have also shown up throughout the journey by admitting that they need help and a safe space because they are really suffering.

Zolani Zondani

Walking under the scorching sun and through dry winds, he relied on the support of two men who accompanied him and the generosity of motorists along the N2, who gave him water, drinks and energy bars.

Messages of encouragement and prayers also helped him push through.

Despite having undertaken a similar journey before, Zondani said the response to this walk had exceeded his expectations. Beyond the practical assistance, he has been encouraged by men who have opened up about their struggles and acknowledged their need for support.

“The experience has exceeded my expectations. People have shown me Ubuntu, and men have also shown up throughout the journey by admitting that they need help and a safe space because they are really suffering,” he said.

For Zondani, those conversations are as important as the kilometres he has covered. He hopes the walk will encourage men to recognise that asking for help is not a sign of weakness and that emotional struggles should not have to be faced alone.

“Every kilometre represents a call for understanding, brotherhood and a society where men feel seen, heard, supported and valued,” he said.

“Ultimately, my destination is Johannesburg, but my mission goes far beyond reaching a city. I am walking towards a future where men are free from the burden of suffering in silence, where asking for help is recognised as courage, and where brotherhood becomes more than a word, it becomes a support system that restores hope and saves lives.”

We often hear people telling the youth to keep trying, update their CVs, apply for another job, learn a new skill, start a business, think positively and never give up, but what does that advice actually mean when you have been rejected so many times that you begin to question your own worth, when you have to weigh up spending money on transport for an interview or feeding your family, when nobody in your household is employed and when the future feels less like an opportunity waiting to happen and more like a door that remains firmly shut no matter how hard you knock?

For millions of young South Africans, this is not simply a question of motivation or resilience, but the reality of trying to build a life while carrying the emotional weight of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion, often in circumstances where the very things that might help them move forward, including financial security, supportive relationships and access to opportunities, are the things they lack most.

Mental health does not exist in a vacuum. Our emotional wellbeing is shaped by whether we have enough to eat, whether we have a safe place to sleep, whether we feel connected to other people and whether we can imagine a future in which our lives might actually improve. This is why any serious conversation about the mental health of young people must also confront the material conditions that leave so many anxious, isolated and struggling to find their place in society.

More than 3.5-million young South Africans aged 15 to 24 are not in employment, education or training, a group commonly described in policy discussions as NEET. But that acronym does little to capture the daily reality of young people who watch their peers graduate, find jobs, earn money and move forward while they remain at home, often financially dependent on families who are themselves struggling to make ends meet.

There is the frustration of sending out applications and receiving nothing in return, the shame of asking parents and extended family for money they do not have, the anxiety of wondering where the next opportunity will come from and the loneliness of watching life unfold around you while feeling that yours has been put on hold and when these experiences become part of everyday life. In this context, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the economic hardship of being unemployed from the emotional toll of feeling unwanted, left behind or as though you have somehow failed.

Research by the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (Saldru) at the University of Cape Town helps explain why youth unemployment and mental health cannot be treated as separate problems, with a study tracking young people over a decade, found that those who remained outside employment, education and training were six percentage points more likely to be depressed than peers who were never NEET, and eight percentage points more likely to report being less happy than they had been a decade earlier.

Among young people without matric, those who were already classified as depressed in 2008 were also more likely to have spent more than five years outside employment, education and training, pointing to a relationship in which prolonged exclusion and poor mental health can reinforce one another, making it harder for young people to regain their footing the longer they remain disconnected from opportunities.

Importantly, the study developed a multidimensional vulnerability index and found that poor mental health contributes approximately 16% to the vulnerability. Further, multidimensional vulnerability predicts later NEET status.

This is where our public conversation often falls short, because we continue to talk about unemployment as though it is primarily a matter of skills, qualifications or young people not doing enough to help themselves, while mental health is frequently framed as an individual problem that can be addressed by encouraging people to seek therapy, exercise more, practise self-care or develop a more positive attitude, without adequately considering the social and economic realities shaping their distress.

Of course, looking after ourselves and seeking professional help when we need it matters, but what happens when the source of your anxiety is not simply a negative thought but the very real possibility that there will be no food on the table, or when the stress you are experiencing comes from being unable to afford transport to an interview, contribute to your household or see any realistic prospect of becoming financially independent despite years of trying?

These findings challenge us to look beyond the familiar explanations for youth unemployment and ask what happens when economic exclusion becomes a lived experience that affects a young person’s confidence, relationships, sense of purpose and belief in their own future, because the consequences are not confined to a CV that remains empty or a qualification that never translates into work, but can extend into how people understand themselves and whether they believe their efforts will ever make a difference.

Opportunities matter, but so does the emotional and social support that helps people reach them, navigate setbacks and remain in education or work when the inevitable difficulties arise, rather than becoming disconnected all over again.

There is, however, reason to believe that practical, community-based support can help young people begin to break this cycle, as demonstrated by the Basic Package of Support (BPS), implemented by Saldru and the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa as part of the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention, which recognises that connecting young people to jobs and training is important but may not be enough when they are also dealing with distress, isolation, grief or difficult circumstances at home.

Since 2021, more than 5,000 young people have enrolled in the programme across Atlantis, Cato Manor and Orange Farm, where peer mobilisers and youth coaches work with participants to understand their circumstances, develop practical action plans and connect them to opportunities and services, including education, learnerships, psychosocial support, grants and childcare.

The need for this kind of support was particularly evident during the 2022–23 pilot, when nearly three-quarters of participants reported moderate or high psychological distress at intake and almost four in ten screened positive for a possible anxiety disorder. The study found that after just three coaching sessions, the proportion screening positive for a possible anxiety disorder fell from 40% to 25%, the share experiencing high psychological distress dropped from 18% to 5%, and the proportion who described themselves as thriving almost doubled from 11% to 22%.

Further, an initial analysis of a six-month study comparing 460 young people who received coaching with a matched group of 170 who did not found that psychological distress fell further among those coached, while life satisfaction improved almost twice as much.

Coached participants were also more likely to be in education or participating in a learnership or internship.

What stands out in the accounts of participants is that the value of the programme extends beyond being referred to an opportunity, because young people repeatedly describe the importance of having someone who listens without judgment, helps them navigate setbacks and reminds them that a rejection or a difficult period does not have to define the rest of their lives, particularly when they have spent years feeling that they must figure everything out on their own.

One young woman from Orange Farm described the relief of being able to speak to her coach without fear of being exposed or judged, while another participant from Atlantis spoke about how the support helped her recognise that she had a purpose to live, reminding us that being seen and heard is not a substitute for material opportunities or professional mental health care, but can be an important part of helping someone find the strength and support to pursue both.

This is what we risk overlooking when we reduce youth development to targets, training numbers and employment statistics. Opportunities matter, but so does the emotional and social support that helps people reach them, navigate setbacks and remain in education or work when the inevitable difficulties arise, rather than becoming disconnected all over again.

None of this means youth coaches can replace psychologists, psychiatrists or other specialist mental health services, and young people experiencing serious distress must have access to appropriate professional care. But it does remind us that support must extend beyond the clinic, just as youth employment programmes must look beyond skills training and job matching to the circumstances that determine whether young people can access opportunities and sustain them.

As Mental Health Awareness Month draws to a close, we need to move beyond telling young people to be resilient while leaving them to navigate poverty, unemployment and social exclusion largely on their own. Resilience cannot create jobs, put food on the table or guarantee a roof over someone’s head, and we should be careful not to turn it into another expectation placed on young people who are already carrying more than their fair share.

If we want young South Africans to build meaningful futures, we must invest in decent work, accessible education, social protection and mental health services, while strengthening the community networks that help people feel supported rather than forgotten. Because we cannot meaningfully address the mental health of young people without confronting the conditions that make so many of them struggle, and we cannot expect them to believe in a future that society has done too little to make possible.

Oliver Meth is a strategic communications consultant at the Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg

Lauren Graham is a professor and SARCHi chair on welfare & social development at University of Johannesburg

Ariane De Lannoy is a professor and deputy director at the Southern Africa Labour and development research unit at University of Cape Town

You expect hyperbole, of course, especially from party selling very little beyond revolutionary rhetoric. Honesty is all well and good, but “Victory Or Death” sounds so much better than more accurate promises like “Small Incremental Wins Or Fractionally Slower Growth For Julius Malema’s Personal Wealth”.

It’s also not as if any EFF voters will take the slogan at face value. I’ve written before about how most South African voters seem so easily satisfied by nothing but vibes from their parties, and the EFF faithful will understand that this slogan, too, is more of the same; that their party is not going to win anything close to a victory, and that nobody will have to face literal death.

Indeed, if we were having a general election next week, an event dictated almost entirely by vibes, I’d have to admit that the EFF’s slogan was pretty good, the sort of rousing, meaningless pap that ends critical thought even as it galvanises the faithful.

The trouble, however, is that we are not having a general election next week: we are have a local government election. And the fact that we’re still awash in vibes and ideological rhetoric and grand narratives about vague futures and ill-defined identities shows the extent to which we still don’t understand what we’re about to do on Wednesday.

It goes without saying that your vote is your business. Well, except if you vote ANC in Johannesburg: then it’s the whole country’s business because you’re actively trying to plunge the republic into collapse.

When we vote next week, we are not voting for vibes. We are not declaring our allegiance to a party and its broader ambitions for the country, or getting into lockstep behind a collective identity.

What we are doing is hiring the people who will fix a broken water pipe the same day it breaks, working into the night, after hours, to get the job done.

We’re hiring the people who have shown a willingness and an ability to keep streetlights on, or collect garbage regularly, or promote and support community centres and services.

We’re hiring the people who listen, yes, but then act, and act professionally, quickly, legally and on budget.

In short, we are voting in our own, very focused self-interest. We are voting for what we want, where we live, far away from the corridors of political power; for what is owed to us as taxpayers who employ everyone in all those parties.

It goes without saying that your vote is your business. Well, except if you vote ANC in Johannesburg: then it’s the whole country’s business because you’re actively trying to plunge the republic into collapse. But as you decide how you’ll vote on Wednesday, I’d like to close by urging you to visit ballotbox.co.za, which has revealed which of the candidates in your ward are also running in other wards.

To be clear, running in multiple wards is entirely legal, which is why a staggering 50% of all candidates contesting next week’s election are standing in multiple races.

Still, I think voters can benefit from knowing whether the person claiming to want to represent their neighbourhood is saying the same thing to people on the other side of the city. There’s a part of me that respects the hustle of the two candidates who are standing in a whopping 135 wards, but as a voter I’m not overwhelmed with confidence that they care about my ward, or, indeed, know where it is …

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Vuyo Zungula says financial management, service delivery and a clear five-year programme of action must be at the centre of any coalition agreement as the ATM positions itself for a potentially hung Johannesburg council.

The African Transformation Movement (ATM) will not commit to supporting a coalition government in Johannesburg without a written agreement setting out how the city will be governed and holding its political leaders accountable, its mayoral candidate, Vuyo Zungula, says.

With no party expected to secure an outright majority in the City of Johannesburg, Zungula said the ATM was open to discussions after the November 4 local government elections, but would not be swayed by political promises without a clear plan for addressing the city’s problems.

The party has yet to decide whether it would support a coalition led by the ANC or the DA, with Zungula saying its immediate focus was on the policies and commitments that would guide the next administration.

“The emphasis has always been there must be a coalition arrangement, an agreement, a coalition agreement, which then informs how we work,” he said.

Zungula, who has built a profile in parliament through his persistent questioning of President Cyril Ramaphosa over the Phala Phala scandal, said the ATM’s experience in coalition governments had taught it the importance of written agreements.

He cited the party’s previous participation in Joburg’s coalition administration, where an ATM representative served as a member of the mayoral committee for about 16 months before being recalled for what he described as political reasons.

The party has also held a mayoral committee position in Mogale City, where ATM councillor Danny Molefi Thupane was appointed to the human settlements and rural development portfolio in the DA-led administration in 2021. Thupane later became the municipality’s mayor in April 2023 after the removal of DA mayor Tyrone Gray.

Zungula said the absence of enforceable coalition agreements made it difficult to ensure accountability and continuity in government.

He said the ATM had raised similar concerns during discussions with the ANC about the formation of the national government of national unity in 2024.

“It’s not a case of hearing a politician or a party making a promise, because we’ve been in these spaces before. We know how, when parties want to force to get a mayor or to run a coalition, they’ll sell anything,” he said.

“But in the absence of a written agreement or a written programme which we could use to hold them accountable, it would be stupid for us to actually take the word of a politician.”

The ATM’s proposed conditions for Johannesburg include improving the city’s financial management, strengthening its institutional capacity, addressing the non-compliance of spaza shops and tackling hijacked buildings.

Zungula said the party wants financial management to be prioritised because the city needs to address the underlying problems contributing to its governance and service delivery challenges.

He said a coalition agreement would also have to contain a programme of action setting out what the incoming administration intended to achieve during its five-year term.

For residents, he said, the immediate priority was getting the basics right, including reliable water and electricity supply, functioning streetlights, maintained roads and improved safety.

“The mandate is basically to get Joburg to work, focusing on the basics,” Zungula said.

He said residents were prepared to wait for more complex problems to be resolved if the city could demonstrate that it was addressing essential services and delivering on its commitments.

The ATM’s position comes as smaller parties prepare to negotiate their influence in councils where the larger political parties fall short of a majority.

In the 2021 local government elections, the ATM secured about 0.62% of the total votes across all ballots nationally, according to the Electoral Commission’s results. Despite its relatively small electoral support, the party has participated in coalition arrangements that have given it opportunities to hold executive positions in municipalities.

We are just really agitating at a policy level, or at a political level. What must the city do differently so that the residents of Joburg do not suffer the way they have been suffering?

Vuyo Zungula, ATM's mayoral candidate for Johannesburg

Zungula’s Johannesburg candidacy represents a shift from his high-profile parliamentary role to a direct contest for executive power in one of the country’s most politically contested metros.

He has been a prominent voice in parliamentary efforts to hold Ramaphosa accountable over the Phala Phala farm scandal, which followed the theft of foreign currency from the president’s Limpopo property.

Zungula participated in the parliamentary process examining whether there were grounds to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president.

Asked why the ATM had chosen to field him in Johannesburg despite his parliamentary profile, Zungula said the decision followed the party’s candidate selection process, which involved consultations with community structures and other local formations.

He said the party’s Johannesburg regional executive had reported that those consulted wanted him to contest the metro.

Rather than focusing on which party it might support after the election, Zungula said the ATM was concentrating on what it believed a future administration needed to do differently.

“We are just really agitating at a policy level, or at a political level. What must the city do differently so that the residents of Joburg do not suffer the way they have been suffering?” he said.

The party’s final position on coalition negotiations will be determined after the election, he said, when the results establish the balance of power in the council.

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It is difficult to blame South Africans for losing faith in politicians. After years of broken promises, corruption and municipalities that struggle to deliver even the most basic services, many people are asking themselves what the point of voting is.

Why vote when the taps are dry, the rubbish is piling up and the roads are falling apart? Why trust politicians who suddenly remember their communities when an election is around the corner, only to disappear once the votes have been counted?

These are fair questions. And political parties should be worried that so many people are asking them.

But as South Africans prepare to head to the polls on November 4, there is another question worth considering: what happens when we give up on voting altogether?

The frustration is understandable. But not voting will not make those problems disappear.

Staying away from the ballot box might feel like a way of punishing politicians who have let us down. For some, it is a deliberate decision to reject a political system they no longer trust. For others, it comes from the belief that their vote will make little difference to the problems they face every day.

The frustration is understandable. But not voting will not make those problems disappear.

Local government has a direct impact on people’s lives. It determines whether communities receive reliable services, whether municipal money is spent properly and whether those entrusted with running our towns and cities are doing their jobs.

The people elected to municipal councils will make decisions that affect residents long after the election posters have been taken down.

If we are unhappy with how our municipalities are being run, elections give us an opportunity to say so. We can vote out parties that have failed us and give others a chance to prove that they can do better.

Of course, voting is not a magic solution. A party that wins an election can still disappoint its supporters. Promises made on the campaign trail do not always translate into better services. And changing the people in charge does not automatically fix a broken municipality.

That is why voting must go hand in hand with holding elected leaders accountable. Politicians should not be allowed to treat public support as a blank cheque, and voters should demand answers when promises are broken.

Political parties also need to understand that they cannot blame voter apathy without confronting what has caused it. People will not suddenly regain faith in democracy because politicians tell them to vote. Trust must be earned.

South Africans have every right to be angry and disappointed. But abandoning the ballot box risks handing more power to those who do turn up to vote.

Our politicians may have given us plenty of reasons to lose faith in them. We should not allow their failures to make us give up our own power.

“As it happens, October is pain awareness month,” says Parker, who pauses, before adding, “or is it September?”

It is in September, and Parker, who is on sabbatical (and not the working kind), is more keenly aware that tomorrow is the 20^th anniversary of her marriage to whale expert Ken Findlay, who is at work in an office on the lower level of their mountain eyrie.

“I’m exhausted. We may go around in circles,” she warns, looking relaxed and comfortable in a strelitzia-print T-shirt, her freckled arms testifying to a life spent as much outdoors as in.

Parker’s need to rest will not surprise those who know her. For years, above and beyond her formal responsibilities at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where she is the director of the pain management unit in the department of anaesthesia and perioperative medicine and works at the Groote Schuur Hospital Chronic Pain Management Clinic, she has been connected with (if not central to) much of the work that has been undertaken to improve South Africa’s pain response.

“In pain circles she’s known as the matriarch,” Parker’s long-time colleague (and director of UCT’s African pain research initiative) Tory Madden told me, in advance of my visit.

Parker has served two consecutive terms as president of PainSA, which strives to improve all aspects of pain management in Southern Africa, and she sits on the council of PainSA’s mother body, the International Association for the Study of Pain.

With others, Parker has been working on an advocacy document called the national pain strategy, which she describes as “a map of all the things that contribute to pain not being managed properly, with recommendations on how to address those issues”.

Pain is everywhere in the healthcare system. The most common reason why people seek out medical care is pain. Pain is a problem after having a baby, an accident, an operation, and when we’re dying. People living with chronic conditions like HIV, TB, cancer, diabetes and arthritis frequently experience pain. Lower back pain is the world’s single biggest cause of disability, and so it goes.

“Unfortunately,” says Parker, “because it’s everywhere and a problem for everyone, it ends up being no one’s responsibility.”

What are the issues with pain, exactly? Parker has outlined them thousands of times over the years, but apparently without any dimming of her passion for the subject.

“Pain is divided into two broad types: acute and chronic. Acute pain is short and intense, the type you would experience after surgery. Chronic pain lasts more than three to six months, sometimes longer, after an initial injury has healed. South Africa isn’t doing very well at managing either, but we’re particularly bad at chronic pain. There are so many issues, and they exist at every level,” says Parker, who lists them from the bottom up.

“It isn’t taught, which means too few healthcare professionals understand it [pain], and that means they’re unable to treat it. Even when they do understand, the resources needed to help — the pain medicines, the rehabilitation platforms — are often not available,” she says, stressing that good pain management “is about so much more than pills”.

“It requires an understanding of the whole human being, starting with their social reality, their psychology, and only then focusing on the biological aspect. Having an interdisciplinary team work to address all the areas that may be influencing a patient’s pain is the best approach. At the minimum this should include the person with pain, their family or support person, a prescriber (commonly an anaesthetist), a nurse, a physiotherapist or occupational therapist, a psychologist and a psychiatrist. For different conditions, other medical specialists can be included,” says Parker.

In the chronic pain clinic at Groote Schuur, Parker and her colleagues listen to people’s stories.

“We hear about the childhood trauma: the father that abused, the uncle that raped, the mother who didn’t believe the story. Often the patient is now having to care for these same people while trying to control the son who smokes tik and steals his brother’s laptop in the middle of the night. And they hear the gunshots in the street, and the bullet that came through the wall is still lodged in their leg. I am not making any of this up. And they say, ‘I have pain all over.’ Well, I’m not surprised.”

The person behind the pain

Earlier this year I attended a panel discussion chaired by Parker at UCT, titled “How can I find the right person for persistent pain? Navigating the health care system in South Africa”. One of the panellists was Huyaam Samuels, a doctoral candidate and person living with chronic pain, who has been treated by Parker and other members of the multi-disciplinary pain team at Groote Schuur for the past 10 years.

“When I first met Professor Parker she bombarded me with questions. She wants to understand the person behind the pain. Her approach challenges conventional thinking and recognises that effective pain management involves more than symptom relief; it also requires understanding how pain affects a person’s daily life, functioning and independence,” said Samuels, who had been on pain medication for eight years by this time. Parker suggested she come off the drugs, and start doing some exercise. Samuels resisted initially but started following this advice three years later.

“She gave me the time to come to terms with it. When I eventually took their advice the result was incredible.”

Parker smiles broadly when I recall these inputs. Today she is an acclaimed teacher (in 2019 she received UCT’s distinguished teacher award), academic researcher, and author, but for most of her career she has been a hands-on healer.

A life on the move

We’ve vaulted over her life story. After a pause for coffee (“I hope you’re ok with instant”) Parker obligingly goes back in time.

“I’m Brazilian — a Carioca [native of Rio de Janeiro],” she starts.

“My mother was South African of English descent, and my father was Zimbabwean, also of English descent. They met and married in Rhodesia, and when the government made its Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965, they were like, ‘This is not gonna go well.’ So my father was offered a transfer, and that’s how I spent the first 10 years of my life as a Brazilian beach kid.”

After some thought she adds, “My father finished matric and went to work in a factory. My mother did her O-levels and went to secretarial school, but there was never any question of their children not being able to do what they wanted. Dad worked for British American Tobacco. He made cigarettes but it wasn’t all bad. All that tobacco money led to my sister being a vet. My brother’s a psychiatrist, and I work in physio and pain management.”

Parker’s parents moved back to southern Africa in 1978 to be nearer to the family, initially settling in Johannesburg.

“I hated it. I attended an all-girls school [Brescia House], and it wasn’t a good fit for me. I also didn’t fit in with conservative white South Africa. Not everyone in our world was pro-apartheid — there was lots of handwringing over PW Botha’s Rubicon speech and that sort of thing — but nobody was sticking their necks out to do anything. I found growing up as a privileged white girl in apartheid South Africa very distressing. It made me into an outsider.”

Parker says she was conscientised by her mother’s voluntary social work, and trips she made with her brother — then studying medicine at Wits — to Alexandra.

“When I was 15 I tagged along whenever he went to vaccinate kids. Often he’d spend more time patching up people who’d had the shit kicked out of them by the cops, and were too scared to go to hospital,” recalls Parker, who at this point knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life.

“One: get the hell out of Joburg. Two: become a physio. I was always really sporty. Gymnastics, swimming, diving, hockey, squash, tennis, riding horses — we did everything in those days. Sport was how we played as a family. And camping!” says Parker, recalling how the family used to camp on the beaches of Rio’s Cabo Frio before it became a surfing mecca.

“I was six weeks old the first time we went, and there was nothing there. Mum’s joke was that she just needed enough fresh water to wash her boobs and my bum.”

Journey to pain

Parker studied physiotherapy at UCT, at the Sports Science Institute, and after graduating “shared a house with mates in London, and locumed”.

During a stint of work on a cruise ship, on a Saturday morning docked somewhere in the Caribbean, Parker walked past a newspaper stand and read that Chris Hani had been assassinated.

The memory brings instant tears to her eyes.

“Sjoh,” she says, taking a moment.

“I remember sitting on the pavement on the side of the road, just thinking, is this it? I think that was the first time I recognised that I am African. Up until that point I was like, ‘I could live anywhere,’ but it suddenly felt so weird to be so far away, hanging out with a bunch of people who had no fucking idea why I was upset, joking that I was a communist and that sort of thing. So I came back to Cape Town in 1993, back into boring old private practice.”

Parker’s memories of the Cape were good. She’d been a serious rower at university, and took it up again. Her clients were mostly sports people, and included the U21 provincial rugby team, which gave rise to the most humiliating moment in her life.

“The U21s were playing the curtain raiser for Springbok vs. Scotland at Newlands. One of my guys went down the other side of the field, so I ran across. I don’t remember what the injury was, but I must have opened my bag and forgotten to close it, because as I was sprinting back the whole stadium erupted in laughter, and of course I’d left a trail of bandages and scissors as I ran. The whole thing was on the big screen,” says Parker, who went out with the teams that night, carried from bar to bar by Scottish lock Doddie Weir, “who said you’ve done enough running today!”

Parker started her own practice but was mainly interested in rowing.

“My practice was in Grassy Park, and I rented a little house on the shoreline of Zeekoevlei, owned by the yacht club. All of my working life was built around my training. I had dreams of getting to the Sydney Olympics, in the lightweight sculls,” she says, joking that she was “starving all the time, trying to make the weight — not a genius move”.

When she realised she wouldn’t qualify, Parker “packed it all in” and travelled to the US, working in Arkansas and Michigan when Medicaid, the government-sponsored health insurance, was still fully reimbursing healthcare providers for services rendered.

“When the [Medicaid] bubble popped I couldn’t get work anymore, but I still had the visa, so I did a season in Vail, Colorado, as an optician’s technician,” says Parker, who took away from her American sojourn “a firm belief that there are two things that should never be privatised: education and health”.

“That was the first time I heard people speaking about the business of health care, and it made me feel nauseous. Like, how can you talk about the business of people suffering?” says Parker, who understood perfectly well how the US later came to be grappling with an opioid crisis.

News of her father’s death (“he smoked himself off the planet”) led Parker to return to South Africa, but finding no opportunities outside of private practice she took a job in Hereford on the border of Wales and England, “doing something that I never pictured myself doing, which was rheumatology”.

It was here that Parker truly began her journey in pain.

Lessons from tough Welsh farmers

“When people have rheumatoid disease attacking their own bodies — rheumatoid arthritis is the classic — the joints get hot and red and swollen, and you end up with joint deformities. I was working there before the modern drugs came in, so people had fingers that drifted off in weird directions, and elbows that bent in ways they shouldn’t.

“It’s a nasty, nasty disease, but a lot of my patients were Welsh farmers, and they were just getting on with their lives. They’d call and say, ‘I’ve had a bit of a flare up,’ and that usually meant their knee was swollen like a football, and we’d treat them and they would carry on with their lives,” says Parker, who had other patients come in with much milder disease, “and they were in agony, wracked with pain their lives falling apart”.

Wanting to understand this apparent contradiction better, Parker enrolled for a master’s in pain (“Sounds like it involves whips and chains, doesn’t it?” she quips) at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, returning to South Africa in 2004 with the aim of getting an academic job, teaching pain management.

“It just appealed to all of my base motivations of why I went into health in the first place: the belief that human beings are valuable, and deserve to be cared for and respected in every aspect of who they are, no matter what their background is or what they’ve done. There’s just an inherent value in life,” she says, though conceding her mission to get hired by a university proved so difficult she “almost became a horse physio”.

In 2005 Parker found work as a lecturer in physiotherapy at UCT, where she set about secretly subverting the curriculum, “integrating pain into absolutely everything that I taught”.

“At the time, pain simply wasn’t taught in South Africa, we were seriously behind,” she says.

After discovering there was a chronic pain clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital, run by the department of anaesthetics, Parker stepped in, “and pretty quickly started doing things that directly led to where I am now”.

In Hereford she had run a six-week self-management programme for people with rheumatoid arthritis, and adjusted it for people living with chronic pain, “including exercise, education, mindfulness — all of the known evidence-based self-management strategies for people with chronic pain that we know make a difference”.

She used to run the course with the fourth-year physiotherapy students, so that they would learn how to do it themselves, and was able to show that the approach was effective.

Parker’s doctoral thesis, which focused on pain in people living with HIV, was described by the university as a world first.

“A bit like my rheumatoid arthritis patients, people living with HIV are at increased risk of developing chronic pain but it’s not related to viral load, to opportunistic infections, or to their treatments. So what is it, and what should we do about it?” explains Parker, who developed and tested a peer-led exercise and education intervention (“Because who the hell am I to tell someone living in pain in Khayelitsha as an HIV-positive person that they should do some exercise and some deep breathing?”) and was able to show that it made a difference.

Parker was supervised by the late professor of psychiatry Dan Stein, and ended up with a degree “not in pain and HIV but in pain and behaviour change strategies”, looking at self-management strategies for people with pain, and how those change our physiology — how the body’s organs and cells function.

“One of the nuggets that I teach to students and health professionals is that the morphine our brain manufactures is 30 times stronger than oral morphine. So go for a run. Go for a walk. Have a laugh. Do some breathing. Get a hug. All of these things give you your own morphine. They aren’t just nice things to do, they’re medicine,” says Parker, making an example out of something we all know: the broken bone that traditionally ends up clad in plaster of Paris.

“Say it’s your dominant arm that is immobilised for six weeks, what happens is that the map of that hand in your brain shrinks, and the map of your non-dominant hand enlarges. When you take the cast off and start to move it again, that map should once again become bigger but for some people it doesn’t, and then they end up with complex regional pain syndrome, which is appalling, agonising pain,” says Parker, adding that a healthcare professional who doesn’t understand the complex ways pain shows up in the body might dismiss a patient’s complaints.

“Understanding the physiology is important, and not just for the clinician. The person living with that pain needs that information, too, so that they understand why we’re trying to treat them the way we are, and that it’s not about fixing their arm, or spine, it’s about their central nervous system — the very core of who they are as human beings — and what we need to do to rewire that.”

‘A gobby little shit’

Parker joined PainSA in 2010, “when it was still pretty small and very doctor-led, and still quite focused on medicines and drugs”.

At that year’s congress in the Drakensberg, she “met her people”, and was soon asked to stand for council, “because I’m a gobby little shit”.

The awareness of pain in South Africa was expanding, and PainSA played a key role in this, conducting outreach and education activities.

In the same year, Parker met Beverly Bolton, a physiotherapist based in Gqeberha, who had done her masters in pain through Sydney University.

“We realised we were on the same frequency, and soon afterwards put together and ran a two-day course we called ‘Principles of Pain’, which we’re still teaching. We offered it to working physiotherapists initially but within a few years realised that everybody needed this.”

Parker and Bolton formed the Train Pain Academy, which today runs a range of two-day courses on pain management for practitioners, via Zoom.

“It’s probably why I’m tired at the moment. I have my day job, then I do Train Pain Academy, then I do PainSA then, then it’s International Association for the Study of Pain, and I still go out trail running. This is me,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.

This story was produced by the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Sign up for the newsletter.

While the proceedings are separate, the charge of Zuma-Sambudla’s “we see you” social media campaign and March and March’s “abahambe (foreigners must leave)” bring the relationship between political mobilisation and violence before the Durban high court, in a city still carrying the memories of 354 deaths and an estimated R50bn in damage.

Police minister Firoz Cachalia and KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi filed an urgent interdict against March and March, founder Ngobese-Zuma, her husband Xolani and other respondents after weeks of tensions around the home affairs refugee reception centre on Che Guevara Road.

The urgency they claim is based on intelligence around an alleged threat to burn down the centre alongside fears of retaliation after the killing of a foreign national in the Durban CBD last week.

March and March spokesperson Sandile Dube accused the police minister of using the movement as a “scapegoat for policing failures” and relying on rumours to justify the interdict.

He dismissed intelligence about a possible arson attack on Durban’s home affairs refugee reception centre as false, arguing that members working at the site would have known about such plans.

He told the Sunday Times March and March opposed looting and infrastructure destruction, which diverted money from services into repairs. Home affairs was an important institution, he said, questioning why any threat against it should be associated with the movement.

Dube blamed inadequate patrol vehicles and failures in sector policing on police management, arguing that deploying soldiers would not resolve those shortcomings. He also accused government of consulting people who did not represent March and March rather than engaging its leadership.

Cachalia and Mkhwanazi want to prevent Ngobese-Zuma and the respondents from convening, organising, directing or mobilising marches or protest convoys in affected areas, including the refugee reception centre.

They also seek prohibitions on assault and harassment, looting, arson, damage to property and attacks on home affairs premises. The proposed relief covers blocking entrances and using intimidation to deny access to buildings.

But moments after posting news about the interdict on Facebook, Ngobese-Zuma said: “FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER 2026 🇿🇦🇿🇦 DBN HIGH COURT.”

“After our court appearance… WE WILL MARCH‼️ in a democratic country where people died for us to be liberated, we will never succumb to dictatorship tactics… NEVER.”

The Siyafana Sonke Action Campaign ― a coalition of about 190 civic organisations ― described the centre as having been blockaded for weeks and called for the camp to be shut down.

It welcomed the police legal action, saying: “The Constitution extends its protection to all persons within our borders, and this application protects both South African citizens and foreign nationals.”

It alleged that the camp had become a staging point for violent marches and attacks.

The Durban CBD has been on high alert for several months following ongoing anti-migration and xenophobic attacks, which last month prompted premier Thami Ntuli to call in the army.

Despite the army’s presence, Durban has continued to experience daily protests and violent flare-ups.

KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Col Robert Netshiunda said four men appeared in court in connection with the attacks on foreign nationals in the city.

These included the assault of a foreign national in the Durban CBD and the murder of a foreign national who was allegedly beaten to death in the CBD on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was on campaign duty in KwaZulu-Natal, addressed the uncertainty facing businesses at the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s 170th anniversary dinner.

“There are those who are exploiting public sentiment around illegal migration to stir up communities and to provide cover for criminality.

“We understand that this has created uncertainty for business, for whom the memories of 2021 are still fresh.”

He confirmed he extended the army deployment who were due to leave at the end of October.

“While these incidents have been isolated, we are taking no chances. I have authorised the deployment of the South African National Defence Force in the province until the end of November.”

Ramaphosa’s address also records the chamber’s concern about business closures, particularly among small and medium enterprises. It says research commissioned with the Human Sciences Research Council is intended to establish what is driving those closures, rather than attributing them all to the unrest.

Meanwhile Zuma-Sambudla, a former MKP MP, faces one count of incitement to commit terrorism and two counts of incitement to commit public violence, arising from social media posts during that unrest. She has pleaded not guilty.

In April social media expert Emma Sadleir testified about her posts using the words “We see you” alongside scenes from KwaZulu-Natal. Her evidence that the posts encouraged violence is contested by the defence.

This week her legal representative Adv Dali Mpofu challenged investigating officer Bheki Nazo’s credibility and put it to him that the prosecution was a political plot to tarnish his client and her father, former president Jacob Zuma.

Nazo rejected this.

On Thursday the judge heard arguments for and against Mpofu’s discharge application and adjourned the matter to study the submissions.

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A court-appointed curator has been given sweeping powers to take control of property linked to alleged extortion suspect Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni and his co-defendants, search for hidden assets and investigate their financial dealings in South Africa and abroad.

The provisional restraint order prevents the defendants from selling or disposing of their assets, worth about R99m, which include Sibanyoni’s properties at exclusive golf estates and others in Centurion and Pretoria, as well as luxury vehicles, including Ferraris, a Porsche, a Lexus, Mercedes-Benz vehicles and BMWs.

The respondents are Sibanyoni, his right-hand man Bafana Sindane, Mvimbi Masilela, Philemon Msiza and Rose Sibanyoni. The application was brought by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) before the Mpumalanga high court in Middelburg.

Sibanyoni is one of the country’s most prominent and feared taxi tycoons. He and Sindane are known for flaunting their wealth.

Under the order, Richard Masoanganye, a director and liquidator of Bombani Liquidators & Trustees CC, was appointed curator bonis to take possession of, and administer, property belonging to the defendants.

The order authorises him to locate assets wherever they may be situated, take them under his control and manage them.

Masoanganye’s powers include examining the defendants’ documents, computers and business records to uncover further property that may be linked to alleged criminal activities.

The court order states that Masoanganye may investigate the defendants’ accountants and auditors and examine records relating to their financial affairs and other entities in which they have interests.

He may also approach financial institutions and legal practitioners in South Africa and abroad to establish where assets or money may be held. His power also extend to taking back gifts that the defendants may have given to friends and loved ones.

Sowetan understands that the state is investigating several extortion cases linked to the group.

The NPA is also prosecuting them in a case before the Delmas magistrate’s court on allegations of extortion and money laundering.

It is alleged that they extorted R2.2m from businessman Thomas Ntuli over a period of time.

NPA spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said: “On 28 September 2026, the AFU (Asset Forfeiture Unit) obtained an uncapped provisional restraint order from the Mpumalanga division of the high court, Middelburg, in terms of section 26 of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1998.

“The order emanates from ongoing investigations by SAPS into alleged criminal activities involving extortion and related offences linked to Sibanyoni and others.”

Last week, Sowetan reported that Sindane had received a R17m tax demand from the South African Revenue Service.

At the Madlanga commission, evidence has linked Sibanyoni and Sindane to the torching of 51 Putco buses in January 2024 and disruptions to bus operations before an alleged unsolicited offer was made to buy the company in the KwaMhlanga area.

Sibanyoni denied these allegations, saying the offer to buy was for the benefit of people of KwaMhlanga and not for his personal interest.

Further evidence revealed that police officers and other taxi bosses held meetings at Sibanyoni’s Centurion estate where plans to infiltrate the bus industry were cooked.

Sibanyoni admitted that he used the estate as his office.

While Sibanyoni has denied the allegations, Sindane is yet to appear before the commission.

The NPA said the court order was aimed at depriving people of the benefits of alleged criminal activity.

The defendants have not been convicted of the alleged offences. The restraint order is intended to preserve the assets while the legal process continues, said Kganyago.

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Cast your mind back a few years. South African teams are in the midst of another infinite season of Super Rugby. Flights to Perth, trips to Dunedin, the most southerly rugby-playing outpost in the world. Jet lag, wear and tear, grumpiness from the four quadrants.

Long faces in the land of the long white cloud.

Now we’re playing up north, against the Irish and the Welsh mainly, sometimes against the English and French. It’s a whole new ball game. No time differences, no lag. And rugby is different there, too. The Irish don’t see the sun. They look fragile, as though they’ve grown up in a Petrie dish, or in a saucer in cotton wool. Don’t let first impressions mislead you.

Take Sam Prendergast, the Leinster flyhalf. He looks like a matchstick. That he’s got the best hands in Europe tends to get overlooked. Question: how do you play rugby against a praying mantis? Answer: don’t be seduced by his apparent fragility and the fact that coach Andy Farrell left him out of the British and Irish Lions squad for their tour of Australia last year; play against him with intelligence and care.

The Irish and their club sides, Leinster, Munster, Connacht and Ulster, don’t only bring differences of body type and philosophy — they bring different ways of playing. The Irish are canny, they disrupt, they counter-ruck with the glee of rampaging political zealots.

Sam Prendergast haciendo cosas de Sam Prendergast... pic.twitter.com/EqzPtGUNEk

— Javier Señarís Senra (@RutgerBlume) October 12, 2026

Their approach to attacking rugby is more sophisticated than the South Africans: they flood their attack with deep-lying dummy runners, or they play fast and flat around the fringes. You have to be on point, otherwise they’ll score points against you, big ones.

“We tend to defend well in local derbies because we understand the opposition’s attack,” says John Dobson, the coach of the Stormers, who will encounter the trickiness a Irish combination when they meet Ulster in their United Rugby Championship clash at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.

“The Northern Hemisphere sides attack in a more sophisticated way: they stack the blindside and bring it back if they can’t get through there and, because they’re slick, they compromise your line speed when they do.”

Dobson was talking just after the Stormers had been spooked by a Scarlets side full of attacking brio at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday and was slightly wide-eyed himself. Before two late Yaqueen Ahmed tries the score was locked at 40-40 and with a difference set of circumstances the young Welsh visitors might just have burgled a famous win.

“We missed Ruhan [Nel, outside centre and skipper] because he brings such defensive organisation to us. Hopefully he’ll be fit for our game against Ulster.”

Beautiful offload from Antoine Frisch and a great finish from Craig Casey.

Will surely be a try of the season contender. pic.twitter.com/tHO6QnzAmP

— Cian Tracey (@CianTracey1) November 26, 2023

Monday morning saw Nel on the physio’s table at the Stormers’ High-Performance Centre in Bellville. Later that morning he was on the field, testing out his calf strain. He felt at the time he’d likely be ready to play against Ulster on Saturday afternoon and was subsequently named in the Stormers’ starting line-up, his first competitive rugby for three weeks.

With Stuart McCloskey in front of him, a big player who gives off major attacking vibes, the Stormers need all the ballast in the centre they can muster. Nel brings a steady hand to the tiller with his experience and calm.

The Irish don’t only bring a structured attacking game, they bring character. Take the combative Craig Casey, the Munster scrumhalf. Casey’s the kind of guy who would walk into a pub in a strange town and pick an argument with the resident dog. He’s pugnacious, which is a possibly more acceptable way of saying he’s something else, also beginning with “p”.

Good on him. With Casey Munster have done well to fill the hole left by Connor Murray so comprehensively. When it comes to the Irish side, who the Springboks play in Dublin on November 21, Casey is snapping at incumbent Jamison Gibson-Park’s heels.

It’s going to be a grand afternoon out at Lansdowne Road as Ireland and South Africa continue their long dialogue. Sometimes it’s turgid; sometimes sublime. But it’s always different, and so captivating in the best way.

1998 — Jacques Kallis scores an unbeaten 113 as the Proteas, on 240/7, smash Sri Lanka by 92 runs on Duckworth-Lewis in Dhaka to advance to the Champions Trophy final. Steve Elworthy and Pat Symcox took three wickets each.

1999 — The Springboks’ World Cup campaign ends in heartbreak as they lose a try-less semifinal to Australia 27-21 after extra time at Twickenham. South African flyhalf Jannie de Beer had slotted two penalties in the final minutes of regulation time for South Africa to draw the match 18-18. But two penalties and a drop by the Aussies to a single De Beer penalty condemned the Boks to the third-place play-off. Australia went on to win the title.

1999 — Captain Hansie Cronje scores an unbeaten 60 on the second day of a one-off Test against Zimbabwe in Bloemfontein to depose Gary Kirsten as the country’s top-scorer in the five-day format, lifting his career tally to 3,525. He added four more runs the next day. Kirsten had claimed the mark in the previous Test in March.

2005 — Herschelle Gibbs scores 81 to help the Proteas to a four-wicket win over New Zealand at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth, giving the home side an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the five-ODI series. South Africa reached the 244 target with four deliveries remaining, aided by a late flurry from Justin Kemp, who scored 30 not out off 19 balls, and Shaun Pollock with an unbeaten 21 off 14.

2011 — Cri-Zelda Brits scores 50, but the South African women, totalling 118/2, lose the third T20 against England in Potchefstroom by seven wickets, going down 0-2 in the series.

2013 — Wayne Parnell stars with bat and ball to help the Proteas down Pakistan by one run in the first ODI in Sharjah. Batting at eight he top-scored with 56 to lift the Proteas to 183. Then he took 3/41 and Imran Tahir 3/45. Morne Morkel bowled the final over, conceding just one single before taking the final wicket with three balls remaining to finish with 2/23.

2015 — The Springboks beat Argentina 24-13 in London to finish third at the World Cup. Wing JP Pietersen and lock Eben Etzebeth scored South Africa’s two tries, with flyhalf Handre Pollard landing one conversion and four penalties.

2021 — Captain Temba Bavuma top-scores with 46 to lead the Proteas, needing 143, to a four-wicket win over Sri Lanka in their T20 World Cup group match in Sharjah. Tabraiz Shamsi and Dwaine Pretorius took three wickets each. Bavuma, Aiden Markram (19) and Pretorius (0) were dismissed off consecutive balls in different overs by Wanindu Hasaranga.

2021 — Matthew Sates becomes the fourth South African to win top male swimmer of the World Cup series, finishing less than three points ahead of American veteran Tom Shields on the overall rankings at the end of the final leg of the series in Kazan. Sates joined Chad le Clos, winner of the series four times from 2011 to 2017, Cameron van der Burgh, champion on three occasions from 2008 to 2015 and Ryk Neethling, twice from 2004 to 2006 as overall male winner. Sates achieved success across all four galas in Berlin, Budapest, Doha and Kazan, winning the 200m and 400m freestyle three times each, the 200m individual medley on three legs and the 100m and 400m IM on two.

2022 — David Miller scores 59 not out and Aiden Markram 52 as the Proteas, needing 134, beat India by five wickets at the T20 World Cup in Perth. Lungi Ngidi took 4/29.

2024 — Tony de Zorzi, resuming on 141, scores 177 and Wiaan Mulder 105 not out as South Africa declare their first innings of the second Test against Bangladesh in Chattogram on 575/6.

Now, technology is reshaping how businesses connect with the people visiting the city and the goods moving through it, enabling them to reach new clients, expand into different markets and compete more effectively.

Consider a brick-and-mortar Durban retailer, for instance. A tourist discovers the business through social media, visits the store and pays digitally.

The business owner can use sales data to identify which products are selling and adjust stock accordingly, while using the same digital channel to stay connected with the client after they return home, helping to build brand loyalty and advocacy.

For a local supplier, digital platforms can help find new clients and build relationships beyond its existing network.

A recent Capitec BizTalk event in Durban explored the growth opportunities emerging at the intersection of tourism, trade and technology — and how businesses can capitalise on them.

Watch the recording of the event below:

BizTalk is a business-focused platform launched by Capitec in partnership with Business Day and Arena Events. It brings together entrepreneurs, business leaders and financial experts to share fresh perspectives and actionable insights to help South African businesses thrive.

Expert perspectives, practical business ideas

The Durban BizTalk featured practical insights from Capitec’s Riaan Klopper, executive head of Business Banking and the bank’s Business Support Centre, and Sicelo Mkhize, head of Commercial and Enterprise Banking.

For business owners, the discussion offered an opportunity to consider how developments in the local economy and the evolving role of technology can shape their next phase of growth.

Recognising an opportunity is only part of the equation. Preparing your business to capitalise on it also means understanding changing client expectations, ensuring financial readiness and having the operational flexibility to respond to new demands.

These topics formed part of the broader conversation at the event.

Watching the recording of this Capitec BizTalk could help you to:

• Understand Durban’s growth opportunities and how tourism, trade and technology are reshaping the business landscape.
• Reach new markets by looking beyond your existing client base and identifying opportunities to expand.
• Make technology work for your business by using digital tools to connect with clients, simplify transactions and support growth.
• Prepare your business for growth by ensuring financial readiness and operational flexibility.
• Build a more competitive business by responding to changing market conditions and client expectations.

Watch the recording above.

Visit the Capitec BizTalk hub to catch up on highlights and key takeaways from other previous events.

This article was sponsored by Capitec.

Story audio is generated using AI

Kaizer Chiefs captain Brandon Petersen and his Orlando Pirates counterpart Nkosinathi Sibisi share the view that recent results count for nothing in the Soweto derby.

Pirates host Chiefs in their sold-out Betway Premiership clash at FNB Stadium on Saturday (3.30pm) with both teams confident after registering 3-0 Carling Knockout Cup wins over Milford FC and TS Galaxy respectively in midweek matches to progress to the quarterfinals.

Going into the derby, coach Abdeslam Ouaddou’s Buccaneers are the consistent team with a good recent run of seven wins and one loss from their last eight matches in all competitions.

In contrast, Amakhosi have been inconsistent during this period with two wins and two defeats and four losses in all competitions, leaving coach Fernando Da Cruz and his players under pressure.

Pirates captain Nkosinathi Sibisi says recent results doesn't count in Soweto derby.

WATCH more on #PrimeSportsWithMahlatseTV ➡️➡️➡️https://t.co/44VuwptVFI pic.twitter.com/uhMGrTRC8k

— Mahlatse Mphahlele (@BraMahlatse) October 29, 2026

At their pre-match press conference at SuperSport’s studios in Randburg on Thursday, Petersen admitted Pirates are on an impressive run but said the derby is about which side is on top of its game on the day.

“The derby at times is not really about form, but it is about who is the hungrier team and who wants it the most on the day. On Saturday, we will make sure that we are 100% ready for a fight,” said Petersen, adding that Pirates have been playing fast, attacking football.

“They have been on a good run this season and they come from last season as [league] defending champions. That is football and people are going to give them the upper hand but for us it is important to ensure we are aware and respect that.

“They have been playing good football and getting good results but that serves as motivation for us. We know what we are up against and we know it is going to be a fight out there.”

Sibisi agreed that the derby is more about what happens on the day.

Brandon Petersen talks about the importance of winning the Soweto Derby. ✌️⚽️🔥 pic.twitter.com/zbwSfMf3iG

— SoccerBeat (@SoccerBeatZA) October 29, 2026

“With what I have experienced with the derby in the past years, past results count for nothing. You might be favourites because of recent results but on Saturday that can change.”

Public sentiment is that Pirates are favourites and Sibisi said Bucs will wear the tag even though they are fully aware it counts for nothing.

“We shouldn’t shy away from being called favourites, but we have to take that responsibility and pride of representing the club as best as possible by getting a positive result on Saturday.

“I have been fortunate to be part of this club for five years and every derby is special. We have won and lost some but for me the excitement remains the same.

“It is always exciting to be part of this match and we want to win to make our supporters happy.”

TimesLIVE

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Former MK Party MP Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla will know in a week whether terrorism charges against her related to her infamous “We See You” tweets she posted during the Durban July 2021 riots will be thrown out by the court.

On Thursday, Durban high court judge Mbuzeni Mathenjwa heard arguments from her defence counsel Adv Dali Mpofu who claimed that the state is targeting her because she is the daughter of former president Jacob Zuma.

Zuma-Sambudla is accused of incitement to commit terrorism and public violence linked to the July unrest in 2021 which resulted in 354 deaths and an estimated R50bn in economic and infrastructure damage.

During arguments to discharge the case against her, Mpofu said many people had retweeted Zuma-Sambudla’s posts but were not charged.

He questioned why the state had only charged his client.

Mpofu argued that the tweets made by his client cannot be proved as incitement.

“Who did my client incite? You cannot incite people from the air. There might be an inciter and an incitee. In this case, who is the incitee?” he asked.

He described the state’s evidence on the “We See You” tweets by Zuma-Sambudla as “laughable”.

Mpofu challenged the state to prove that someone broke the law because of Zuma-Sambudla’s social media posts.

Without that link, the state does not have a case, he said.

“Was there any connection or link between whatever she did and the looters? Or anyone else that was that way inclined? The answer was no. I do not believe the state’s case is that she is the cause of those unrests. But I believe the state’s case is that the incitement was through social media. So that is where their case is built.

“The point I’m making, my lord, is that whether it was through social media or a megaphone or whatever, it doesn’t matter. There must still be an ‘incitee’. That’s the point, really. You cannot have incitement [without an incitee]. That’s the crux of this case,” Mpofu said.

Senior prosecutor Mahendra Naidu said the state presented a strong case against Zuma-Sambudla, especially on count one.

He said the state had called witnesses who gave strong testimony against Zuma-Sambudla.

The matter was adjourned to Friday next week for a ruling.

TimesLIVE

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Durban has been named as the preferred host city in the South African Sports Confederation, Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s (Sascoc) expression of interest to host the 2036 or 2040 Olympic Games.

Sascoc acting president Lwandile Simelane pulled “Durban” out of the ceremonial envelope in an announcement made at Sascoc’s headquarters at Olympic House in Melrose, Johannesburg, on Thursday.

Durban beat Johannesburg and Cape Town to the status. Durban was stripped of hosting rights for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in March 2017 due to financial constraints, budget disagreements and missed deadlines.

South Africa joins India, Qatar, Germany, Hungary, Türkiye and South Korea as interested parties for the 2036 Games. The UK and Egypt are among interested nations for the 2040 Games.

Simelane said the announcement does not “confirm any formal status of it being the preferred city; it’s just the city with which we will be engaging and participating in the bid”.

She said the next steps are that South Africa “remains in continuous dialogue”, Sascoc communicates the preferred city to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and works “with the relevant stakeholders to develop the project for the next international engagements”.

“Those preparations must bring the hosting vision together with a workable venue plan, appropriate funding strategy and clear accounting of the benefits for communities.

“The IOC has confirmed no additional interested parties will be considered for the 2036 Olympics after October 31.”

A digital presentation will be made by the interested parties to the IOC in November.

Sascoc CEO Nozipho Jafta said as the world “looks ahead to Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032, we are exploring whether South Africa can welcome the Summer and Paralympic Games in 2036 or 2040”.

“Sascoc formally communicated South Africa’s intention to enter this dialogue. Our engagement has provided a framework within which to explore the country’s hosting ambitions and develop a potential Games project.

“In partnership with the department of sport, arts and culture, under the leadership of [minister] Gayton McKenzie, formal support was received from the cabinet to pursue the project.”

Strategic engagements with the affected cities will begin only if South Africa progresses to the targeted dialogue phases

Sascoc CEO Nozipho Jafta

Jafta said Sascoc has “followed the IOC timelines and guidelines in advancing our engagement through continuous dialogue, [which] allows interested parties and the IOC to examine the vision and feasibility of hosting”.

“The first deliverable of this phase is the announcement of the preferred host city, referred to as the interested party. It is worth noting that this is not yet the right moment to engage with the cities at a strategic level, as several steps must still unfold, including our presentation to the IOC at the end of November and the IOC’s own feasibility study.

“Strategic engagements with the affected cities will begin only if South Africa progresses to the targeted dialogue phases.

“Once the IOC engages us further, we will be in a position to consult the successful city further. This will allow us to clarify logistics and venue decisions and to explore the logistics of other cities hosting certain sporting codes under the IOC’s new multi-city hosting model.”

Simelane said an independent evaluation panel chaired by Ruben Reddy was formed to “inform the selection of the preferred city”. This month the panel met the cities, received their presentations and visited potential venues.

The cities were assessed against IOC guidelines.

TimesLIVE

Maimane maintains voters have been deprived of a choice and made to think that their choices are limited.

However, he says this is a thing of the past.

“The old politics has made political survival the priority. South Africans need politics that makes their survival, their livelihoods and their future the priority. For years, we have been told that our choices are limited.

“We are told that the ANC is the only party with the experience to govern. We have seen where that has led. We are told that the DA is the only credible alternative. Yet its own decisions raise serious questions about what that alternative means when the negotiations begin.”

Maimane criticised sentiments that votes for newer political parties are wasted votes.

“I reject that argument completely. A wasted vote is not a vote for a new party. A wasted vote is a vote cast without asking whether the party you support will deliver the future you want.

“If you believe that the old politics has failed you, why would you automatically return to it? They do not own your vote. They are not entitled to your vote. If you are unhappy with the choices the established parties have made, you should never be discouraged from choosing something new.”

He was addressing the party’s final campaign event in Finetown alongside Bosa’s Johannesburg mayoral candidate, Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster, on Thursday.

Despite making the case for newer parties, the Bosa leader insisted that they needed to offer a serious alternative.

“South Africa needs a new vision under a new political leadership. But being new is not enough. A new party must offer a serious alternative, with clear priorities, credible candidates and a commitment to accountability. That is why we founded Build One South Africa. We did not establish Bosa to become another version of the old politics. We established it because we believe South Africans deserve an alternative that puts their interests first.

“We are not asking you to vote for us simply because we are new. We are asking you to examine what we stand for, look at the candidates we have put forward and decide whether our offer deserves your support.”

Following their electoral debut in the 2024 national and provincial elections, Maimane’s Bosa will be contesting the local government polls for the first time this year across 24 municipalities in five provinces, with almost 800 candidates standing for election.

“We have done this because we believe that the future of South Africa cannot be left to the same established parties and the same political calculations. We want to build a movement that takes the problems of ordinary people seriously and treats public office as a responsibility.”

He vowed that if the party garners enough votes to participate in municipalities, its representatives will tackle the issues facing voters and their families.

“Municipalities must deliver value for money. Residents must be able to see what their money is paying for. Budgets must prioritise essential services and infrastructure. Roads, water systems and electricity infrastructure must be properly maintained. Waste must be managed. Local businesses must be supported. And when municipalities fail, residents must be able to hold those responsible to account. This is what local government should be about.”

TimesLIVE

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Benjamin Netanyahu alleged on Thursday, without providing evidence, that Arab parties’ record gains in an election this week were driven in part by voter fraud, a charge rejected by Arab leaders who accused the premier of incitement.

The allegation represents an escalation of anti-Arab rhetoric by Netanyahu and his far-right partners after high Arab turnout in a national ballot on Tuesday effectively blocked a smooth path to power for either him or his main Jewish rivals.

Israeli election officials said on Thursday that there was a probe into fraud allegations, though the election’s integrity was not “systematically compromised”.

Analysts and critics say that by stepping up attacks on Arab parties, Netanyahu may be trying to ensure his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, feels unable to even consider forming a minority government with Arab help that could oust him from power.

Netanyahu’s goal is “delegitimising any Arab-Jewish co-operation”, said Eytan Gilboa, professor of politics at Reichman University.

Election officials were expected to finish tallying votes later on Thursday, in a tightly fought election that has produced no clear winner and is likely to be followed by weeks of protracted negotiations over a new government.

This entire campaign is directed against Eisenkot, to prevent him, intimidate and scare him off forming a government that relies on external support from the Joint List or Ra’am

Ahmad Tibi, one of the leaders of the Arab Joint List party

With nearly 93% of votes counted, Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious bloc held a modest lead in seats over a bloc of right-wing and centre-left parties led by Eisenkot, with both men’s coalitions short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in parliament.

Parties representing Israel’s 21% Arab minority were projected to win an unprecedented 19 seats, leaving Eisenkot’s bloc, with 48 seats against Netanyahu’s camp of 53, with no realistic path to power without broad Arab backing, an option Eisenkot has so far ruled out.

However, Eisenkot’s camp could also try to form a minority government with Arab support from the outside, without including them in a governing coalition.

Netanyahu accuses Arab parties of fraud; Arab parties call it incitement

Ahmad Tibi, one of the leaders of the Arab Joint List party, said Netanyahu was on an orchestrated, toxic campaign meant to undermine the election results.

“This entire campaign is directed against Eisenkot, to prevent him, intimidate and scare him off forming a government that relies on external support from the Joint List or Ra’am,” Tibi told Reuters.

During and after Tuesday’s election, Netanyahu and his allies warned against rising Arab turnout and his right-wing Likud party issued statements accusing the Arab parties of “stealing the vote”.

It demanded police and the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service investigate incidents of suspected election bribery and intimidation at ballot stations in Arab towns. It said it possessed evidence of such activity but has not presented it to the public.

The police say they have arrested at least seven people since Tuesday in Israel’s south, where many Arabs live, on suspicion of voter fraud. Israel’s public broadcaster Kan said they were suspected of attempting to bribe voters to cast ballots for the Arab-dominated party Ra’am, which has Islamist roots.

We have one message in response to the campaign of incitement and delegitimisation he is waging against Arab citizens: Nothing will come of it, because there is nothing there

Mansour Abbas, Ra’am head

On Thursday, the head of Israel’s Central Election Committee, Supreme Court jurist Noam Sohlberg, said he had asked the Shin Bet to investigate suspicions that unidentified foreign players had tried to intervene in the election.

Likud seized on Sohlberg’s request, alleging an attack on Israel’s democracy, “an Islamisation of Israel and the toppling of the right-wing in order to bring about IDF withdrawal and defeat on all fronts, foremost Iran”.

Likud said Qatar was behind the alleged election intervention, which Qatar later denied.

Ra’am head Mansour Abbas said on Thursday his party was not involved in the reported suspicious conduct and urged a full investigation. He said that Netanyahu was on an incitement campaign against Israel’s Arab citizens.

“We have one message in response to the campaign of incitement and delegitimisation he is waging against Arab citizens: Nothing will come of it, because there is nothing there,” Abbas said in a statement.

In a letter sent to a parliamentarian and published by the Central Election Committee, the committee said there was “no base for claims that there was systematic harm to the election’s integrity.”

Israeli president: ‘We must not tarnish an entire community’

After vote tallying is completed, President Isaac Herzog will consult with party chairs and choose a candidate who he thinks has the best chance to form a government.

The coalition that last toppled Netanyahu, in 2021, relied on Abbas’s Ra’am party. But Eisenkot’s underperformance means the opposition would now need backing from the Arab-dominated Joint List, which includes an explicitly anti-Zionist party. Most Jewish leaders have shunned formal alliances with Arab parties since Israel’s founding.

Eisenkot called for an investigation that would protect election integrity but said Netanyahu was exploiting the suspicions to “spread chaos”.

He said in a statement that Netanyahu’s aim was to “challenge the official election results, in which the Israeli public voted against the government”.

Herzog said the allegations must be investigated.

“But even at a moment like this, we must not tarnish an entire community that sought to exercise its right to vote and take an active part in democracy,” Herzog said in a statement.

Reuters

WATCH ALL EPISODES

Click here to find previous episodes of Spotlight with all the movie news you need, and follow the show on Facebook for all the latest news and giveaways.

Spotlight ends spooky season with monstrous creatures, terrifying survival stories and a celebration of South African musical heritage, from a giant Amazonian snake to a chilling South Korean thriller and the return of an iconic female maskandi group.

Something deadly lurks in the Amazon in the horror film Beware Boiúna. When a team of doctors on a humanitarian mission awakens an ancient giant snake, their mission to save lives becomes a desperate fight for survival. From Wrong Turn director Mike P Nelson, the movie stars Kiana Madeira, Jessica Rothe and Logan Marshall-Green. With a monstrous predator deciding who lives and who dies, nowhere is safe in Beware Boiúna, showing at cinemas.

The hunters become the hunted in Hope, a chilling South Korean sci-fi horror where a mysterious creature emerges near a remote fishing village. What begins as an investigation quickly descends into chaos, forcing the community into a terrifying fight to stay alive. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Na Hong-jin, known for The Wailing, the film was selected for the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and stars Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. This Halloween, even hope might not be enough to save you. Hope is at cinemas nationwide.

Missed these big-screen adventures? There’s plenty coming to your small screens this week. Before he became America’s first president, George Washington faced betrayal and impossible odds that helped shape his destiny in Young Washington, arriving on BoxOffice from October 30.

For a magical family escape, The Magic Faraway Tree follows a family who discover an enchanted tree leading to extraordinary worlds that bring them closer together. The film airs on M-Net on November 1.

For action fans, Beast follows a former MMA champion who returns to the cage for one last brutal fight to save his brother. Catch it on M-Net on November 1.

We switch gears from monsters to music as the iconic female maskandi group Imithente enters a new chapter with their album Imithente (Legacy). Now led by Nondumiso Ngubane, Nelile Mthalane and Nokuthula Manana, the next generation is carrying the group’s musical heritage forward with a seven-track album that honours its roots while introducing a contemporary sound. The faces may change, but the legacy lives on. Imithente (Legacy) is available on all major music streaming platforms.

For full interviews, breaking news, trailers and clips, visit our Spotlight Facebook page. See you at the movies.

Presenter Collette Prince is styled and dressed by Claris by Gerrit Pienaar when attending premieres and special events.

Facebook @Claris by Gerrit Pienaar/Instagram: gerritpienaardesigns.

TimesLIVE

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By Alessandro Parodi and Helen Reid

Along wide Parisian shopping boulevards, early Christmas lights glow around security grilles and boarded-up windows as stores brace for a third weekend of unrest that has already cost an estimated $2bn in damage and lost revenue.

Weeks of demonstrations against rising costs and worsening living standards have spiralled into violence and looting in several French cities, damaging 2,400 stores across the country, according to the French Chamber of Commerce.

With further protests planned on October 31 and November 5, the mood among Parisian retailers and consumers is anything but festive.

French consumer confidence fell to a 13-year low this month. That bodes ill for November and December, which together typically account for 40% of annual retail turnover.

Pulling down the shutters

“Commercial activities in city centres have been brought to a standstill,” said Alain Di Crescenzo, president of the French Chamber of Commerce, about the days of protest.

“Stores that were looted must recover, repair and reopen, but then there are all those that weren’t broken into but had to pull down the shutters and have made zero sales,” he added. Over a quarter of the outlets damaged during protests remain shut, Di Crescenzo told Reuters, and many stores are likely to be shuttered protectively ahead of the next protests.

Shops targeted included outlets from major luxury brands like Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Burberry, but also Carrefour supermarkets and corner shops.

The Chamber of Commerce estimates losses to retailers to exceed €1bn (R18.5bn), while Morningstar DBRS said the total could approach $2bn including uninsured damage and lost revenue, and rise further if protests escalate.

Besides the direct impact on looted stores, fears of further violence drove many more to close as a precautionary measure, turning major shopping streets into ghost towns ahead of the October 24 protests, during which security was tighter but 50 stores were still broken into.

Most store managers, avidly monitoring neighbourhood watch communication groups, will only decide on Friday whether to stay open on the day of the demonstration.

Counting the damage

Burberry’s store on the fashionable Rue Saint-Honoré, which was looted and damaged in the October 17 riots, reopened on Tuesday after 10 days, according to a spokesperson for the company.

Jeweller Pandora said two stores in Paris and one in Lyon were vandalised and looted, and remain shut. It said it would keep taking steps including boarding up windows and enforcing temporary closures to protect its property and staff.

Swedish fashion retailer H&M had four stores impacted by protests on October 17 in Lyon, Nantes, Tours and Chambery. Last Saturday, it closed two outlets and shut another 40 stores earlier than normal business hours as a precautionary measure. It said it was too early to say what it would do this Saturday.

Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden said on Thursday that the sportswear brand had some closures and declining store traffic in some cities due to protests.

“Of course, it was scary and it was not nice, but the impact on the total business for Q4, I would say, is not a level we can talk about yet,” he told journalists on a call.

Impact on tourism

Georges Kern, CEO of Swiss luxury watchmaker Breitling told Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger that if there was a threat of more unrest occurring, its shops would stay closed.

“If the disruption continues in the weeks ahead, some businesses – particularly non-food retailers – could face serious difficulties,” Cooperative U CEO Dominique Schelcher told Reuters.

The protests are also likely to weigh on tourism. Well-known Parisian department store Printemps has had to delay the launch of its Christmas decorations, initially planned for November 5, while the Paris tourist office said extensive media coverage may deter visitors in coming months.

“Consumption is the engine of the French economy,” said Magali Marton, head of research and data at real estate advisory Knight Frank France. “For shops to survive, people have to feel safe enough to come in and buy.”

Reuters

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A new study has found that 85% of South Africans were affected by fraud in the past year, with one in five losing money despite widespread awareness of common scams.

A study by South African-founded research platform Yazi, “The global digital fraud study: who pays for trust?”, finds that one in five South African respondents had lost money to fraud, compared with just 7% of UK respondents.

The study, based on 1,234 responses from South Africa and the UK, found that 74% of South Africans already knew that AI could be used to clone voices and create fake messages.

However, this awareness made little difference to risky behaviour, according to the research. Almost half of the scam attempts reported in South Africa, or 45%, began with the promise of making money.

The financial consequences were particularly severe for low-income households. The median loss among victims from the lowest-income households amounted to 40% of one month’s household income.

Three-quarters of South African fraud victims recovered none of the money they lost, while 64% of those affected believed bank or institutional staff might be involved in fraud. This compared with 17% of affected respondents in the UK.

Yazi chief executive Tim Treagus said the findings suggested fraud awareness alone was insufficient to protect consumers.

“South Africans are not uninformed about fraud. Most already know the tricks,” he said. “What the data suggests instead is something closer to hope outweighing caution: the promise of a way out is often worth more than the risk of being wrong.”

The study finds that financial pressure could make consumers more susceptible to scams promising investment returns or other opportunities to improve their circumstances.

South Africans are not uninformed about fraud. Most already know the tricks. What the data suggests instead is something closer to hope outweighing caution: the promise of a way out is often worth more than the risk of being wrong.

Tim Treagus,. Yazi CEO

The research combined structured survey questions, written responses, voice notes and AI-moderated follow-up interviews to examine how fraud occurred and its financial and emotional effects.

The findings also highlight a gap in trust between consumers and financial institutions. Though 64% of affected South Africans suspected bank or institutional staff might be involved in fraud, 47% reported incidents to an institution.

Yazi described this as a reporting paradox, suggesting that consumers continued to report fraud because institutions offered their most realistic route to recovering lost money, rather than because they necessarily trusted them.

Self-blame was also a barrier to reporting fraud. Among those who did not report incidents, 24% of South Africans said self-blame was a factor, compared with 3% of respondents in the UK.

Maya Fisher-French, founder of Maya on Money, said the findings should concern financial institutions.

“Our financial institutions should be deeply concerned that 64% of affected South Africans suspect bank staff complicity in fraud, compared to only 17% in the UK,” she said.

The study also highlighted the impact of fraud on businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which can face financial losses and risks to jobs and livelihoods.

Dewald Müller, head of SaaS and AI at Stitch, said businesses whose payment systems were used to move stolen money could also suffer consequences.

The report called for stronger fraud prevention measures, including improved detection technology, behavioural monitoring, better identification of accounts used to move stolen funds and clearer processes for recovering money.

One participant described the emotional consequences of being defrauded, telling researchers, “It made me feel like I was no longer safe anymore, whether I’m outside my house or on my phone. It felt like I’m in danger everywhere I go.”

Another participant reported making repeated deposits after being promised investment returns that never materialised, losing R5,000-R9,999.

The findings suggest that consumer education alone may not be enough to address fraud, with stronger security measures and greater institutional accountability also needed to protect consumers.

Business Day

Interior influencers, including Kim Kardashian and Nara Smith, created minimal spaces made for showing off and keeping up with the Joneses. Their fans have imitated their love for islands (perfect for vlogs and showing off wealth), but this has resulted in cramped cookeries.

“A lot of people will make the mistake of trying to squeeze too much into a smaller kitchen. It’s understandable to want as much storage and worktop space as possible, but adding more cupboards or appliances doesn’t always make a kitchen more practical,” said Hayley Manners, owner and interior designer at Unique Designs. She said a well-planned kitchen should be easy to navigate without sacrificing comfort.

Think carefully about a kitchen island

Kitchen islands are popular for their additional preparation space and storage, but they aren’t suitable for every layout.

In smaller kitchens, an island can restrict movement, prevent cupboard doors from opening fully or make it difficult for more than one person to use the room.

“If an island is going to leave you constantly squeezing past furniture, a peninsula or different worktop layout might be a much better option,” said Manners.

War of the cupboards

Manners also warned against filling every available wall with cabinets. Poorly designed cupboards can leave homeowners struggling to reach items or making full use of the space inside.

Manners recommended considering how storage will be used before deciding how many units to install. She said deep cupboards aren’t always practical as items may become hard to reach. A solution can be found in pull-out drawers and well-designed corner storage that can make items much more accessible.

“Expanding storage upwards is also helpful,” she said, noting taller cabinets can provide useful additional storage without taking up floor space when done proportionally to a room.

The chunky appliance nightmare

No matter how trendy or popular they may be, think twice about kettles, toasters, air fryers and microwaves that can take up a considerable amount of space, particularly in smaller kitchens.

“Worktop space is something people often underestimate when planning a kitchen. You might have enough room for all your appliances, but if there’s nowhere left to prepare food comfortably, the kitchen becomes frustrating to use,” Manners said.

She said homeowners should decide which appliances they use every day and whether others could be stored away.

“If you’re designing a new kitchen, it’s worth planning dedicated storage for them from the beginning.”

The importance of good lighting

Lighting can also influence how spacious a kitchen feels, particularly in rooms with limited natural daylight. Relying on a single central ceiling light can leave preparation areas poorly illuminated, while darker corners may make a room feel more enclosed.

“Under-cabinet lighting can make a noticeable difference because it illuminates the worktops directly, rather than relying entirely on a ceiling light behind you. Good lighting also helps show off the kitchen properly. A room with dark corners can feel much smaller than it actually is, even if the layout is perfectly practical,” said Manners.

Master the open shelf

Open shelves stocked with too many items can create visual clutter. Strongly contrasting cabinet colours and finishes can divide a small room visually, though that doesn’t mean homeowners need to avoid colour altogether.

“The problem comes when they’re overloaded because everything on them is constantly on display,” said Manners.

To make the room feel more balanced, she suggested keeping the walls and cabinetry in similar tones as one way to create a more continuous look.

Fix what’s broken

Ultimately, the most important consideration is how comfortably people can move between the sink, cooking area, fridge and main preparation surfaces.

A kitchen may look spacious in photographs, but if appliance doors obstruct walkways or frequently used items are difficult to access, it can become impractical.

Manners advised: “Before making any big decisions, think about what frustrates you in your current kitchen. It might be the lack of preparation space, cupboards that are difficult to access or people constantly getting in each other’s way.”

TimesLIVE

With a flying start to the 2026-27 Egyptian season with Pyramids FC, indications are he may have finally landed at a club that might just have the right blend of ambition, resources and relative stability in a region where that commodity can be as scarce as water, to match his own.

Mokwena joined Wydad Athletic from Sundowns, but the Moroccan giants were in the midst of a financial meltdown. While he raised them from the previous season’s sixth place in the Botola to the top three, Mokwena had been frozen out before the club clinched third position by May, unable to win over Wydad’s demanding fans.

Next came Algerian giants MC Alger, where Mokwena led Algeria’s Ligue Professionnelle 1 when he left in March, reportedly over some disagreements on recruitment and autonomy and with a lucrative offer from Libya’s Al-Ittihad SC. Alger clinched the league title two months after he left.

In Libya, Ittihad started on form under Mokwena but collapsed in a playoff stage that their Premier League has for the championship, failed to reach the Caf Champions League and also lost in the Libyan Cup final, with the relationship ending after four months.

At full time, Rulani Mokwena went over to appreciate the efforts of El Merriekh Bentiu players. 👏

Respect. ❤️⚽️#AfricanFootball #CAFCLwithMicky pic.twitter.com/3sdPG0M5yr

— Micky Jnr (@MickyJnr__) October 24, 2026

Mokwena, 39, remains a coaching prodigy who, for his age, has already had remarkable trophy success with Sundowns and has never failed outright at any of the big North African clubs he’s taken on, in one of the world’s most intense football environments. So he remains sought after.

Pyramids, who have only existed since 2008 and under their present name since 2018, are a young club in Egyptian and African football, but they have had quick success. That includes being Premier League runners-up for the last five seasons in a row and when Democratic Republic of the Congo striker Fiston Mayele led them to the Caf Champions League title in 2024-25, beating Sundowns in the final. With notable financial backing from Emirati investor Salem Al-Shamsi, they have won also three Egyptian Cups.

Mokwena, who works with South African assistants Wendell Robinson and Sinethemba Badela, has had a flying start since signing up for Pyramids in July. He has won all 12 of his matches across competitions. Seven of those leave them top of the Egyptian Premier League, four saw them reach the Champions League group stage and one came in the Egyptian Cup.

Mokwena follows in the footsteps into Egyptian football of his one-time Sundowns mentor, Bafana Bafana coach Pitso Mosimane, who coached Al Ahly with success from October 2020 to June 2022. Pyramids’ new boss was asked in a digital session with the South African Football Journalists’ Association what excited him about the club.

“I don’t know if I was excited or convinced more by the recent results of the club,” he said.

“They knew a lot about me because they had followed me for a very long time. And it’s a very good club. When I met some of the people who run the club a few times, the ambition, the objectives they set out for the club, these are things where you get a feeling this is the type of environment you want to be part of.

🚨 Rulani Mokwena equals a Pyramids FC record! 🔥

The South African coach has matched Hossam Hassan and Ramón Díaz by going unbeaten in his first 11 matches in charge of Pyramids across all competitions.

✅ Rulani Mokwena: 11 wins
✅ Ramón Díaz: 7 wins, 4 draws
✅ Hossam… pic.twitter.com/NAv4mXKvw9

— Micky Jnr (@MickyJnr__) October 21, 2026

“You want to be stimulated, you want to grow, you want to challenge yourself in a space with some of the best teams. Even in the Egyptian league, there are two other big clubs [Al Ahly and Zamalek] who are always dominating the space and fighting for trophies.

“And of course when I left South Africa and went to Morocco, I said I would love to have a sojourn, a safari in the North African space. I am still due a sabbatical and tell people a lot that I’m very strong on this but the timing just doesn’t seem to ever be right.

“One of the things I said I would really like to start before I take a sabbatical is I want to work in different leagues, with different players and cultures. I want to learn from different people, improve my ideas on football and challenge them, and see whether or not there are some things that can work in different parts of Africa and maybe other parts of the world.

“So yeah, Pyramids came at the right time. It was also very difficult to leave Libya. Because we were also committed to that project and were enticed [by Ittihad] to leave a team [MC Alger] where we were already league champions 20 matches into the season.

“You might have heard some negative things about Algeria. I have especially heard [former Bafana coach] Hugo Broos talk about his experiences in Algeria and mine were the exact opposite. Incredible league, home stadium [Ali La Pointe Stadium in Algiers], football passion and culture.

“The players. From a technical perspective, the Algerian league is fortunate it has one thing maybe lacking in Egypt, in Morocco, in Libya, which is the Algerian Francophone players who have dual passports and grow up in these academies in France — in St Etienne, Lyon, Lille — their level of technical education is incredible.

“… Egyptian football also has a very strong football culture. It’s not by chance that in the history of African football Egypt dominates not just at international level with the most Afcon titles [seven], but also the most Caf interclub titles. Every year you find an Egyptian team in the semifinals and final of not just the Champions League but the Confederation Cup ― last season Zamalek lost against USM [Alger].

“That tells you about very strong work being done in the league, of course, by the Egyptian FA and that goes right into the youth structures.”

Wydad and Raja are great foes; they are just separated by a streetlamp. The Raja training facility is separated by one road from that of Wydad.

Rulani Mokwena

Like most Egyptian clubs, coaches’ tenures can be short-lived at Pyramids — about 20 have come and gone since 2018. Yet that seems to have improved recently with Krunoslav Jurčić, Mokwena’s predecessor who won the Champions League, having lasted almost two-and-a-half years.

Mokwena was asked about the pressures of working there, as he looks ahead to a league Cairo derby against Al Ahly on November 23.

“On the Cairo derby, look, we are excited. I think the level of pressure that comes from that, I would say fortunately I’ve been marinated in pressure.

“The pressure from the Wydad fans is something you would not believe. You have to play the Casablanca derby ― there’s a lot of pressure. Wydad and Raja are great foes; they are just separated by a streetlamp. The Raja training facility is separated by one road from that of Wydad.

“The rivalry, the pressure from the fans, is incredible and expectation from the Wydad fans one of the highest you can experience as a coach. I was in a pressure cooker situation at Orlando Pirates, in a pressure cooker at Mamelodi Sundowns where you almost had to win every game.

“Pyramids is still a young club from a football perspective with regards to the heritage and what it has achieved. But what it has achieved surpasses what some teams have with more years to their name.

“From being formed in 2008 it has already won a Champions League and what is missing is to be [Egyptian Premier] League champions. That’s the pressure you feel is on the shoulders of the players, the staff, management and hierarchy.

“I’m looking forward to the Cairo derby against a good team. We also know we are a good team and that’s the pressure we put on ourselves, to keep pushing ourselves up to the next level.”

The kitchen belongs to Massimo Bottura, widely considered one of Italy’s most celebrated chefs. His three-Michelin-star flagship, Osteria Francescana in Modena, has twice been ranked the world’s best restaurant. Gucci Osteria is his collaboration with the Italian fashion house and earned its own Michelin star less than two years after opening in 2018.

The restaurant sits inside Palazzo Gucci, a 14th-century palazzo on Piazza della Signoria, Florence’s political and Renaissance heart, just a short walk from the Uffizi Gallery. The building also houses the Gucci boutique, a bookshop, and the Gucci Storia exhibition.

What was once largely a retrospective space celebrating the brand’s archives has been reinvented as a living cultural destination, and a walkthrough is an experience in itself, tracing the fashion house’s history back to its Florentine roots. You’ll find displays of handbags, scarves and clothes alongside a boutique where some pieces are bespoke and unavailable elsewhere.

Access to the restaurant for dinner is only possible at dusk through the eclectic bookshop. It’s worth spending a few hours beforehand soaking up the piazza and wandering through the museum. As night falls, the bookshop closes and quietly transforms into the restaurant’s entrance.

Historically, an osteria was a simple tavern — somewhere travellers could eat, drink wine and rest, less formal than a ristorante, but a step up from a café or bar. This is no traditional osteria in that sense. It’s a Michelin-starred fine-dining restaurant that draws on the warmth and hospitality of an osteria while operating at a very different level, with gastronomy, design and fashion woven together. Even the dishes on the tasting menu carry cultural references and wordplay.

The space is intimate, with about 50 seats, decorated in the brand’s signature green with playful design touches throughout. Nearly every piece of tableware, from dinner plates to dessert plates and coffee cups, is custom-made by Ginori 1735, the historic Florentine porcelain house owned by Kering, Gucci’s parent company. The crockery patterns fold classic Florentine porcelain craft into Gucci’s herbarium motif — floral and faintly whimsical.

The space isn’t overly sumptuous; rather, it’s gently elegant, with a certain homeliness to it. Some diners dress up, though most don’t seem to. Service is attentive but unobtrusive, with an eye for the smallest details.

Dinner opens with three regional Italian breads, in keeping with the restaurant’s habit of elevating everyday staples: pane guttiau, an ultra-thin, crisp Sardinian bread brushed with olive oil, sea salt and herbs; long, feather-light Piedmontese grissini; and a bouncy, soft Ligurian-Emilian focaccia that melts in the mouth. “I feel sorry for people who don’t eat carbs,” my friend said, reaching for the butter and olive oil.

We began with Dits-Lieux, a champagne my friend, who knows a thing or two about it, declared the best she’d ever tasted. The amuse-bouche arrived in three small elements: a ricotta cannelloni (our favourite of the three); a take on vegetable soup rendered in dark chocolate as an interpretation of Italian espresso; and pralines of dark chocolate and toasted almond, something of a nod to the Italian breakfast — sweet and salty all at once.

Think Green is a salad built from 20 different leaves and greens, from arugula to centocchio, erigeron and begonia. It looks deceptively simple but rewards patience: herbaceous notes surface as you eat. Only afterwards do you recognise that the plate resembles a small meadow lifted from a garden, turning a salad into a meditation on biodiversity, sustainability and Italian agriculture.

Fuori Dalla Norma (“outside the norm”) reinterprets the Sicilian classic Pasta alla Norma, with aubergine, pecorino di fossa and cherry, but without a strand of pasta in sight.

Non Dire Cassata is served on a hand-painted Italian ceramic plate, and it’s a showstopper. Room-temperature spaghetti, lightly sauced, is arranged to look almost like dessert. It draws on one of Sicily’s richest sweets, the cassata, using spaghetti, pistachio and bergamot — a fragrant citrus grown almost exclusively in southern Italy. It’s Bottura’s style distilled: nostalgic and rooted in Italian tradition.

Memories of a Summer in Versilia (zucchini, fennel, tomato dashi) is the creation of the restaurant’s head chef, Takahiko Kondo, who is Japanese by birth but, after years in Italy, has become captivated by the rituals of the Tuscan seaside: long lunches, salt air and fennel growing wild by the beach.

My friend had Fungo! (mushroom, quinoa, and salsa verde); we were both on the vegetarian menu, though I strayed for a small, delicious piece of steak. We skipped the formal wine pairing, but a glass of Castello di Monsanto Vigneto Il Poggio Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2020 complemented the meal beautifully.

Dessert was Orto di Venere (Venus’s Garden), with asparagus, white chocolate and spirulina algae, inspired by the Italian Renaissance and its imagery of gardens. A thin meringue crowns the dessert, while edible flowers and herbs echo the floral motifs of Renaissance painting. Avocado ice cream sits alongside. It’s one of the restaurant’s signature finales and possibly its most photographed dessert, telling a story about Florence, the Renaissance and Botticelli before you’ve taken a bite.

To finish, we were served piccola pasticceria, the restaurant’s take on petit fours, including miniature sweets such as candied jellies and cantucci.

The Saturday night of our visit drew an interesting mix of guests: a dressed-up couple in their mid-20s; a mother with two teenage daughters, both understated in appearance; an older fashion-conscious man in casual black with a long ponytail and a younger companion; two men dining together; an older couple; and a glamorous woman in Gucci shoes, sipping wine alone, who had changed into walking shoes by the time she left.

The soundtrack drifted from Serge Gainsbourg to Ain’t No Sunshine, adding another subtle layer to the atmosphere.

Gucci Osteria opened in January 2018 as a collaboration between Bottura and Gucci. It began with a friendship — former Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri, a childhood friend of Bottura, brought him in to build a restaurant inside the newly reimagined Gucci Garden. One friend went on to lead one of the world’s great fashion houses; the other became one of the world’s great chefs. Chef Karime Lopez made history there as the first Mexican woman to earn a Michelin star, an achievement that came within two years of opening; Takahiko Kondo stepped into the role of head chef in 2025.

Bottura is known for taking iconic Italian dishes such as tortellini, lasagna and even a Caesar salad and pulling them apart at the seams and reassembling them in unexpected forms. Many of his dishes read as memories or private jokes turned into food. At Gucci Osteria, his kitchen draws on the influences of wherever his collaborators have trained or travelled, while remaining anchored in Italian technique and the Italian pantry. As he put it when the restaurant opened: “Haute couture and haute cuisine are a recipe made in heaven.”

The restaurant has since expanded to Tokyo and Seoul, though Florence remains the original. It’s one of nine Michelin-starred restaurants in the city for 2026 and holds its own alongside more traditional Tuscan fine dining.

Gucci Osteria does something unusual. It takes the emotion of Tuscan tradition and turns it into a story told through Florence, a fashion house and Bottura. It’s an alchemy that lingers long after the meal is over.

gucciosteria.com

Wanted

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South Africa is making progress with its structural reforms, but the continued dysfunction at municipalities such as Johannesburg risks deterring much-needed investment into the country, Business Leadership SA (BLSA) has warned.

At the release of its latest reform tracker on Wednesday, BLSA also flagged concerns about stalled progress in the reforms that helped South Africa exit the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) greylist in October 2025.

The failure of numerous municipalities to deliver basic services such as water, a stable electricity supply and road repairs has been the focal point of campaigning ahead of what many see as make or break local government elections on November 4.

BLSA’s reform tracker — which monitors reform deliverables across economic, criminal justice, and governance categories — showed that momentum turned positive in the third quarter of 2026, moving from minus 0.4% to 1.7%, the strongest reading since September-December 2025.

“In the previous quarter, I was concerned that more reforms were losing ground than advancing, so it is heartening to see that reversed,” BLSA CEO Busisiwe Mavuso said in a statement accompanying the report.

“It’s also encouraging to see progress in water, energy and transport. These are network sectors, and it is crucial to eradicate dysfunctionality. Once they are functioning efficiently, they will provide the foundation on which to build a strong and growing economy.”

Still, Mavuso told a media briefing at the release of the tracker that municipal reform must now become an area of much greater urgency.

“When multinational companies consider expanding their investments, they assess more than the size of a country’s market. They assess the operational reliability. They assess infrastructure, they assess logistics, they assess productivity and the risks of doing business,” she said.

“And that, for me, is why municipal reform is becoming one of the most important economic reform priorities that are facing South Africa. We can stabilise electricity generation nationally. We can celebrate the fact that Eskom is sitting for more than 500 days without load-shedding. But if municipalities cannot maintain their distribution networks, businesses will still be without electricity.

“We can attract investment into new infrastructure, but if municipalities cannot provide reliable water, if they can’t maintain roads, if they can’t manage waste and deliver basic services, then businesses will struggle to operate.”

It would not be possible to have a successful national economic reform programme “sitting on top of failing municipal infrastructure”, Mavuso said.

“With the local government elections taking place next week, it is an important moment to reflect on what must change. Whatever the outcome of those elections, we need municipal administrations that are capable of delivering basic services, of maintaining infrastructure, of managing public finances,” she added.

Of the 179 reform areas scored in the third quarter that could be compared like for like with the previous quarter, 40 changed scores, with 33 advancing and seven declining. Electricity reform rose from 67.8 points to 69.4, while freight logistics ticked up from 69.6 to 72.5, and the score for financial sector reforms was up from 88.1 to 89.5.

The criminal justice category edged up from 84.2 to 84.5, but governance declined for the first time, from 55 to 54.6, reflecting the Constitutional Court’s declaration of the Public Procurement Act as unconstitutional and invalid because parliament had not facilitated meaningful public participation at the National Council of Provinces stage.

Organised crime

Shortcomings in investigating organised crime, as well as successfully prosecuting and recovering criminal assets, could see the country again greylisted by the FATF, BLSA warned.

The global watchdog placed South Africa on the list in early 2023 after identifying weaknesses in its systems to tackle money-laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, but removed it a year ago, citing improvements in the country’s capabilities.

The FATF commenced a mutual evaluation earlier this year, which will conclude in October 2027. In September, deputy finance minister David Masondo acknowledged that South Africa still needs to resolve remaining weaknesses in its system to avert another greylisting.

“Exiting the grey list of FATF was an important achievement last year, but we are at risk of re-entering that grey list,” said Stuart Theobald, executive chair of consultancy firm Krutham, which compiles and analyses the reform tracker for the BLSA.

The outcomes of the ongoing inquiry by the Madlanga commission into criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system would be key, he added.

“Various issues are going to be picked up as part of FATF’s review. One of those is the Madlanga commission’s findings, which have clearly unveiled significant problems in the leadership of the police and intelligence services, and one of the new reform areas that we will be adding to the tracker will be the recommendations coming from the Madlanga commission,” Theobald said.

Business Day

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There was drama in the murder trial of rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes on Wednesday when the defence team tried to gag a vehicle tracking expert about the cars allegedly used to tail the rapper.

Defence counsel Adv Simphiwe Mlotshwa objected to Carel Rothmann, a Cartrack expert fleet administrator testifying, forcing judge Nomfundo Sipunzi to intervene.

AKA and his celebrity chef friend Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane were gunned down outside Wish restaurant on Florida Road on February 10 2023.

Lindokuhle Thabani Mkhwanazi, 30, Lindani Zenzele Ndimande, 35, Siyanda Eddie Myeza, 23, Mziwelithini Gwabeni, 36, Lindokuhle Mhlaliseni Ndimande, 29, Malusi Dave Ndimande, 30, and Siyabonga Gezani Ndimande, 31, pleaded not guilty to charges including murder, attempted murder and illegal possession of firearms when the trial began on October 5.

The proceedings were interrupted by other defence team members who also supported Mlotshwa.

Mlotshwa demanded Rothmann’s full affidavit before he could testify.

“We need to consult with the accused and our own expert before this witness can continue,” said Mlotshwa.

Sipunzi initially ruled that Rothmann would be allowed to give evidence after hearing the defence already had his affidavit and reports.

However, shortly after Sipunzi’s ruling, Adv William Nicholson SC demanded not only the full affidavit but all materials the witness planned to use in his testimony.

Nicholson claimed that 95% of Rothmann’s testimony wasn’t in the original affidavit.

“We need our own expert present when this witness testifies,” he said.

Sipunzi made a ruling that Rothmann would complete his evidence, then the matter would stand down to allow the defence time to prepare before cross-examination.

Rothmann’s testimony focused on two vehicles allegedly used to monitor AKA ― a grey VW Polo and a Hyundai Grand i10.

The state alleges accused number four Gwabeni leased both cars from Sonwabile Bani, who confirmed the rental arrangement in his testimony.

The state alleges that these vehicles were used by spotters who tracked AKA’s movements on the day he was killed.

Rothmann’s tracking data revealed that both cars left Keeler Place in Durban on February 9 2023, a day before the rapper was gunned down.

Both vehicles were parked at the same Keeler Place location in the afternoon and evening of February 10, the day AKA and Tibz were murdered.

He said the two cars followed each other in the same direction throughout the surveillance period.

The objections by the defence came after they questioned extensive video surveillance presented by KwaZulu-Natal organised crime unit sergeant Rajen Sanders.

He had collected 17 video clips tracking the movements of the accused, which last week linked three men to being the spotter, tail and supplier of guns that killed AKA and Tibz in the Durban high court.

The trial continues.

She recently moved back to Britain from the US with her family, with media reports suggesting she was keen to find a new acting role. Meghan was an actress in the US before she married Harry in 2018.

Channel 10 said on Instagram Junior MasterChef Australia would return in 2027, hosted by Poh Ling Yeow and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.

Australian website News.com.au said filming was expected to take place in Melbourne from early to mid-2027.

Harry and Meghan have attracted global media attention since they stepped down as senior members of the royal family in 2020 before moving to the US, where they gave interviews criticising the institution.

The couple returned to the headlines last week after authorities in the Philippines said they were investigating whether Thomas Markle, Meghan’s father, had possessed child sexual abuse images. She said she was “deeply distressed” over the allegations.

Reuters

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Reigning PSL champions Orlando Pirates have secured an interim high court order preventing withdrawals from four bank accounts linked to its former finance manager, Darryl Brook Joselowsky, with at least R20.2m required to remain in the accounts as the club moves to preserve money it alleges was fraudulently diverted from its coffers.

The order, granted in the Johannesburg high court on September 22, directs Standard Bank to preserve the funds, “in order that a combined balance of no less than R20,269,420.75 remains therein”.

The court also ordered the bank to provide “full electronic and physical bank statements” for the accounts, including “contra-account numbers, branch codes and beneficiary identities for all outward transfers leaving such accounts”.

The relief follows an urgent application brought by Orlando Pirates Football Club, Orlando Pirates Retailing and Orlando Pirates Properties. Joselowsky and Standard Bank were cited as respondents.

The order allows the respondents to approach the court, on at least 48 hours’ notice and on good cause shown, to seek to have the relief set aside or varied. It is an interim order and does not amount to a final finding of fraud or liability.

In the founding affidavit, club commercial manager Mpumelelo Khoza said the alarm was raised in July while he was reviewing the group’s management accounts.

He said cash proceeds reflected in the accounts did not correspond with expected sales volumes, prompting a closer examination of the bank statements.

“Payment references on bank statements reflected descriptions corresponding to legitimate supplier/rental expenses, but the associated monetary figures did not tally with actual or expected supplier payments,” the affidavit states.

The club subsequently approached Standard Bank after transactions were flagged by the bank’s monitoring systems. According to the affidavit, the bank identified payments processed by a single operator and beneficiary names that did not match verified account holder details.

The operator code WCH30 was assigned to Joselowsky, who the affidavit says had worked for Pirates for more than 30 years and was responsible for bank accounts, payroll, supplier disbursements and financial ledgers.

The affidavit alleges that he had extensive control over the club’s banking facilities and could capture, verify and release payment batches without secondary authorisation or independent managerial approval.

The scale of the transactions is central to the club’s case.

According to the affidavit, bank records showed that R43,166,873 was transferred from the applicants’ accounts into four flagged Standard Bank accounts between September 29 2016 and August 25 2026.

A forensic analysis by accountant Alida Louise Jordaan allegedly identified R20,269,420.75 as unauthorised and fraudulent diversions to accounts controlled by Joselowsky.

The affidavit describes the alleged mechanism as involving “systematic deception”, including “the use of fictitious supplier descriptions and redirection of reimbursements”.

One example cited concerns a laptop purchased by senior manager Nkosana Khoza for an employee. The affidavit alleges that the club reimbursed the expense in cash through its petty-cash process, while an electronic transfer referencing Nkosana was made to Joselowsky’s personal bank account.

A schedule prepared by Jordaan allegedly identified 742 payments totalling R8,559,293.30 involving beneficiary descriptions the club says were falsely recorded. The affidavit alleges that the payments were divided into smaller amounts.

The document says the transactions were made through “742 separate payments of sufficiently small amounts that they would not attract the attention of the auditors”.

Pirates argued that urgent intervention was necessary because the disputed money could be moved between local and offshore accounts, making recovery difficult or impossible.

The affidavit warned that, without an interim order, the funds could be dissipated before the club could pursue a civil claim.

“If an interim freezing order is refused, the First Respondent will dissipate the stolen proceeds across multiple local and offshore banking accounts,” it states.

The club also raised concerns about Joselowsky’s overseas connections, alleging that he had recently acquired Austrian citizenship and held an Austrian passport.

The affidavit refers to frequent overseas leave as part of the club’s stated concern about the possibility of funds being moved beyond its reach. It does not establish that he travelled to Austria or that a court found he intended to flee.

The order requiring Standard Bank to provide detailed statements and beneficiary information could help the club trace the movement of the disputed funds. The application also reserves the question of costs against Joselowsky for a later stage of proceedings.

Responding to questions, Orlando Pirates spokesperson Thandi Morafe said the club had applied to preserve funds linked to certain financial transactions while the matter was investigated.

“The application is a precautionary step to protect the club’s funds. It is not a finding of wrongdoing and should not be interpreted as one,” she said.

Morafe added that the individual concerned was cooperating with the process and that the club would allow the matter to proceed fairly while its day-to-day operations and commitments continued as normal.

The club said it could not comment on the specific allegations because the matter was before court, and asked that reporting make clear that the allegations were contained in an application on which the court had not yet ruled.

The interim order preserves the disputed funds while allowing the respondents to return to court to challenge or vary the relief. The allegations against Joselowsky remain untested, and the order does not constitute a final finding of fraud or liability.

According to internal forensic findings by Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs (ENS), Thiru Pather, actively participated in RMA’s tender evaluation team at the start of October 2024, nearly four weeks before her formal resignation from bidder, 27four Investment Managers on October 31 2024.

During this overlap, confidential procurement documents, including candidate shortlists and scoring criteria, were transmitted to her personal email address without a signed non-disclosure agreement, the investigation found.

When confronted by ENS forensic investigators, Pather defended her conduct, asserting that she never felt conflicted. “I have always been able to be objective on things ... Anyone at any point could have said ‘recuse yourself’ from the discussion, and nobody said that,” Pather is quoted as having said to investigators.

She further argued to ENS investigators that RMA lacked internal investment expertise, stating that if anyone else could have conducted the assessment, she would have “volunteered it”.

Addressing evidence that she unilaterally altered scoring to favour 27four over objections from procurement officials, Pather claimed she merely “corrected formula errors”.

RMA is a mutual insurer licensed under Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (Coida) to administer medical costs, disability payments, and pensions for workplace injuries or diseases in South Africa’s mining and metals industry.

27four is a black-owned asset management firm with over R2-trillion in assets under advice. The company competed against shortlisted bidders Alexander Forbes, Novare Holdings and Selekane Asset Consultants.

The forensic report also revealed that the entire 18-month procurement process lacked authority, as RMA’s investment committee launched the tender in mid-2024 following a verbal update to the board in March 2024, but without a board resolution to go ahead.

Although 27Four was selected as the winning bidder to be awarded a three-year contract in November 2024, the tender process was halted last November, before contract signing, by RMA’s executive committee, which cited whistleblower reports from early 2025 around irregular processes.

Despite the damning forensic findings from ENS’s draft report, and warnings from legal experts, RMA’s board has failed to enforce accountability, and the final report from ENS has been withheld from senior management and shareholders for over a year.

Pather formally declared her prior relationship (with 27Four) to RMA’s investment committee in November 2024, however, RMA’s company secretary did not issue a conflict assessment until February 2025. This was more than three months after the RMA’s investment committee had already approved the award of a three-year private markets consultancy mandate to 27four.

The assessment evaluated only “actual” conflicts, ignoring potential or perceived conflicts and omitting any requirement for recusal, the investigation flagged.

Pather’s initial recruitment was equally controversial.

If the investigation is stalled, or not properly pursued ... senior management will likely be obliged to then make a report in terms of Precca … and involve the Prudential Authority.

Independent legal opinion from senior counsel Anton Myburgh and Joshua Davis

RMA’s executive in charge of investments and strategy, Ash Desai, confirmed to investigators that Pather’s CV was provided directly by investment committee chair Koketso Mabe, who previously mentored Pather at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC).

RMA chief executive Mandla Shezi told investigators that Mabe routinely forwarded candidate CVs to management, something “most executives did not agree with”, he added. RMA conducted no open-market recruitment for the position.

Desai acknowledged to investigators that Mabe explicitly instructed management during a pre-investment committee briefing to carve out a private markets mandate specifically for 27four. Desai also confirmed engaging in direct scope and fee talks with 27four leadership in early 2025 while the broader competitive tender was formally paused.

27Four said on Wednesday: “27four investment managers can confirm that it took part in Rand Mutual Assurance’s request for proposal for investment consultancy (asset consulting) services, which was reopened in September 2025. We made a full submission in October 2025 and were later invited to present to RMA’s management team and its investment committee. Since then we have followed up with RMA about the status of the appointment. Apart from being told in May 2026 that the process had been delayed, we have not been told the outcome.”

Despite Pather’s assertions, investigators concluded that she “participated in the procurement process whilst actively conflicted” and breached her fiduciary duties.

ENS also found that Pather demonstrated an “apparent predetermined preference for 27four”, noting that a voluntary declaration without recusal is “materially inadequate” when she actively directed the evaluation, altered competitor scores and edited draft committee minutes to weaken competitors’ comparative standing.

When RMA’s executive committee resolved last November to stop the tender due to operational and risk constraints, Mabe intervened, investigators found.

Within an hour of the exco memorandum being uploaded to RMA’s internal public portal on November 27, Mabe allegedly directed its immediate removal, instructing committee members to ignore management’s objections and asserting that the tender was a “board resolution”, a move described as a “serious governance breach” by ENS teams.

While the board commissioned Corporate Insights, and subsequently ENS to investigate, it has since allegedly refused to act on the findings or share the final reports with executive management.

This prompted senior management to seek an independent legal opinion from senior counsel Anton Myburgh and Joshua Davis in July. The legal opinion warned that while executives are not at present obligated to report board members externally while an investigation is pending, continued stalling by the board would trigger mandatory legal duties.

“If the investigation is stalled, or not properly pursued ... senior management will likely be obliged to then make a report in terms of Precca (Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004) … and involve the Prudential Authority,” the opinion said.

On Wednesday afternoon RMA board member Tjaart Esterhuyse said the company takes governance allegations seriously, but declined to comment on specific findings.

“RMA takes allegations of misconduct and corporate governance concerns extremely seriously and is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct.”

“The whistleblower report is being handled in accordance with relevant company policies and governance processes.

“To ensure procedural fairness, confidentiality, and respect for all parties’ rights, neither RMA nor any party will comment on specific allegations before facts are established,” he added.

RMA board chairman Thabo Dloti, Mabe, Desai and Pather did not respond to questions sent to them via RMA corporate communications, despite confirmation that the questions were circulated to them as well.

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An emergency meeting of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has resolved to suspend regional leaders who held a central committee meeting and suspended the national office-bearers, replacing them with a task team.

In a media briefing in Johannesburg on Wednesday, Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said this was an act of gross misconduct by the regional leaders and it posed serious reputational damage to Numsa.

Last week, regional leaders from the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, JC Bez, Mpumalanga and Sedibeng defied Jim and convened a central committee meeting, the highest decision-making body between national congresses. Jim had written to them to say the meeting scheduled for October 23-25 had been cancelled until further notice.

The letter by Jim followed a ruling by labour court judge Edwin Tlhotlhalemaje on Thursday last week preventing Numsa and the office-bearers from barring delegates from Mpumalanga from attending, participating and voting at committee meetings.

At the central committee meeting at the weekend, the regional leaders, including Andile Bloko, Nkosinathi Makhanya and Andile Nqilingwane, resolved to strip the national office-bearers of their delegated powers and functions.

On Wednesday, Jim criticised the regional leaders and staff members, including Mncedisi Kwababa, Mziyanda Twani, Mzamo Khoza and Collen Mahlangu, saying they were causing “havoc in the organisation”.

He said the national executive committee (NEC) called on the national leadership to act “swiftly and take organisational disciplinary measures” against them. They would be served with letters of suspension.

“Disciplinary measures will be followed through for both those who are staff and those who are office-bearers from regions,” Jim said. “The NEC called on the [national office-bearers] to expedite these processes in line with the disciplinary code and constitutional provisions.”

Jim said the NEC unanimously resolved to reject the “bogus so-called convened central committee and all its decisions and demands” against the national office-bearers and the organisation.

He said the central committee meeting by the regional leaders was “bogus” as those present did not carry “fresh, clear mandates from seven properly functioning regional executive committees”.

He said: “The gathering was bogus because it was convened and conducted as if the union’s elected leadership, constitutional structures and pending disputes did not exist.”

The Numsa national office-bearers “remain the union’s democratically elected leadership unless and until they are removed through a constitutionally empowered process, with due process and a valid mandate at a national congress”, Jim said.

However, Makhanya, the Numsa Mpumalanga regional chair, told Business Day: “Their special NEC did not even quorate. Our NEC is sitting on Tuesday. We will deal with whatever they would have announced during their briefing next week. They don’t have any power, we stripped them.”

Numsa president Andrew Chirwa said the national office-bearers were targeted in connection with Khandani Msibi, who has been “fired” as the Numsa Investment Company CEO.

Msibi had been at loggerheads with Jim and had challenged the union to convene its central committee to explain how he came to own a 60% stake in the union’s investment company.

Chirwa said the NIC board had resolved to fire Msibi.

Jim said there had been “serious allegations of theft as well as looting of money, shares and assets that belong to workers”. He said Numsa was confronting a “Khandani Msibi brigade”, which was working with external forces aimed at liquidating the leadership and turning the union into a “plaything of interests that have no record of service to metalworkers”.

Msibi has been approached for comment, which will be added when it is received.

Business Day

But keeping your head above water when a flood hits is about more than just staying safe in the moment; it’s also about not drowning in feelings of despair, fear or impending dread afterwards.

Studies show that living through a flood can leave psychological scars that last for years — especially if people are poor or have little social support.

Yet the mental health effects of natural disasters such as floods are mostly unknown in Africa — despite half of the continent’s 54 countries having had extreme rainfall in 2024.

Climate models show that extreme rainfall will likely hit more often as the Earth’s air keeps on warming. (In 2025, the global air temperature was about 1.4°C higher than what it was 150 years ago, before we people started burning lots of fossil fuels.)

Combine this threat with poor infrastructure such as roads, housing, sanitation and healthcare, and limited ability to rebuild when disaster does hit, it’s like a perfect storm brewing — with people’s mental wellbeing as the collateral damage.

This is why a new study looked into how floods affect people’s mental wellbeing in four countries in Africa — Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa.

The results are striking: across the four study sites combined, floods led to mental health issues in about a quarter of people who took part in the study. In other words: if the flood had not happened, 25% fewer people would have had mental health problems.

What do the results mean for countries where public health systems are already under pressure and communities have little means to bounce back after a disaster, especially when extreme weather is no longer a rare event?

We jump in at the deep end to wade through the data.

A snapshot of a continent

The research team worked in four countries across West, East and Southern Africa to study the link between flooding and mental wellbeing and “looking at both shared patterns and differences”, explains Ahri epidemiologist Collins Iwuji, the project’s lead researcher.

“Although our findings do not represent Africa as a whole, they broaden the evidence on flooding and mental health across these regions.”

The study included a total of 5,336 participants, with a sample of between about 1,000 and 1,600 in each country, with at least as many people having experienced a flood as those who didn’t. The study sites spanned urban and rural areas and included a spread of household sizes and employment and education levels, giving a good mix of socioeconomic conditions.

High waters, low feelings

Across the sample as a whole, signs of mental health problems were more common among people who had lived through a flood than among those who had not.

When looking at data from all four countries combined, one in 12 people who had been in a flood showed signs of serious anxiety, and one in eight had symptoms pointing to depression. One in five flood survivors’ mental state looked like that of someone with post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition in which you feel like you repeatedly relive a terrifying event in some way, often with severe anxiety to boot.

The same trend held in South Africa, but the proportion of flood survivors experiencing mental health problems was more than twice as high.

The findings show that extreme weather events like a flood add another layer of stress to people’s lives when they already live in poverty or without good social support. “When a disaster hits, people suffer because it adds to the hardship they’re facing every day,” says Vasco Cumbe, a psychiatry expert on the research team and based in the Sofala province where the Mozambican part of the study was done.

But people’s distress compounds, he says. In communities like the ones included in the study, a next storm often hits before people can fully recover from the previous one. When the ability to build back livelihoods and infrastructure like houses, roads and clinics is already poor, an additional shock can push people closer to developing mental health problems that mess with everyday life.

In the aftermath of a flood, people usually get help with basic needs like food, water and clothes, says Cumbe, but mental health issues are often not considered. Not paying attention to the effect of weather disasters on people’s mental state is “a gap”, not only in response but also in preparedness, he says.

Fewer floods, better mental health

If people had not been exposed to a flood, 25% fewer people would have had mental health issues, the study shows. In South Africa, that portion was closer to a third.

But with science showing that heavy rain and storms will likely hit more often and become more intense, how can people be protected against the effects of floods?

By limiting their exposure, says Iwuji. The immediate fix is to deal with the situation we already have, he says. For example, if people are warned about the chance of a flood early enough, they can prepare for it or choose to move out of the area during that time. Simple maintenance can also help, like keeping drains clear so that water can run away rather than overwhelm buildings and roads.

The longer game, though, is to curb further global warming. Warm air holds more moisture than cool air, which means that at the 2°C increase set as the upper limit of the Paris Agreement, storms and rainfall could become even heavier than they already are.

The Paris Agreement is a deal reached by nearly 200 countries in 2015 to fight climate change by reducing the pollution that heats up the planet.

Hitting the carbon emission targets agreed to under the Paris Agreement is no longer a theoretical ideal. Building resilient health systems that can cope with the effects of climate change will be formally on the agenda for the first time at COP31 in Turkey in November.

COP is a yearly United Nations meeting where countries from around the world discuss and agree on ways to slow down climate change and protect people from its effects.

‘I feel very scared’

Signs pointing to PTSD were the most common mental health issue among flood survivors in all four countries. However, the amount by which the levels increased was different.

For example, in the Mozambican sample, PTSD symptoms were seen in less than 1% of people who had not experienced a flood, but it was 55 times more common in those who had lived through a flood.

In Kenya, though, just over four in 10 people who had lived through a flood showed signs of PTSD, compared with three in 10 people who had not been exposed to the trauma of flooding. Although this is about four times more than in the group from Mozambique, the comparative in-country change is less.

Someone with PTSD is hyper vigilant, explains Cumbe. “They never relax, they’re always waiting for the danger to hit again, even though they seem to carry on with their lives.” But always expecting danger means someone lives in a constant state of fear and it becomes hard to bounce back.

With only about two specialised mental health workers for every 100,000 people in Africa, getting help to deal with a terrifying event like a flood is almost impossible for many. In this way, “what starts as a psychological condition can trigger a physical illness later”, explains Cumbe, putting even more pressure on health systems that are already overstretched in many countries.

Young lives matter

The trauma of a flood seems to hit young people hard, the data shows. They had more anxiety than other age groups and higher levels of PTSD, even though the baseline levels in the control groups — that is, people who had not experienced a flood — were similar to that in older people.

Today, mental health disorders are the leading cause of disability, analyses show — even more so than heart disease or cancer.

“People in this age group are just coming into their productive years,” says Iwuji, “so if mental health problems start at a young age and continue for the rest of their lives, you can imagine the economic impact that would have on the society.”

Yet the psychological fallout of a weather disaster is often overlooked in planning for emergency response, explains Cumbe. “People think it’s not important to raise mental health issues [as a concern]. We shelter people, we give food, we give water. But we also need to pay attention to the psychological side.”

If we don’t, we run the risk of pushing yet another generation into poverty, instead of lifting them out of dire circumstances, says Iwuji. “Climate change is a threat multiplier.”

This story was produced by the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Sign up for the newsletter.

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Johannesburg has been plunged into a service delivery crisis as waste remains uncollected for days due to municipal workers protesting over “unfulfilled wage agreements”.

Rubbish has been piling up in northern, western and southern areas as the city’s waste collection entity Pikitup faces a massive backlog with fewer workers available. Pikitup has pleaded for patience but could not say when all the rubbish would be collected.

The strike has also impacted other entities including Joburg Water, as some of its workers are Samwu members. The union members have been carrying out protests in the Johannesburg CBD since Monday. The protests stem from an unfulfilled wage and benefits agreement known as the Politically Facilitated Agreement (PFA), which Samwu entered into with the city in 2016.

Pikitup spokesperson Anthony Selepe put the blame on Samwu for disrupting services and could not confirm when services would return to normal.

“Our employees have been part of the Samwu protest, and it has been impacting us ... We have minimal capacity on the road and are working on measures to deal with the backlog.”

Selepe said it would be hard to predict when services would be back in full swing.

“The problem is not with Pikitup but the city. Once it [the strike] gets resolved, the better for us, but if it prolongs it means we must make do and deal with the service problem. All city entities are affected; only Pikitup will be immediately visible,” said Selepe.

On Wednesday, a Sowetan team visited Emmarentia, Florida, Roodepoort, Roosevelt Park, Randburg, Olivedale and Fourways, where it witnessed piles of garbage in unemptied bins stacked outside residences and shopping centres.

Most of the waste was meant to be collected between Monday and Wednesday and had developed a stench and was attracting flies.

“Because of the current heatwave, the smell from the bins has become really strong,” said a Fourways resident whose waste was supposed to have been collected on Monday.

A Florida resident said they were not notified about the service interruption.

“We realised on Tuesday, which is our normal collection day, our bins were still not emptied. The assumption was that Pikitup employees might be disgruntled again, as it’s always blamed on them when our rubbish is not collected.”

In Roodepoort, residents were notified of the disruption on Monday. “Pikitup wishes to inform residents serviced by the Roodepoort depot of a three-day waste collection backlog resulting from operational challenges including fleet breakdowns and the increased distance required to transport waste to the outlying landfill site.

“The situation is expected to be compounded by the Samwu meeting, resulting in a suspension of services across the city and its entities.”

Lee Young of the Parktown North Residents Association said some waste was collected, but a large part of the area was still unserviced.

He said some areas like Sandown have not had water due to challenges at Joburg Water. “The supply from a reservoir is not enough to reach residents,” said Young.

Johannesburg Water, in a statement on Wednesday, claimed the Samwu protest was affecting operations and causing delays in service delivery.

“While the entity remains committed to maintaining essential services, customers will experience delays in the resolution of service requests and other service delivery matters during this period.

“Johannesburg Water apologises for any inconvenience caused and appreciates customers’ patience and understanding as the entity works to minimise disruptions.”

Samwu, however, said the protest was only on Monday and that their members resumed duties on Tuesday, while shop stewards and leadership attended the case of 16 of their members who were arrested for violence during the protest.

“I think it would be an exaggeration and it’s not true to say services of the city have been disrupted because of the protest,” said Richard Moila, Samwu’s deputy regional secretary.

“Our members are at work, while management and the leadership are the ones in negotiation talks with the city and have accompanied in court some who were arrested from the protest. All of those entities were functional and have never been affected, as there were no interruptions,” he added.

Sowetan

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Tickets for the much-anticipated Soweto derby between traditional arch-rivals Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs were snapped up within hours of going on sale a fortnight ago.

That is little surprise as the eagerly awaited encounter once saw the sold-out signs going up within 60 minutes, as if the clash was the sporting version of the American movie of the heist of top-notch cars Gone in 60 Seconds.

With Pirates and Chiefs going into Saturday’s FNB Stadium showdown on the back of respective 3-0 victories over Milford FC and TS Galaxy in the Carling Knockout competition on Tuesday night, interest in the match has increased as supporters scavenge for non-existent tickets, in the vain hope of being among the thousands in the crowd.

The 94,000-seater was overcrowded when 15,000 more people gained entry when these two giants of South African football last clashed at the Calabash in February.

What is not surprising is the fact that as much as all and sundry are aware that the biggest sporting spectacle in Southern Africa attracts the attention of millions, there seems to be a continuous disregard of safety protocols to ensure smooth access into the 2010 World Cup venue.

A combination of factors contributes to the mayhem that degenerates into general disorder on the roads leading to the cathedral and the chaos that plays out on the precinct. Patrons refuse to use the park-and-ride services that organisers allocate in a bid to alleviate congestion.

The end result is the late arrival of spectators due to congestion caused by supporters who insist in driving as close to the venue as possible. Another is allowing fans to loiter around the precinct when they don’t have a ticket. Or if they have one, it is counterfeit.

Their insistence, combined with road closures around the vicinity, results in gridlocked traffic. What follows is civility being thrown out the window as people disembark from vehicles to relieve themselves in full view of other commuters, while others litter, discarding their empty containers of beverages, the contents of which have interfered with their sobriety.

Add to that there are those who despite not having tickets still deem it fit to head to the stadium hellbent on overwhelming the security personnel and forcing their way in. All these elements are ingredients of a simmering pot which could explode to disastrous effects.

It is nice of minister of sport, arts and culture Gayton McKenzie to talk tough and threaten Stadium Management South Africa (SMSA), the company that operates the stadium, with harsh action.

The assurances by SMSA that security will be beefed up for Saturday are welcome. Sadly, despite SMSA’s best preparations, previous experience of non-adherence to rules by some supporters has seen their plans end up as mincemeat.

No valid, scannable ticket, no entry, they say. The mantra should be common sense over everything — every day, all day, no matter the event.

It is high time people took the issue of their own safety seriously. Being caught up in Soweto Derby fever must not force the football faithful into temporary irresponsibility that borders on insanity.

It cannot be that two sporting codes — rugby and football — played at the same FNB Stadium venue present spectators with two contradicting experiences.

When South Africa and New Zealand rugby match was hosted at FNB not too long ago, everything was orderly. This was not the case when the Soweto giants met on the previous occasion. The start time had to be moved out 30 minutes because a large number of spectators were still scrambling to get to the stadium. Authorities could not risk starting the game for fear of a stampede.

Those drinking beer under the Oaks stopped mid-sip. Out the back, patrons halted their food orders. Attention turned to events in the middle.

The Proteas wanted to make sure Labuschange knew his Test future was in doubt. Labuschange isn’t shy of a chat. Ryan Rickelton revealed that he was happy to engage in banter with fellow Klerksdorp-born Marco Jansen in Gqeberha last week.

“Marnus is obviously Afrikaans, which is the highlight for [Jansen] — that they can chat in Afrikaans to each other,” Rickelton said.

Wednesday all the banter was one way — directed at Labuschagne. From Rickelton behind the stumps. Marques Ackerman at short leg. Maybe Aiden Markram at slip and the bowler Simon Harmer.

Marco Jansen is fired up 😤🔥

He sends Green back to the dressing room 🙌

📺 Stream #SAvAUS on DStv: https://t.co/rM90YyQxaw pic.twitter.com/AfH0OhGxTu

— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) October 28, 2026

It was glorious theatre. Test cricket at its finest. Australia vs South Africa encapsulated in the next five balls. And in those five balls, Labuschagne illustrated why in this rivalry, you can’t be timid. And if you’ve got high blood pressure, look for a different job.

This is raw, full-throttle stuff. Labuschagne poked and prodded. He desperately wanted to get off strike. South Africa wouldn’t let him. Temba Bavuma placed Marco Jansen at long-on, to troll him. It was there Labuschagne was caught last week attempting to whack Harmer, but the ball got held up in the stiff Gqeberha breeze. Labuschagne’s dismissal there led to calls for the axe to finally drop on a batter, who hasn’t scored a Test hundred in 48 innings.

It was with all that going on his head that he leaned forward and edged the last ball of Harmer’s over to Markram at slip. A thunderous roar from a crowd, which seemed to revel in the part it played in all the drama. A five-ball duck. More questions will follow about Labuschagne’s future.

And Australia vs South Africa in a nutshell.

Don’t bother forecasting what’s going to happen next either. Just because Australia win by 214 runs one week, and then has South Africa 110/6 the next, doesn’t mean they still can’t lose by an innings and 31 runs in this third Test.

Mitchell Starc at his very best 🤩

Late swing to dismiss Jansen 💥

📺 Stream #SAvAUS on DStv: https://t.co/rM90YyQxaw pic.twitter.com/0SMaAo7C9s

— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) October 27, 2026

Day one of the deciding Test in Cape Town provided a microcosm of what this rivalry has been like for most of the last two decades. One team appears to be on top, the other charges back.

Wind back the clock to the first Test of the groundbreaking tour Down Under in 2008, when South Africa picked up three wickets in the first hour. Australia fought back and reached 341/9 at stumps. South Africa conceded a 94-run deficit in that Test and won it chasing 414 for the loss of four wickets.

Or last year’s World Test Championship final, where South Africa were reduced to 43/4 at stumps on day one, having bowled out Australia for 212.

The Proteas turned that around and chased a record fourth innings total to win a Test at Lord’s.

Mitchell Starc was asked after the first day’s play in Cape Town if he could provide a theory for the vicious swings in momentum when these sides meet. He could not. “It’s two good cricket teams playing some hard-fought cricket,” said Starc. “At times, it’s going to get away from the other. At times, you’re going to wrestle the momentum back.”

A bruising series was predicted, especially with the attacking talent in each of the bowling units, combined with batting orders that appear vulnerable. And then what happens? In the first two Tests, the winning team has recovered from a precarious position to turn the match in their favour.

Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things, South Africa blast 140 runs in a session, it looks like they can bat for two days and then they get bowled out for 329, with the last four wickets falling in six balls. It doesn’t make sense. It’s wild. It’s Test cricket between South Africa and Australia.

The customer, who asked to be identified only as Busi, said the incident happened at about 6.20pm when she visited the store in the northern suburbs to look for an outfit for an upcoming event.

After trying on several items, she returned to the fitting room with more clothes. During the second round of fittings, she said she looked up and noticed what appeared to be a camera while she was undressed.

“I immediately got dressed and questioned the female staff member who had been assisting me. She acknowledged the camera but claimed that it was facing a different direction and was not recording me,” Busi said.

She said she raised the matter with another staff member, who photographed the camera and undertook to investigate.

However, Busi said the situation became more concerning when the store manager became involved and repeatedly denied that there was a camera inside the fitting room.

“She emphatically stated that there would ‘NEVER’ be a camera there. She maintained this position despite my having photographed the camera and staff members having seen it,” she said.

Busi said she eventually contacted the police, who arrived at the store shortly after 8pm.

She was concerned that surveillance footage might have captured images of her while she was undressed.

“When the police arrived, I took them to the fitting room, where they also saw the camera. Following this, the store manager acknowledged its existence, contradicting her earlier statements,” she said.

Busi said the explanations she received about the CCTV footage raised further questions.

She was initially told there was no footage of her. Subsequently, she was shown footage that appeared to show her back as she entered the fitting room.

However, she said the camera angle did not appear to correspond with the position of the camera she had photographed.

“Staff maintained that the footage was correct, but I was not provided with a clear explanation of this discrepancy,” she said.

Busi acknowledged that she could not independently establish whether the camera had captured images of her while she was undressed.

“I do not wish to make allegations that have not been verified. However, the presence of the camera, the contradictory explanations from store staff and the lack of a satisfactory account of the footage have left me deeply concerned about what may have happened,” she said.

She said she attempted to obtain contact details for senior management, but the store manager refused to provide them, citing the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia).

Busi said she left the store at about 9.15pm without what she considered a satisfactory explanation or an apology, and without confidence that her concerns had been properly addressed.

The incident has left her seeking answers about why the camera was positioned inside the fitting room, whether it was operational, why the manager initially denied its existence and whether any images of her inside the fitting room had been captured.

“My concern extends beyond my personal experience. Customers should be able to try on clothing without fearing that their privacy may be compromised. If a camera is installed in or near a fitting room, there should be clear accountability regarding its purpose, positioning, operation and the handling of any recordings,” she said.

Section 14 of the constitution protects the right to privacy, while the Protection of Personal Information Act regulates the processing of personal information, including images of identifiable individuals. The circumstances of any alleged surveillance, including the camera’s position and what it could capture, would be important in determining whether privacy rights had been infringed.

Woolworths spokesperson Rachel Alberts said the retailer had been in close contact with Busi to resolve the matter.

“We can confirm there were no cameras in the fitting room. Our team did a thorough investigation and found that no cameras in our Tyger Valley store, or certainly any Woolworths store, record the inside of fitting rooms.

“The misunderstanding came about because one fitting room is adjacent to a stock room, and the stock room is covered by CCTV. The customer was worried that the camera in question may have a view of the fitting room, but this has since been cleared up, and we have provided proof and guarantee that the camera is fixed and only faces the stock room,” Alberts said.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa has not been summoned to appear before Justice Sisi Khampepe after submitting an affidavit explaining why he did not agree to a request, endorsed by the late Desmond Tutu, for six years to establish an inquiry to investigate allegations of political interference to stop the investigation or prosecution of apartheid-era atrocities.

Imtiaz Ahmed Cajee, the nephew of murdered anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol, testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) cases inquiry chaired by Khampepe and alleged Ramaphosa ignored the pleas of the victims of apartheid atrocities and their families to have the TRC cases investigated and prosecuted.

The TRC is investigating allegations that political leaders interfered to ensure deliberate suppression of the bulk of apartheid-era cases from the TRC.

Documents before the commission show that in February 2019, former TRC commissioners Yasmin Sooka and Adv Dumisa Ntsebeza wrote a letter endorsed by TRC chair Tutu to Ramaphosa urging him to establish a commission to investigate a “shameful story of terrible neglect” and claims of political influence into the failure of prosecution of apartheid-era cases.

Ramaphosa, in an affidavit before the Khampepe commission, concedes his office received the letter and did not establish an inquiry when the request was made because there were plans by the department of justice and former National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Shamila Batohi during her tenure to resolve the prosecution delays.

“I did not accede to requests to establish a commission, because the NPA, justice ministry were committed to addressing the complaint of a delay in prosecutions and the suspicion that the delay was due to political interference in legitimate ways, other than a commission of inquiry,” Ramaphosa said.

The president established the commission in May 2025, three decades after the TRC concluded its work and referred about 300 cases for prosecution to the NPA, with only a few cases before court.

“The ministry of justice tried to find ways to address the delay complaint and the suspicion that the delay was the result of political interference by members of the government. They could not and did not do that by interfering with the prosecutorial work of the NPA. Neither did I,” Ramaphosa’s affidavit reads.

Ramaphosa argues the allegation by Cajee of ignoring pleas does not form part of the terms of reference of the commission, adding that in law he is not under a constitutional, statutory or other legal obligation to establish a commission.

“The terms of reference do not include the investigation of the allegation that I ignored pleas to have TRC cases investigated and prosecuted. As far as I am aware, no allegation has been made against me of efforts or attempts to influence or pressure the South African Police Service or NPA to stop investigating or prosecuting TRC cases,” Ramaphosa said.

TRC cases inquiry spokesperson Lionel Adendorf told Business Day that Ramaphosa has not been invited to appear before the commission yet.

“He has submitted an affidavit already and the evidence leaders do not think that there is a need for him to testify. He has not been sent any invitation,” Adendorf said.

The allegations investigated by the commission centre on the tenures of former president Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma’s ANC leadership facing claims of attending secret talks with former South African Defence Force (SADF) generals and police generals aimed at finding a mechanism to avoid prosecutions arising from apartheid human rights violation crimes.

Mbeki denied the allegations.

Former president FW de Klerk’s foundation in 2021 issued a statement in which it claimed there was “an informal agreement between the ANC leadership and former operatives of the pre-1994 government, the NPA suspended its prosecutions of apartheid-era crimes”.

In his rebuttal Ramaphosa says: “I do not know of such an agreement. As far as I am aware, there is no agreement as alleged or suspected.”

Addressing why he did not respond to letters flagging prosecution issues, Ramaphosa said “the fact that there was no response to previous letters does not mean that nothing was done to address the root cause of the concerns in those letters.”

He said action was taken by the NPA to resolve the prosecution dilemma of TRC cases when he took over as president.

“Even before Ms Batohi took over, the justice ministry had inquired from her predecessors why TRC prosecutions were taking so long. I was informed and aware that the justice ministry had inquired of the NPA about delays in prosecutions after the first letter by former TRC commissioners. The justice ministry was satisfied that the NPA was working at reducing delays and speeding up prosecutions,” Ramaphosa said.

“If I tried to influence the NPA in prioritising TRC or any other cases, or if I intervened by attempting to get the NPA to speed up their prosecutions, that could and would be seen as executive interference with the prosecutorial independence and work of the NPA.”

Business Day

1989 — Kevin Curren claims the final ATP singles title of his career, beating Petr Korda of Czechoslovakia 6-2 7-5 in the final of the Frankfurt Cup.

1996 — Jonty Rhodes scores 54 to help the Proteas to a five-wicket win over India in a triangular series ODI in Rajkot. South Africa reached the 186 target with eight balls remaining.

1999 — Shaun Pollock takes 5/39 as South Africa bowl out Zimbabwe for 192 on the opening day of a one-off Test in Bloemfontein.

2007 — Makhaya Ntini and Albie Morkel take four wickets each as the Proteas beat Pakistan by 14 runs in the final ODI in Lahore to clinch the five-match series 3-2. South Africa had scored 233/9, with Jacques Kallis hitting 86 and Herschelle Gibbs 54. Pakistan were on track for victory at 199/4, but Ntini and Morkel combined to knock over the last six wickets for 20 runs.

2010 — Lonwabo Tsotsobe takes 4/27 to help the Proteas to an eight-wicket triumph over Pakistan in the first ODI in Abu Dhabi. Jacques Kallis scored 66 and AB de Villiers 51 chasing the 204-run target.

2011 — Takalani Ndlovu makes the first defence of his IBF junior-featherweight title when he outpoints Mexican Giovanni Caro over 12 rounds in Colima, Mexico.

2017 — David Miller blasts an unbeaten 101 off 36 balls as the Proteas to beat Bangladesh by 83 runs in Potchefstroom to win the T20 series 2-0. Hashim Amla scored 85 off 51 deliveries to push South Africa to a total of 224/4.

2024 — Tony de Zorzi scores an unbeaten 141 and Tristan Stubbs 106 as South Africa finish the first day of the second Test against Bangladesh in Chattogram on 307/2.

2025 — Captain Laura Wolvaardt scores 169 off 143 balls to lift the Proteas to 319/7 on their way to beating England by 125 runs in their World Cup semifinal in Guwahati. Marizanne Kapp took 5/20, which included two early wickets with the Proteas reducing their opponents to 1/3.

2025 — Siyakholwa Kuse fades in the final rounds to lose on points his challenge against WBC strawweight champion Melvin Jerusalem in Manila, Philippines. The tournament commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Thrilla in Manila between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

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South Africa recorded close to 2.9-million cross-border traveller movements in September, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday.

The 2,883,115 arrivals, departures and transit movements consisted of 766,185 (26.6%) South African residents and 2,116, 930 (73.4%) foreign travellers.

International tourist arrivals rose 10.3% from January to September 2026, compared with the same period in 2025, primarily driven by inbound tourists from Africa and Europe.

Stats SA said a comparison between the movements in August and September indicated that, for both groups of travellers, the volumes of arrivals and transits decreased, while that of departures increased for South African residents and decreased for foreign travellers.

“For South African residents, the volume of arrivals decreased by 2.7% (from 373,843 in August 2026 to 363,887 in September 2026), departures increased by 3.5% (from 387,967 in August 2026 to 401,604 in September 2026) and transits decreased by 3.7% (from 721 in August 2026 to 694 in September 2026).

“For foreign travellers, arrivals decreased by 16.3% (from 1,304,763 in August 2026 to 1,091,441 in September 2026), departures decreased by 10.8% (from 1,090,191 in August 2026 to 972,308 in September 2026), and transits decreased by 18.4% (from 65,205 in August 2026 to 53,181 in September 2026).”

Tourists from Southern African Development Community (Sadc) countries constituted 79% (659,613) of all tourists.

Mozambique (182,751), Zimbabwe (178,966) and Lesotho (127,152) contributed 74.1% to Sadc tourists.

“Other” African countries (non-Sadc) tourists were 1.6% (13,225) of all tourists. Kenya (3,874), Ghana (2,334) and Uganda (1,759) contributed 60.2% to “other” African tourists. The country of residence of 789 (0.1%) tourists was classified as unspecified.

Overseas tourists constituted 19.4% (161,753) of all tourists.

The distribution of overseas tourists in September was: Europe, 87,865 (54.3%); North America, 32,799 (20.3%); Asia, 14,739 (9.1%); Australasia, 13,766 (8.5%); Central and South America, 8,581 (5.3%) and Middle East, 4,003 (2.5%).

The US (27,825), UK (22,305) and Germany (17,627) contributed 41.9% to overseas tourists.

Stats SA said holiday continued to be the main purpose of visit with about 97.5% of all the tourists who were in South Africa, followed by business, study and medical reasons.

A further breakdown revealed that within the overseas regions, Australasia, 99.5% (13,700) had the highest proportion of tourists who came for holiday, followed by North America, 98.6% (32,345), Central and South America, 97.9% (8,397), Europe, 97.8% (85,947), Middle East, 96.4% (3,859) and Asia, 93.1% (13,726).

Asia, 5.6% (821) had the highest proportion of tourists who came to South Africa for business, followed by Middle East, 2.6% (104), Central and South America, 1.8% (154), Europe, 1.7% (1,507), North America, 1.2% (389) and Australasia, 0.4% (57).

“Asia, 1.2% (184) had the highest proportion of tourists who came to study, followed by Middle East, 1.0% (40); Europe, 0.4% (385); Central and South America, 0.3% (26); North America, 0.2% (59) and Australasia, (5) with less than 0.1% of the tourists.”

Asia, 0.1% (8) had the highest proportion of tourists who came for medical treatment, followed by Europe (26), North America (6), Central and South America (4) and Australasia (4), with each having less than 0.1% of tourists who came for medical treatment. Middle East had none.

TimesLIVE

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By Andrew Osborn

President Vladimir Putin told African leaders on Wednesday that Russia was their best partner, accusing what he cast as a colonial West of still trying to exploit the continent’s resources and using debt to hold back development.

The Kremlin chief was speaking at the third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow, a two-day event attended by African leaders and government delegations from 48 countries, during which he will hold one-on-one talks with many of the 22 individual African leaders attending on everything from trade to security, arms deals and grain supplies.

The event, first held in 2019, is part of a concerted push for Russian political, economic and military influence on a continent where paramilitary fighters from Russia’s Africa Corps remain active, as Russian state media and cultural institutions try to expand their footprint in Africa, and as Russian state companies try to expand their interests in everything from mining to power generation.

Counterbalancing Western powers

Wooing African leaders and others from the Global South has also been an important part of Moscow’s strategy to counterbalance pressure on the world stage from the West over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“Africa is increasingly asserting itself as one of the key players in the global economy and politics. However, the emergence of a multipolar world is, of course, no easy task; it faces resistance from countries that are not prepared to accept this reality: those who are accustomed to thinking in terms of their colonial past and to enriching themselves fabulously,” Putin, whom Western critics regularly accuse of trying to leverage Africa’s colonial past to Moscow’s own benefit, told the summit.

He did not name the countries he had in mind, but went on to speak about what he called “active attempts by Western countries” to drive Africans back into debt bondage and to force them to accept much-needed financial resources on predatory terms, which he said slowed their long-term development.

By contrast, Putin said Russia was ready to share its know-how, including digital know-how, and localise production rather than just buy raw materials.

“Our business does not engage in the predatory, neo-colonial exploitation of natural and human resources, but rather expands the processing of raw materials locally, thereby creating new jobs and generating tax revenue,” said Putin, whose paramilitary forces have been accused by Western governments of propping up military juntas like the one in Mali to try to shore up Moscow’s own geopolitical influence and squeeze out former colonial powers like France — claims Moscow rejects.

Putin told the summit that Russia championed greater African influence in the IMF and World Bank, was ready to embark on joint transport and agricultural infrastructure projects and that a record number of Africans — around 40,000 — were currently studying at Russian universities.

Moscow also stood ready to supply grain and fertiliser to more than the 40 African countries which currently get them, added Putin, saying Russia had supplied 13-million tonnes of agricultural products to Africa in the first nine months of this year alone.

Reuters

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Many matric candidates had to be redirected to alternative exam centres on Wednesday after minibus taxi-related shootings and gang violence in parts of Cape Town raised safety concerns for pupils travelling to write their final exams.

The violence was reported in Delft, Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Mfuleni and Gugulethu, disrupting public transport and prompting heightened security measures as thousands of candidates sat the national senior certificate English exam.

Western Cape education MEC Jaco Londt said the Western Cape education department had activated its security structures and alerted exam centres across the metro to monitor candidates’ arrival.

Centres were instructed to contact candidates who had not arrived and, where safety or transport challenges prevented them from reaching their registered venues, advise them to report to the nearest exam centre as an emergency alternative.

“Candidates who experience circumstances beyond their control are allowed up to an hour after the commencement of the exam to arrive and be admitted to the exam venue,” Londt said.

The violence had raised serious concerns about the safety of pupils and their ability to reach exam centres.

Delft SAPS opened two attempted murder cases and a case of discharging a firearm after a shooting involving minibus taxi drivers at Palm taxi rank at about 7am on Wednesday.

Police spokesperson Thembakazi Mpendukana said two adult men were wounded in the shooting and transported to hospital in a private vehicle.

“No arrest has been made yet, and the investigation is ongoing,” she said.

Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town temporarily closed the Delft public transport interchange as violence between rival minibus taxi associations escalated.

Urban mobility MMC Rob Quintas condemned the latest outbreak, saying it was rooted in longstanding disputes over taxi routes and operating rights.

“Reports indicate violence has also spread to Mfuleni and Gugulethu,” Quintas said.

The disputes between the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association and the Congress of Democratic Taxi Associations had persisted despite years of mediation, negotiations and high court intervention.

The latest tensions centre on contested routes between Delft, Epping and Killarney, with concerns that the violence could spread to other major commuter corridors.

“Thousands of passengers depend on these services every day, and the consequences of further escalation would be devastating. These disputes must be resolved through lawful processes and meaningful engagement, not intimidation, shootings and bloodshed,” Quintas said.

The city said it was monitoring the situation and had deployed resources to protect commuters and public transport infrastructure.

Quintas warned that further violence could leave thousands of commuters without reliable transport to work, school and other essential destinations.

“It is a disgrace that innocent people endure the disruption and trauma of warring taxi bodies,” he said.

Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the city was providing full policing support to the SAPS, with metro police officers responding alongside national police to incidents in Delft, Khayelitsha, Mfuleni and Gugulethu.

He said the city was also making safety camera footage and surveillance technology available to assist investigations.

“Our officers are maintaining a heightened presence in the vicinity of various public transport interchanges to protect commuters and monitor the situation,” Hill-Lewis said.

He called on taxi industry leaders to end the violence and ensure peace, warning that commuters should not have to bear the consequences of disputes in the industry.

The city said it would keep commuters informed of changes to the operational status of public transport facilities as the situation developed.

TimesLIVE

You will need 2 springform cake tins, each 20cm in diameter

• 100g soft butter, plus extra for the cake tins
• 275g of sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 200g of flour
• 75g of cocoa powder
• 2 tsp of baking powder
• 125ml of brewed, cooled Jacobs freeze-dried instant coffee
• 125ml of milk
• Vanilla extract

For the buttercream

• 125g of cold butter, diced
• 25g of cocoa powder
• 125g powdered sugar
• 2-3 tbsp of milk
• quality dark chocolate for garnishing

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease the cake tins and cover the bottom with baking paper. Beat the butter and sugar with a whisk until frothy.
2. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing each egg thoroughly before adding the next one. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into a second bowl. Stir in the cooled coffee, milk and vanilla essence in a third bowl.
3. While stirring, add the flour and the coffee mixture to the butter-egg mixture and mix everything into a smooth dough. Fill the dough into the two cake tins.
4. Bake the cakes at 180°C in the oven until golden brown, about 30-35 minutes. The cakes are ready when they spring back to light finger pressure and no dough sticks to a thin stick when pushed into the cake.
5. Remove from the oven, allow to cool in the cake tins for a few minutes, then remove and allow to cool on cooling trays.
6. For the buttercream, melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Add the cocoa powder and simmer for 1-2 minutes stirring, then remove from heat and let cool slightly.
7. Add the powdered sugar to the cocoa butter and mix thoroughly. Stir in the milk one tablespoon at a time until a smooth, shiny mass has formed, allowing it to cool (it will thicken).
8. Spread half of the buttercream onto one of the cakes. Put the other cake on top, and spread the rest of the cream onto the second cake.
9. Last, use a peeler or grater to remove pieces from the chocolate. Garnish the cake with the chocolate shavings.

Store: This cake will remain fresh for 4-5 days if stored correctly in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

TimesLIVE

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Clicks Group CEO Bertina Engelbrecht is steering the retailer beyond its traditional pharmacy roots, betting on specialist health care, medical consumables and the fast-growing GLP-1 weight-loss market to drive its next phase of growth.

The health and beauty retailer, which increased its pharmacy market share to 24.7% and now operates 835 pharmacies and 225 clinics, is building new growth platforms through specialist pharmacy services, digital health care and adjacent categories as it seeks to diversify earnings and strengthen its position in South Africa’s increasingly competitive health-care market.

Among the biggest opportunities, according to Engelbrecht, is the rapid growth of GLP-1 medicines, which are used to treat diabetes and are increasingly prescribed for weight management.

Patients pay between R2,000 and R3,000 a month for these treatments, limiting access for many consumers. Engelbrecht believes broader adoption will follow once generic alternatives receive regulatory approval and prices fall.

“When the price dies down significantly, let’s say to 30% maybe, over the two-to-three-year period, then you’ll get more people using it specifically for weight loss,” she said.

“So I think in the short term that [GLP-1] is the biggest opportunity.”

The opportunity extends beyond simply dispensing medication. Clicks is assessing how its growing network of health-care services, including weight-management clinics, can support customers using GLP-1 treatments and create additional revenue streams through ongoing care and monitoring.

The retailer also sees significant long-term potential in specialist health care, particularly oncology.

“Oncology is a large and growing market, and we have got almost 0% exposure to that market,” Engelbrecht said. “Anything that we do with it is going to be accretive for us.”

The move forms part of Clicks’ strategy of expanding across the health-care value chain through specialist pharmacy business UniCare. The group currently operates five UniCare pharmacies and believes the network can eventually grow to between 15 and 20 sites. UniCare is also expected to underpin services such as 24-hour medicine delivery and specialist pharmacy support.

Another growth engine is emerging through pharmaceutical wholesaler UPD following its acquisition of medical consumables distributor Mr First Aid.

The business supplies hospitals with products such as medical-grade gloves, masks, plasters and other consumables, providing Clicks with access to an estimated R8bn market. Beyond hospitals, the group sees opportunities in mining, industrial and workplace health-care settings.

“If you think about mining companies in South Africa, they’ve got huge clinics, for example, and so there are opportunities for us to go into mining, factories and industrials,” Engelbrecht said.

The acquisition enables Clicks to leverage UPD’s distribution network while expanding into health-care segments that are less constrained by medicine pricing regulations. Medical consumables are particularly attractive because the market remains highly fragmented and offers consolidation opportunities.

Digital health care is another pillar of the group’s strategy.

Clicks is trialling an on-demand pharmacy service that allows customers to order over-the-counter medicines for delivery rather than travelling to a store. The company already delivers about 10,000 prescription orders a week and is using the pilot to refine operational and regulatory processes ahead of a wider rollout.

The group aims to increase online sales from less than 2% of turnover currently to about 10% over the medium term.

While health care remains the primary focus, Clicks is also pursuing selective opportunities beyond South Africa. The group has secured a master franchise agreement for Botswana and is close to finalising a similar arrangement in Mauritius. Interest has also emerged from Zimbabwean entrepreneurs looking to expand the Sorbet beauty brand into that market.

“The brand is incredibly well known in the rest of Africa, and I think it has legs to grow,” Engelbrecht said.

Clicks is also looking to extract greater value from its beauty portfolio, which includes The Body Shop, Sorbet and ARC. Engelbrecht said The Body Shop had faced challenges after ownership changes at its international parent company but was showing signs of recovery as new product innovation returned.

“It has an incredibly loyal customer base,” she said. “The really important thing is [that] innovation drives footfall traffic in the beauty range.”

Business Times

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He might not possess the charisma and larger-than-life persona of predecessors such as Trevor Manuel and Tito Mboweni, but finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s tenure is proving to be one of the most consequential in South Africa’s democratic history.

Appointed to the role in August 2021, Godongwana has drawn both praise and scorn for his stewardship of the country’s fiscal policy.

Coming from the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, which brought the economy to a halt, Godongwana took over a Treasury presiding over spiralling public debt.

In his maiden medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS) speech in November 2021, Godongwana focused on navigating economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic and the July civil unrest while restoring public finance sustainability.

“The scarring impact of the [Covid] crisis is evident in increased debt levels, income vulnerabilities, while unemployment, poverty and inequality are deepening. This is a crisis like no other!” he said in his maiden speech, with the market and pundits still sizing him up.

Six years later, Godongwana has defined his path: to stick to fiscal consolidation even as his former constituency, labour and the SACP, express their dissatisfaction at the austerity measures the Treasury has embarked on.

He restrained government spending, tackled excessive debt levels and gradually restored fiscal credibility by navigating economic headwinds in a balanced way that steadily won the confidence of the markets and business.

The fiscal consolidation path is beginning to yield results. South Africa achieved its first primary budget surplus in 15 years for the 2023/24 fiscal year — the first time since the 2008 global financial crisis.

This was followed up by the first consecutive (back-to-back) primary surplus in 16 years, posting R48.9bn (0.7% of GDP) for the fiscal year ending March 2025.

Rating agencies have taken note. Major ones have upgraded South Africa’s sovereign credit rating over the past year, marking the country’s first rating boosts in more than a decade.

In the case of S&P, the upgrade was the first in nearly 20 years.

It is against this background that Godongwana this week tabled his sixth MTBPS — 30 years after the first by Manuel in the full democracy era.

The MBPS showed debt stabilising at 78.4% of GDP in 2025/26 for the first time in nearly two decades — with a narrowing budget deficit and growing primary surplus.

This progress supports the prospect of further upgrades to South Africa’s sovereign credit ratings — with getting the country back at the investment rate being the ultimate test of the success of the reforms.

Prof Raymond Parsons from the North-West University Business School said Godongwana had equipped himself well since his appointment as finance minister, having earned the respect of business and market participants.

“Assessing Godongwana’s track record since 2021 reveals nuanced, mixed accomplishments, with the balance nonetheless well on the positive side. The latest MTBPS especially confirms the significant milestones in fiscal stability now achieved under his stewardship at the National Treasury,” Parsons said.

“Godongwana’s tenure over the past five years has offered steady leadership, which, with the exception of the unfortunate controversy and delayed budgets around the VAT issue last year [2025], has indeed steered South Africa away from the brink of extreme fiscal fragility following on state capture and the pandemic.

“We must therefore appreciate the extent to which Godongwana has in recent years been a crucial stabilising force during a volatile macroeconomic era. During his sojourn at the National Treasury, Godongwana has shown himself to be an excellent ‘crisis manager’ when it was most needed.”

It is not mission accomplished yet for Godongwana. South Africa’s economy is still growing at a painfully slow pace, while unemployment rose to 33.6% in the second quarter of 2026 — the highest since the second quarter of 2022.

The infrastructure backlog in key areas such as logistics and water has been a great impediment, while servicing public debt continues to crowd out investment in key areas. The country spends R1.2bn a day servicing its more than R3-trillion debt pile — at the risk of bequeathing future generations with debt.

Johann Els, chief economist at PSG Financial Services, said while there is a long way to go, a lot of progress has been made in the past five years in improving South Africa’s public finances.

He credited the unflinching support President Cyril Ramaphosa has given to Godongwana and his team with making progress possible — the next challenges are speeding up the implementation of the economic reforms, which have found expression in Operation Vulindlela.

“He has been an excellent minister of finance. He understands clearly the need to fix the fiscal situation. Treasury through Operation Vulindlela has also made it easier for the private sector to be involved in the economy,” Els said.

Godongwana in 2025 backed the move to lower South Africa’s inflation target to 3% with a tolerance range of 1 percentage point — creating an operational range of 2% to 4%. It was the first time in 25 years the target was changed.

In what will be a historic fiscal policy moment, Godongwana this week unveiled a proposal for a fiscal anchor, which will legally entrench fiscal discipline.

South Africa has not historically had a formal, binding fiscal anchor, though it relied on broad policy targets and procedural rules.

Business Times

The country could expand domestic automotive manufacturing by producing more replacement parts locally, it said. South Africa imported R107.5bn worth of replacement parts in 2025, highlighting the potential to retain more value locally while supporting jobs and strengthening supply chains.

Henk Ferreira, COO of the RMI, said a Localisation Support Fund study released this year identified lead acid batteries, automotive glass and brake pads as the strongest opportunities. Together, the three categories represent an aftermarket worth more than R4bn annually, with established local manufacturers already in place.

Imported windscreens incur additional costs from breakages in transit, adding close to 6% to landed costs, while the weight of batteries makes them expensive to transport over long distances, Ferreira said.

A second tier of localisation opportunities includes wear-and-tear components such as filters, exhausts, shock absorbers, radiators and clutches. Demand for these products is supported by South Africa’s ageing vehicle parc and the need for routine maintenance and repairs.

More complex products, including electronics, sensors, engine internals and model-specific body panels, are less practical localisation targets, he said.

“Ultimately, RMI workshops, panel beaters, parts retailers and dealers must offer products that meet customers’ budgets while maintaining appropriate quality and safety standards,” Ferreira said.

Henk Ferreira, Retail Motor Industry Organisation COO

However, local manufacturing capacity does not necessarily translate into competitiveness. South African brake pad manufacturers already supply the original equipment market, but the independent aftermarket has increasingly shifted towards imported alternatives that can be 20% to 30% cheaper.

“Ultimately, RMI workshops, panel beaters, parts retailers and dealers must offer products that meet customers’ budgets while maintaining appropriate quality and safety standards,” Ferreira said.

The RMI believes manufacturing incentives should be extended to the aftermarket, alongside consistent enforcement of quality standards to address substandard and counterfeit imports.

Such measures would help create a more competitive environment for local manufacturers, support employment and strengthen supply chains while protecting consumers, Ferreira said.

At this week’s Automechanika Johannesburg, deputy minister of trade, industry and competition John Steenhuisen highlighted the aftermarket’s substantial economic contribution and the potential to expand local production of replacement parts and reduce reliance on imports.

He said the retail and aftermarket economy traded about R933bn in 2025, contributed R202.6bn to GDP and supported more than 310,000 jobs — about 70% of total automotive employment.

The sector encompasses more than 23,000 businesses, most of them small and medium-sized enterprises. He also highlighted its potential to drive job creation, exports and technical skills development.

South Africa has about 31% fewer qualified automotive artisans than in 2009, despite an increase in apprenticeships

Steenhuisen said the review of the automotive production and development programme (APDP2) should consider the wider automotive ecosystem, including businesses that maintain and repair vehicles throughout their useful lives. The aftermarket therefore represents a substantial source of demand for replacement parts beyond the original equipment supply chain.

South Africa has about 13-million vehicles on its roads, about 76% of which are outside their warranty period, according to Steenhuisen.

“The opportunity therefore is not limited to the roughly 600,000 vehicles produced annually. Localisation must extend beyond the factory gate to include the businesses that keep South Africans moving every day.”

Steenhuisen said the opportunity extended beyond complete vehicles and original equipment components to replacement parts, remanufactured products and specialised services, with potential to expand exports into African markets.

He identified the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as a significant opportunity for industrial growth, pointing to growing demand across Southern Africa for affordable replacement parts, remanufactured components, technical expertise and aftermarket services.

The RMI said that developing future-ready skills was essential to the industry’s ability to adapt.

The shift to electric and hybrid vehicles and increasingly sophisticated technology is raising demand for specialised automotive skills. However, South Africa has about 31% fewer qualified automotive artisans than in 2009, despite an increase in apprenticeships.

The RMI says closer collaboration between industry, government, merSETA and training institutions is needed to strengthen training and ensure technicians can safely service and repair increasingly complex vehicles.

“The goal is not simply training more people. It is building deeper technical capability,” said Ferreira.

Business Day

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By Casey Hall

Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe’s rapid fall from favour in China after remarks about Mao Zedong followed a familiar pattern: online outrage, corporate distancing, platform restrictions and official intervention.

Within 24 hours of a podcast clip surfacing in which the France captain referred to Mao as “some guy — I think he’s a Chinese dictator”, sponsors including Mengniu Dairy, Shanghai Milkground and energy drink-maker Eastroc ended cooperation with the footballer.

State broadcaster CCTV removed Mbappe-related advertising and Chinese social media platforms restricted access to his accounts. Mbappe apologised on Tuesday, describing his remarks as “ill-judged”.

The speed of the fallout will be familiar to companies, brands and celebrities with exposure to China. Analysts say the episode is the latest reminder of a business risk that remains difficult to manage despite years of similar controversies.

Foreign brands have repeatedly faced public backlash in China, from Dolce & Gabbana’s cancelled Shanghai fashion show in 2018 and apologies by Versace, LVMH-owned Dior and Tapestry’s Coach in 2019, to boycotts of H&M, Nike and Adidas over Xinjiang cotton and the NBA’s fallout with CCTV after a Houston Rockets executive expressed support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

The details differ, but the pattern is similar: a remark, image or statement gains traction online, commercial partners come under pressure to respond, and reputational damage quickly outgrows the original offence.

“You don’t need to think like a Chinese person to succeed in China, but you do need to understand how Chinese audiences will react and the cultural implications of not self-policing,” said Michael MacRitchie, founder of MGI Group, which connects global celebrities with Chinese brands.

A matter of respect

A central question in such episodes is how much of the backlash reflects genuine public anger and how much is amplified by state media, online platforms and official actors.

The Mbappe case illustrates how difficult that distinction can be to draw. As the controversy unfolded, the original comments about Mao were largely inaccessible on China’s heavily censored internet. Many consumers were therefore exposed less to what Mbappe said than to reports that sponsors had dropped him and official media were condemning him.

“What we’ve had in this situation is to a certain extent a manufactured outrage,” said Mark Dreyer, a sports analyst and author of Sporting Superpower, a book about China’s sporting ambitions.

Even so, Dreyer said it would be unwise for leagues, clubs and athletes to underestimate the reaction such incidents can provoke.

“They can’t be seen to be giving a stated directive to their players not to say anything that could offend China,” he said. “Of course, behind the scenes, I’m sure people are being told, just be careful, be sensible, be aware that these sorts of reactions can happen.”

When it goes well, everybody celebrates,. But when you get [China] wrong, it can be extraordinarily painful and swift in its retribution.

Zak Dychtwald, founder of BridgeWorks Global

Zak Dychtwald, founder of BridgeWorks Global, which advises multinational organisations, said that although these controversies remain relatively common, they are preventable.

“If you are participating in this market, the expectation is that you respect China’s self-narrative and you have a basic understanding of what it is. Red line education should come at the foundation of it,” he said.

Another challenge for brands, leagues and celebrities, however, is that while China’s political and cultural red lines are broadly understood, they are rarely clearly defined. That uncertainty can encourage companies and commercial partners to distance themselves from controversial figures before the scale of any offence has been fully established.

“There is no rule in black and white for what crosses a line,” said Wei Kan, founder of consultancy Conduit Asia. The line shifts depending on “how consumers feel, the wider mood in society, and how platforms and media amplify a story”, he said.

For foreign businesses, China’s sensitivities should no longer come as a surprise. Yet analysts say political and cultural risks are still often treated as secondary considerations rather than routine commercial hazards.

MacRitchie said his firm includes behavioural and reputational clauses in endorsement contracts; others point to market-specific briefings, media training and crisis-response planning as increasingly necessary safeguards rather than optional precautions.

“When it goes well, everybody celebrates,” Dychtwald said. “But when you get [China] wrong, it can be extraordinarily painful and swift in its retribution.”

Reuters

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Scorpio Rising

Deon Meyer

Macmillan

“Benny Griessel is back. And this time it’s personal,” South Africa’s doyen of crime fiction, Deon Meyer, says of the return of his grizzled, perceptive detective.

Making his ninth appearance in Scorpio Rising, the alcoholic Griessel remains sober, is married to a “wonderful woman”, and is facing his next challenge: repairing his relationship with his son, Fritz, who distanced himself from Griessel when he was in the throes of his drinking days.

" I think that was one of the main themes that I had in mind when I started developing the story," says Meyer of exploring father-son dynamics and making Fritz and his physical safety central to the storyline.

“I don’t think in terms of plots and subplots,” adds Meyer. “I think in terms of story. I want to tell the general gist of the story: there are murders happening. Why are they happening? Who is perpetrating those murders?”

And Scorpio Rising has storylines aplenty ...

Think arson. International political powerplay. Tech warfare. Missiles. Drones. Assassinations. Deceit. Surveillance. An (ego)maniacal Russian filmmaker. Murder.

And it is the suspected murder of a private eye, Brandon “Skinny” Maarman, which draws Griessel’s trusted partner, the quick-witted, aphorism-heavy, fashion-conscious, extroverted and astute Vaughn Cupido into the personalised storytelling. For Cupido knew Skinny, and is highly sceptical that his being crushed under a BMW is the suicide that official reports are making it out to be.

 “This is the first time Vaughn has been in a situation where he’s lost someone very close to him,” Meyer elaborates. “When I first wrote the scene of where Vaughn reacts, when he gets the news about Skinny’s death, I’ve never seen Vaughn being so touched and so upset by a death that he has to investigate. I try with every book to challenge myself to do something that I’ve never done before, and in this case, it’s something that Vaughn has never done before.”

I try with every book to challenge myself to do something that I’ve never done before ...

Deon Meyer

Whereas a personal attachment to the deceased is a first for Cupido, revealing and unravelling conspiracies which extend beyond South Africa’s political and geographical border is nothing new for Cupido and Griessel, with the events of Scorpio Rising skopping af shortly before an international Brics/security summit is due to begin in Stellenbosch.

And da, there is Russian foul play ...

The original idea for the book came to Meyer in 2010 when South Africa was hosting the Fifa World Cup. “We had lots of international luminaries and state leaders coming to South Africa, and I thought how interesting would it be if Benny and Vaughn uncovered a plot in which there was plan to assassinate one of the foreign statesmen.”

Meyer concedes that he couldn’t make the plotline work because the technology of 16 years ago wouldn’t allow it.

Enter 2026, when drones reign supreme, and the investigations the two detectives are conducting become intertwined with a sophisticated Russian plot orchestrated by a shadowy entity code-named Scorpio.

“If you just look at the Russian-Ukrainian war, drones are playing a huge role and I became more and more aware of what is possible. Then I had to go research it because you still have to keep it real. One of my favourite English words is verisimilitude,” Meyer grins. “It’s got to feel like reality and I think that’s the challenge in crime fiction. So I had to do a lot of research on everything from drones to missiles.”

Sketching Russia as an antagonist doesn’t hold much personal bearing to Benny: “I think he doesn’t like bad guys and whatever nationality the bad guys are, he’s out to get them.”

For Meyer it’s a different story. “I have a much more complicated view of Russia. I am very much against the war on Ukraine. And I think Russians are a little bit crazy,” he wryly laughs. “The few Russian people that I know and have met all over the world are lovely people. But Russia is not a democracy, it’s a state run by criminals.”

Meyer adds that it’s difficult to discuss his latest Griessel novel without revealing spoilers, but offers readers a glimpse into the crux of the book: “The basis of the Scorpio Rising story is rooted in something that actually happened in which Russians were involved,” he hints. “So, per definition, in terms of this book, that makes them the bad guys.”

Meyer extensively explores South Africa’s socio-political climate throughout his Griessel novels yet doesn’t regard the flawed detective as someone who comments on socio-economic or political issues: “I don’t think he’s got a specific view on politics, unless it has an influence on his work.”

The opposite rings true for Cupido: “Vaughn is much more outspoken, and extremely proud about the police, and I think for Vaughn, everything that’s happening in the police in terms of corruption and bad management is much worse than it is for Benny,” Meyer emphasises. “Benny, being an alcoholic, is always just so grateful that he’s still got a job and doesn’t really concern himself with politics or the socioeconomic situation in the country. Whoever the killer or the bad guy, he will do his best to find them.

“I think one of the grave damages of writing, especially South African fiction in general and crime fiction, is that you try and put your own ideology into the book as an author,” he says. “I think that’s very dangerous. I don’t think that all the characters will think and act the same. So I try to be honest in terms of allowing every character — according to their background and their worldview — to comment on what’s happening, either in the country or in the police force or in politics.”

Technology transcends into the pseudoscience sphere, with Meyer quoting the traits of a Scorpio before the first chapter. But with Griessel being born on March 21, makes him an Aries. Is he at all aware of this astrological feat?

“Benny doesn’t care about these things,” comes Meyer’s response, with a chuckle. “But Vaughn will!”

An astrology app Griessel may not possess but his acumen as a bobaas detective remains rising.

The latest RMB “Where to Invest in Africa” report, published on Tuesday, puts Morocco in fourth place, pushing South Africa into fifth. Seychelles retains the top spot, followed by Mauritius and Egypt.

The study identifies Morocco’s industrial transformation as a key driver of its improved ranking, with vehicle production having doubled since 2015.

“Morocco’s figures point to sustained industrial momentum and rising external confidence, while South Africa’s point to a mature industrial base contending with weaker demand, trade headwinds and capital reversal,” the report reads.

“Morocco surpasses South Africa to emerge as the highest-ranked industrial economy in Africa over the coverage period, reflecting sustained industrial upgrading, export diversification and effective implementation of strategic industrial policies.

“While South Africa remains a continental industrial powerhouse, it continues to experience a steady decline in industrial competitiveness … Morocco’s growth story over the past year has been defined by acceleration; South Africa’s by slow recovery from prior structural constraints.”

A pragmatic path will likely require flexible manufacturing across internal combustion engine, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle technologies while the market evolves

Paul Cooke, Investec

To improve the car manufacturing industry, minister of trade, industry & competition Parks Tau said this month that the country will phase out semi-knocked-down vehicle assembly, warning that if Africa’s most industrialised economy does not build the vehicles that markets such as Europe will buy, the country will lose those markets.

The EU is the largest export destination for South Africa’s automotive industry, absorbing roughly two-thirds of all vehicles built in the country. However, the EU is facing an accelerated consumer shift to new hybrid technologies.

South Africa’s automotive master plan has set a target of increasing the percentage of locally manufactured component content from current levels (around 38%–42%) to 60%.

Paul Cooke, from Investec’s corporate and investment banking franchise, said the new-energy vehicle (NEV) transition for South Africa is now an industrial imperative.

“As demand shifts towards cleaner vehicle technologies, South Africa needs to secure a share of their production. With Europe and the UK enforcing stricter carbon measures and zero-emission requirements, failure to gear local production towards NEVs risks eroding established export markets while increasing reliance on imported vehicles,” Cooke said in a note.

“A pragmatic path will likely require flexible manufacturing across internal combustion engine, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle technologies while the market evolves.”

A recent report by global accounting and advisory firm PKF found that while South Africa retains important competitive strengths, including established investment by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and an extensive component-supplier network, the country will require co-ordinated action among government, manufacturers, infrastructure providers and the wider automotive ecosystem to retain these attributes.

South Africa’s automotive industry remains one of the country’s strongest examples of globally integrated manufacturing. It has the potential to play an even greater role in exports, investment and employment

Ziyaad Moosa, PKF Johannesburg

The firm said priority areas for South Africa include:

• accelerating localisation;
• improving the reliability and cost competitiveness of electricity and freight logistics;
• securing future vehicle production mandates;
• developing NEV manufacturing capabilities; and
• strengthening the domestic supplier base.

Ziyaad Moosa, a partner at PKF Johannesburg, said South Africa faces growing competition from automotive manufacturing hubs such as Morocco, Thailand and Mexico, which are aggressively vying for international production mandates.

“The decisions made over the next few years will determine whether the country attracts the next generation of automotive investment or gradually loses production volumes, export opportunities and industrial capacity to competing markets,” says Moosa.

“South Africa’s automotive industry remains one of the country’s strongest examples of globally integrated manufacturing. It has the potential to play an even greater role in exports, investment and employment.

“But this opportunity comes with a narrowing window of opportunity. The industry needs more than ambitious targets. It needs a competitive operating environment, faster policy execution, and the confidence of global manufacturers to commit their next generation of investment to South Africa.”

Isaah Mhlanga, chief economist at RMB, told Business Day that Morocco’s move above South Africa is best understood as a growth momentum story. Industrialisation, export diversification, infrastructure investment and macroeconomic stability have strengthened Morocco’s position.

“It’s not that South Africa has been contracting, no. It has been growing positively, but at a slower pace compared to a fast-growing Morocco, hence the overtaking of South Africa,” he said.

“Part of the story there is economic growth. Morocco has been growing at close to 5% for the last couple of years. South Africa has been stuck at 1% for the last decade. This year we’re still expecting 1%, and next year we’re expecting 1%.”

Morocco has been industrialising. Its proximity to Europe has meant that it can attract a lot of the automotive sectors that produce at low cost for exporting into the European market

Isaah Mhlanga, RMB

The investment bank said South Africa remains a significant investment market, supported by deep financial markets, improving reform delivery and substantial shock-absorbing capacity, but slower growth continues to place pressure on its ranking.

“There are some visible aspects, from a sector perspective, where you can actually see this happening in real time,” said Mhlanga. “Take the automotive sector. Morocco has been industrialising. Its proximity to Europe has meant that it can attract a lot of the automotive sectors that produce at low cost for exporting into the European market.”

He said the likes of Nissan had left South Africa to go to Morocco “precisely because they’ve been doing the right reforms to encourage investments into the automotive sector. We have been seeing the large established automotive manufacturers in the domestic market suffering and reducing prices when competing with the Chinese brands that are cheaper.”

Mhlanga also noted that the energy issues that South Africa had experienced in recent years due to load-shedding contributed to increasing the cost of doing business in the local market.

Another key sector in which Morocco is outperforming South Africa is tourism, with the RMB report noting that Morocco recorded 19.8-million arrivals in 2025 and receipts of about $13bn.

The African country is set for further tourism boosts as it co-hosts the 2030 Fifa World Cup with Spain and Portugal, with the country targeting 26-million annual tourists by the end of the decade.

“South Africa’s tourism recovery, while positive — a record 10.5-million international tourist arrivals in 2025, up 17.7% on 2024 — lacks a demand catalyst of comparable scale.”

South Africa has set a target of welcoming 15-million international visitors by 2030. Morocco and South Africa were on par a decade ago, both welcoming about 10-million visitors a year, while Tunisia was a distant third with 5.7-million.

The Operation Vulindlela progress report, which covers the period from April to August, notes that the country has made significant progress in areas such as visa reform. The report states that half of the reforms in this area have been met, and the rest are on track to meet their objectives.

Some of the achievements include the introduction of:

• the trusted tour operator scheme;
• the trusted employer scheme;
• electronic travel authorisation; and
• the meetings, exhibitions, events and tourism scheme.

Business Day

The controversy follows council chair Norman Arendse’s decision to make two reports by retired judges investigating complaints against council members public, before withdrawing them and apologising to those negatively affected by their publication.

In a statement, Moshabela welcomed the withdrawal of the reports and the apology but warned that removing the documents could not undo the damage caused by information that may already have been read, downloaded or shared.

“For the people concerned, the harm is real, and it continues. Over the past few days I have heard from many colleagues, students and alumni who are distressed by what has happened. Their concern is justified,” he said.

The reports followed a special UCT council meeting on October 18, at which members considered investigations into complaints lodged against certain council members by fellow members and people outside the governing body.

According to a statement by Arendse, the complaints were lodged between March 15 and October 18 2025, and included allegations of offensive behaviour, omissions and non-disclosure of information during meetings, abuse of a social media platform and statements made at a public event.

Council referred three complaints to retired Supreme Court of Appeal judge Malcolm Wallis and the remaining complaints to retired deputy president of the Supreme Court of Appeal judge Mahomed Navsa for independent investigation.

Arendse said the reports found that only two council members had contravened the council’s code of conduct. Navsa recommended that one member be expelled from council and that the other be suspended for six months.

The reports were subsequently made public before being withdrawn. Council then issued a formal apology to individuals who had been negatively affected by their disclosure.

No member of our community should be put in that position. I am deeply sorry for what [Professor Mohamed Paleker, dean of UCT’s Faculty of Law] has experienced.

Professor Mosa Moshabela, vice-chancellor

Moshabela said one of the reports contained confidential information relating to the process that led to the appointment of Prof Mohamed Paleker as dean of UCT’s faculty of law, including comments made during selection committee discussions and council deliberations.

He said council had an important responsibility to be transparent about the university’s governance, and that the university community had a legitimate interest in understanding how complaints against members of its governing body were investigated and what the findings were.

“I do not question that principle, nor do I question the work of the judges who conducted these investigations,” he said.

However, he said transparency had to be balanced with the protection of confidential information and the people affected by its disclosure.

“The public interest in these investigations did not remove the need to protect personal information about people who were not under investigation,” he said, adding that adequate safeguards, including careful redaction and consideration for those named in the reports, were necessary.

Moshabela specifically addressed the inclusion of information about Paleker, stressing that the dean was not the subject of either investigation and that his appointment was not under scrutiny.

“I remain fully confident in that recommendation and stand unequivocally behind his appointment as dean. He has my complete confidence and support,” he said.

Moshabela, who chaired the selection committee that recommended Paleker’s appointment, said the dean had served UCT for 26 years and made significant contributions as a legal academic, scholar and practitioner.

He said confidential deliberations about Paleker’s appointment had entered the public domain in circumstances unrelated to any investigation into his conduct or suitability for office.

“No member of our community should be put in that position. I am deeply sorry for what he has experienced.”

Questions have also emerged about the authority and process behind the publication of the reports and the subsequent apology.

People familiar with the matter have alleged that council agreed the reports would be published only after those mentioned had been given an opportunity to comment, with their responses released simultaneously. They say neither condition was met.

They further allege that neither of Arendse’s communications of October 20 and 23 was circulated to council members before publication, and that the chair neither sought nor received council’s permission to apologise on behalf of the governing body and its individual members.

The allegations raise questions about whether the publication and apology followed council’s agreed process, and whether the chair acted with the authority of the governing body.

However, UCT has defended its communications protocol, saying council members are not notified of or involved in approving statements issued by the chair on council’s behalf before publication.

Asked whether council stood by the apology and the manner in which the reports were released, and whether further action was being considered, UCT spokesperson Elijah Moholola said the matter was under consideration within the university’s appropriate structures.

“UCT is therefore not in a position to comment further at this stage. The university will provide further information when appropriate,” he said.

Moholola said communications issued by the chair on behalf of council were handled in accordance with established protocol, under which council members were neither notified nor involved in the approval process before publication.

Commenting on Moshabela’s letter, Moholola said the vice-chancellor was the university’s chief executive officer, responsible for executive matters and the institution’s day-to-day leadership.

“Accordingly, the letter should be understood in the context of his executive responsibilities,” he said.

Meanwhile, a petition calling for Arendse to step down as UCT council chair has also been circulating, with more than 1,600 signatures reported.

Story audio is generated using AI

Two dogs are dead and his children have had to hide from a swarm of bees, but Germiston dad Mathys Kruger still cannot get his neighbour to move the hive.

His neighbour, Graham Findlay, owner of the hive, insists his bees are staying where they have happily lived for years before Kruger moved in a year or so ago.

Shortly after noon on Wednesday September 23, the day before Heritage Day, Kruger received a message from his daughter Alyssa, 18. She and her brother Peyton, 14, were at home doing online schooling when bees from next door swarmed into their yard, attacking the family’s five dogs and flying into the house.

“Alyssa told me the bees were aggressive and she was trying to call the dogs inside, but only our German Shepherd puppy Bliksem came running into the house,” Kruger said.

The other dogs took shelter in a storage hut in the garden. “I told the kids to close the windows and get towels to block the gap underneath the door because Alyssa said the bees were flying into the house,” Kruger said.

With bees already inside, the siblings shut themselves and Bliksem in a bedroom until their father arrived. “The dogs that were still outside were jammed into the hut, so I had to cut openings into it to pull them out,” Kruger said.

All four had been stung repeatedly. Eight-year-old brothers Paizel and Shadow — dachshund-Yorkshire terrier crosses — survived, but Luna, a Jack Russell, was dead.

Kruger carried Odin, a large mixed-breed dog, into the house, put him in the bath and poured vinegar over him to ease the stings. “But while I was holding him, I watched his eyes go dim, and then he was gone,” Kruger said.

Paizel and Shadow were rushed to the vet for treatment and sent home with medication.

“It was a terrible time. They just lay there. But then the next day they were a bit more responsive and by the third day they could actually walk again and their tails were wagging.”

Kruger has since tried to persuade Findlay, to have the hive removed or at least moved somewhere safer. He has also contacted a bee expert who, he says, can remove it, but needs the property owner’s permission.

I am not going to interfere with or damage the fruit production that happens in my district because of the pollination done by the bees. Just as Thys has his rights, I also have my rights

Graham Findlay, hive owner

Findlay is not budging. He says the bees are only an occasional nuisance and are peaceful again now that Kruger’s two noisiest dogs have died. He blames their barking for provoking the swarm.

“I am not going to interfere with or damage the fruit production that happens in my district because of the pollination done by the bees. Just as Thys has his rights, I also have my rights,” Findlay told the Sunday Times.

He said the bees generally flew over Kruger’s house to a nearby spruit, where they gathered nectar from blue gum trees.

“There was one other case here a while ago when the bees attacked some neighbours who were playing outside and talking really loudly. And that’s the thing. Bees don’t like loud noise. Sometimes when I am busy working outside and make a loud noise they have attacked me. But you don’t hear me complaining. I just kill the bee that stings me,” he said.

Keeping bees in Ekurhuleni is regulated by section 123 of the municipality’s public health by-laws, which set zoning, safety and permit requirements. The by-laws require hives to be at least 5m from any property boundary and at least 20m from a public place, home or enclosure housing animals, poultry or birds. Bees must be kept in an approved hive box, in an area inaccessible to children and animals.

Kruger says he has reported the matter to the Ekurhuleni metro police department (EMPD) but has received no response.

EMPD spokesperson Lt-Col Kelebogile Thepa could not immediately comment. EMPDS’s comment will be added when received.

What was broken will be remade.

Deep in the heart of the continent, Koschei the Deathless is stirring. Though he’s been bound to a mountain lake for millennia, the insidious threat of his return now spreads across the Fae territories, attracting powerful allies hellbent on reclaiming what was once theirs: the human lands.

The Night Court will not stand idly by while innocents are attacked. But with Prythian still piecing itself together in the wake of the devastating Hybern War, the task of uniting is proving more difficult by the day.

To make matters worse, those who rule and protect the Night Court are reeling from recent betrayals and revealed truths. The rifts dividing them seem insurmountable.

But to defeat Koschei’s creeping shadow, they must find a way back to each other and resurrect their former alliances. To survive, they must find a way to repair the splintered harmony all around them.

Story audio is generated using AI

The parliamentary budget office (PBO) and the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) have warned that South Africa’s weak growth outlook and mounting pressure on public finances threaten its economic and development ambitions.

In assessments following the tabling of the 2026 medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS), both bodies highlighted the challenges facing the government in achieving its targets.

The PBO told a joint meeting of parliamentary finance committees on Tuesday that the National Treasury was overstating the significance of an improved sovereign risk premium and a stronger primary budget balance as signs of economic resilience, given the country’s persistently weak growth and high unemployment.

The economists were assessing the medium-term budget presented by finance minister Enoch Godongwana last week, with the PBO arguing that South Africa’s economic performance remained fragile despite improvements in some fiscal indicators.

PBO deputy director Seeraj Mohamed said the recent improvement in risk premiums across emerging markets had partly been driven by global investors selling government bonds in developed economies and seeking higher returns in emerging markets. The trend was influenced by global market conditions, rather than necessarily reflecting stronger domestic economic fundamentals.

Mohamed said South Africa remained an outlier compared with countries such as India, Brazil and Mexico when unemployment was considered. The PBO argued that the country’s weak per capita growth and persistently high unemployment did not support claims that the economy had become more resilient.

The PBO warned that the fiscal framework would not deliver the growth needed to achieve the government’s target of economic growth above 3% by 2029/30. Its projections show real GDP growth of 1.2% in 2026, rising to 1.8% by 2029.

The National Treasury’s projections also remain below 2% over the medium term. Even in its best-case scenario, which assumes successful implementation of the second phase of Operation Vulindlela reforms, it reaches growth of only 2.3%.

The PBO said constrained demand and insufficient public investment continued to limit structural transformation, while unemployment, poverty and inequality remained high. It warned that unemployment would remain higher than 30%, missing the government’s target of bringing it below 28% by 2029.

Read: Moody’s is impressed — will SA get an upgrade within a year?

It called for greater long-term investment in social and economic infrastructure, industrial policy, public services and township and rural economies, arguing that the pursuit of fiscal consolidation had not produced the investment and growth needed to address the country’s economic challenges.

The office also challenged the argument that fiscal consolidation would improve business confidence and stimulate investment. It said expenditure restraint had contributed to accumulated infrastructure backlogs and limited socioeconomic progress, while government institutions had remained underresourced and structural reforms had advanced slowly.

The FFC also presented a cautious outlook, citing global oil supply disruptions, price instability and persistent fiscal risks. Its analysis warned that recession risks remained, with its lower-bound growth projections averaging minus 1.7% over the next three years. Its upper-bound medium-term projection was 1.8%, close to the Treasury’s forecast.

Yet the commission welcomed the government’s commitment to stabilising public debt, strengthening fiscal buffers and introducing a principles-based fiscal anchor to institutionalise fiscal sustainability. It said the proposed framework could strengthen parliamentary scrutiny and independent oversight of budget decisions.

However, the FFC cautioned that the government’s solvency position remained a concern over the medium to long term, despite an expected decline in debt-service costs. It recommended continued active management of the public debt portfolio and a sustainable reduction in the main budget deficit.

Debt-service costs absorb about 21c of every rand of main budget revenue, said the commission, limiting the resources available for public spending. It also highlighted the scale of debt redemptions, which are projected to peak at R412.5bn in 2031/32, equivalent to 19.8% of revenue.

The commission’s assessment also questioned whether the government’s improved revenue performance would translate into a narrower deficit. Additional revenue of R54.1bn relative to the 2026 budget estimates was more than offset by expenditure increases of R59.5bn, leaving the main budget deficit at R301.6bn.

The increase in revenue included a R17.1bn improvement in gross tax revenue and a R33.1bn increase in nontax revenue. Stronger company income tax and value-added tax collections contributed to the improvement, while fuel levy revenue was R30.9bn below the budget estimate following the government’s fuel levy relief.

The FFC said the figures showed that higher revenue did not automatically reduce the deficit, with the overall fiscal impact dependent on whether expenditure growth could be contained.

The PBO also highlighted weak capital formation, with real manufacturing fixed capital stock declining 3% in 2016-25. It warned that poor investment over the past decade would continue to weigh on growth and employment prospects.

Both institutions raised concerns about the pressure on local government finances and the need to improve service delivery.

The FFC said the medium-term budget gave insufficient attention to the sustainability of the local government fiscal framework and the differing financial positions and institutional capacity of municipalities. Rising bulk-service costs, pressure to keep tariffs affordable and limited capacity to maintain infrastructure were weakening municipal finances and increasing the risk of entrenched insolvency.

Adjusted local government funding increases by 1% to R184.1bn in 2026/27. The local government equitable share remains unchanged at R110.1bn, while conditional grants increase by 3.3% to R56.5bn.

The commission recommended a differentiated approach to municipal support, with national and provincial governments providing targeted technical assistance to municipalities struggling with planning, procurement and project implementation. It also called for stronger monitoring of conditional grants, with an emphasis on infrastructure delivery, project completion and maintenance rather than expenditure alone.

It welcomed proposed amendments to the Municipal Finance Management Act aimed at strengthening early intervention, accountability, internal controls and enforcement of funded-budget requirements.

The FFC also recommended that savings generated through initiatives to eliminate duplicated functions and improve expenditure efficiency be redirected towards productive investment, infrastructure upgrades and structural reforms that support growth and job creation.

The PBO, meanwhile, questioned whether the government was spending effectively in several areas, despite aligning its priorities with the 2026 budget and the state of the nation address.

It pointed to underspending on the infrastructure component of the early childhood development grant in each of the three financial years from 2022/23 to 2024/25. It also highlighted shortcomings in the human settlements development grant, which achieved only two of 12 planned outputs over four years despite spending more than 90% of its allocation annually between 2021/22 and 2024/25.

The office also raised concerns about the public-sector wage bill, which accounts for about 32% of consolidated government expenditure. Compensation spending is projected to grow by 4.7% in 2027/28, including 6% in the national sphere and 4.1% in provinces.

It said the government still needed to demonstrate the savings and efficiency gains expected from efforts to manage the wage bill, adding that the results of a 2026 verification exercise to identify ghost workers would be published in the 2027 budget.

The PBO warned that without stronger developmental spending and more effective implementation of structural reforms, South Africa risked missing its medium-term development targets and the objectives of the National Development Plan for 2030.

Business Day

Makhubele, in a replying affidavit filed this month, defended the application for an interdict after Unite Behind argued the bid poses serious harm to the National Assembly’s constitutional mandate in holding the judiciary accountable.

Makhubele recently filed court papers in her application initiated eight months ago to halt the parliamentary process that is considering the impeachment recommendation until the finalisation of a review application to set aside the Judicial Service Commission’s gross misconduct finding against her.

The gross misconduct finding triggered parliament’s impeachment process. If impeached, Makhubele will lose the benefit of receiving a judge’s salary for life. Judges earn about R2.1m a year.

The application before the high court in Pretoria against the National Assembly speaker and parliament’s portfolio committee on justice & constitutional development, chaired by Xola Nqola, will delay the impeachment process if she succeeds.

“I deny that an application for interim protection is necessarily inconsistent with the National Assembly’s duties or judicial accountability. The court is asked to preserve the efficacy of its review jurisdiction, not to decide whether parliament should vote for my removal,” Makhubele says.

Should the National Assembly proceed with the impeachment vote and parliament pass a majority vote on the impeachment, the constitution gives President Cyril Ramaphosa no choice but to strip her of the judge title, she argues in court papers.

Such an outcome before a judgment in the review application of the decision triggering the impeachment process would be problematic in law.

‘Interim protection’

“This application seeks interim protection pending determination of my review of the JSC decision finding me guilty of gross misconduct. This application seeks to prevent the removal process from overtaking the court’s determination of its lawfulness,” she says.

“It is in the interest of justice that this matter is determined. It implicates judicial independence and accountability. But it also implicates the lawfulness of the conduct of constitutional institutions in holding the judiciary to account.”

Unite Behind argues that Makhubele has an option to seek legal relief even after the parliamentary process, in that, should the review court find in her favour, whatever decision taken by parliament would collapse and she would get her job back.

My primary case is not an unconditional right to retain judicial office or a right, under section 22 [of the Constitution], to hold that office irrespective of misconduct. It is a right to judicial protection against the consequences of the materially unlawful disciplinary decision alleged in this case.

Judge Nana Makhubele

However, Makhubele contends Unite Behind’s “suggested ‘window’ for further proceedings after a parliamentary resolution does not adequately answer the urgency of preserving the position now”.

“I do not contend that subsequent judicial relief is legally impossible. My contention is that the possibility of later proceedings does not establish an equally effective remedy against the harm of removal before the pending review has been determined.”

The court papers show that Nqola wrote to Makhubele in March to make representations before the committee weeks after she initiated the interdict application.

In response, Makhubele said it was “unfair” for the process to proceed pending the application for an interdict.

“My primary case is not an unconditional right to retain judicial office or a right, under section 22 [of the Constitution], to hold that office irrespective of misconduct. It is a right to judicial protection against the consequences of the materially unlawful disciplinary decision alleged in this case.”

On suspension

Makhubele has been on suspension since November 2020 and in the past five years has been subjected to an inquiry.

Eastern Cape judge president Selby Mbenenge, facing impeachment consideration like Makhubele, has obtained a court interdict after a settlement by parties for parliament to halt its impeachment considerations against him.

The bar for an interdict against the National Assembly is high, Unite Behind argues, and Makhubele has not come close to meeting legal standards warranting an interdict.

In a rebuttal, Makhubele argues the evidence in her review case establishes the requirements for interim protection.

The organisation argues the case was also initiated at the wrong court, the high court in Pretoria, and should have been initiated in the Western Cape. It said because the National Assembly is in Cape Town, “only the Western Cape division of the high court has jurisdiction to interdict parliament”.

Makhubele disagrees. “I deny that the location of parliament’s seat, by itself, determines whether this division may grant relief in the circumstances of this application. I maintain my jurisdictional position, which counsel will address,” she says.

Makhubele was initially found guilty of grossly negligent conduct by the Judicial Conduct Tribunal last January on a complaint that she accepted a job as a Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) board member after she was informed of her imminent appointment as a judge by former Gauteng judge president Dunstan Mlambo.

The JSC found her guilty of gross misconduct, a ground for impeachment.

Unite Behind argued Makhubele’s conduct undermined the independence of the judiciary and breached the separation of powers doctrine.

Makhubele argues she was not a judge when she accepted the Prasa interim board position at end-October 2017. Former president Jacob Zuma announced her appointment in December 2017 and she was meant to start in January 2018.

Makhubele said she asked to start on the bench in April 2018. She only started on the bench in June 2018 after her appointment by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

She denies allegations against her and has pinned her hopes on a review application to clear her name.

Business Day

– Juliette Bryant, Cape Town model and Epstein survivor

As the world gets to grips with sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s monstrosity, one dimension of his network has remained largely hidden: South Africa. Award-winning investigative journalist Hazel Friedman tracked down South African women whom Epstein had recruited and convinced them to share their stories.

Drawing on extensive research and interviewing sources who had not spoken out before, Friedman searches for answers: What attracted Epstein, notorious for his aversion to ‘dark girls’, to Africa? How did Cape Town become his hunting ground? And why did he want to buy a home in Bantry Bay?

But this is not solely a story of predation and impunity. It is also about silence, trauma – and survival. The Devil Wears Sneakers is a work of relentless reporting and unflinching courage that proves some truths cannot stay buried.

EXTRACT

South Africa has long been treated as peripheral to the Epstein story, yet it sits at the intersection of his global power with an insidious purpose of its own – a place where influence, predation and perhaps even escape converged.

January 2008 marked a turning point – not only for Epstein, but for the international network that surrounded him. On paper, he was meant to be cornered: a criminal trial arising from allegations of sexual predation in Palm Beach, Florida, was scheduled for 7 January. But behind closed doors, federal prosecutors were negotiating with his legal team over the terms of what would become his soft conviction and sentence.

For more than two years, Epstein had been under investigation in Florida after allegations that dozens of underage girls had been recruited and abused at his Palm Beach mansion. What began with a single complaint from the mother of a 14-year-old girl had mushroomed into a disturbing criminal investigation, and detectives had uncovered a predatory enterprise seemingly engineered for replication. Teenage girls – many from fractured homes and desperate circumstances – were paid to recruit other girls, who were then encouraged or coerced into recruiting more. The abuse became self-perpetuating, victim by victim, in what investigators would later describe as a pyramid scheme of sexual predation.

Epstein responded by assembling an elite legal team that included Alan Dershowitz, Kenneth Starr and Roy Black – men accustomed to winning seemingly unwinnable cases, and paid handsomely to do so. Yet even they could not erase the growing body of evidence. With every interview, corroborating witness and new victim, Epstein appeared increasingly likely to face federal prosecution. For the first time in decades, the man who had spent a lifetime accumulating influence, favours and powerful friends was forced to contemplate the loss of the one thing money could not guarantee: his freedom.

Then, in the first week of January 2008, the direction shifted. Behind closed doors, federal prosecutors and Epstein’s lawyers were negotiating an extraordinary agreement. On 30 June 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to two Florida state felony charges and was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, subject to a work-release privilege that allowed him to leave jail for much of the day, six days a week. It would also shield several named associates from federal prosecution.

At about the same time, on 8 January, an email landed in Epstein’s inbox. It was not about the legal negotiations, but about a mansion in Bantry Bay, one of the most coveted neighbourhoods on Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard. The owner, the sender explained, was not actively marketing the property, but might be persuaded to sell for €11 million.

The timing is notable. Epstein was about to become a convicted, registered sex offender – a permanent stain on the carefully constructed persona of wealth, influence and respectability that had shielded him for decades. Yet his privilege and power were still operating at optimal force.

The owner of the Bantry Bay mansion was Michael Nunn (misspelled in the email as ‘Numm’), a South African-born mining entrepreneur who had made a fortune from African mineral resources and established himself in Monaco. The surviving correspondence does not reveal whether Nunn and Epstein ever communicated, conducted business or even met. What it does reveal is the level at which the property search was conducted: Epstein was not shown an ordinary luxury home, but an off-market residence owned by a Monaco-based mining magnate whose interests spanned Africa, Europe and international finance.

Enthusiastically, the sender wrote, ‘Here R the images and infos on the house in Cape Town. It is really nice one and sexi one! Let me know if U like the look of it and I will get video.’

The mansion, the sender said, was spread across six levels. There was garaging for five vehicles, a guard house, sophisticated security systems, staff accommodation, multiple guest suites, a fully equipped media room, a wine cellar, a study, a spa, a heated swimming pool, a gym and a manager’s office. One entertainment level alone was reportedly capable of accommodating more than 120 guests. The upper residential floor could be sealed off entirely with roller shutters. Additional material, including floor plans and video footage, was being sourced.

The photographs had been obtained from Lance Real Estate, one of the city’s most successful estate agencies, particularly active in the high-end Atlantic seaboard market. The message ended: ‘Let us light up your life! Lots of love, light, and happiness.’

Surprisingly, the sender was not a Cape Town property broker, but a Czech supermodel and philanthropist named Petra Němcová. She was writing to Epstein as a partner in a New York real-estate venture called Aglow Properties.

At the time, Němcová was internationally recognised for both modelling and humanitarian work. In December 2004, she was holidaying in Khao Lak, Thailand, with her boyfriend, British fashion photographer Simon Atlee, when the Indian Ocean tsunami struck. Atlee was swept away and killed. Němcová was seriously injured but survived by clinging to a palm tree for about eight hours before being rescued. The experience became one of the disaster’s most widely reported survival stories. The United Nations later appointed Němcová a Disaster Risk Reduction Champion and Tsunami Awareness Advocate, making her one of the most visible philanthropic figures to emerge from its aftermath.

In 2005, she founded the Happy Hearts Fund, which rebuilt more than 170 schools and helped tens of thousands of children to return to education after disasters. In 2017, it merged with All Hands Volunteers to create All Hands and Hearts. Němcová remains involved as a cofounder and vice-chair.

The Cape Town property emails date from January 2008, about three years after Happy Hearts was founded. So what was an international supermodel and prominent humanitarian figure doing serving as a property broker for Epstein?

How they became acquainted remains unclear, as does the extent of their relationship, but their correspondence continued for weeks after Epstein had pleaded guilty, been sentenced to prison and become a registered sex offender. Němcová must have known about his conviction, yet her tone remained warm, personal and affectionate. Their email trail consists of updates on her travels, family life and spiritual studies, while Epstein repeatedly asked where she was and what she was doing.

Ultimately, the Bantry Bay transaction did not go through – but Epstein’s Cape Town property search raised a range of questions, not about the property itself, but the network surrounding it. How did Epstein come to be a client of Aglow Properties, of which Němcová was a partner?

An email sent on 15 January 2008 – six months before Epstein was convicted and imprisoned – was addressed to ‘Sarah’ at the email address sarah@ellmax.com, sent by Ron Schnakenberg, a partner in Aglow Properties, and titled ‘Cape Town property’. ‘I am Petra Nemcova’s business partner,’ it begins, then continues, ‘she asked that I send this information to you due to her being out of email contact at this time. Could you please show this to Jeffrey and let us know if you have any questions. I have requested the property floor plan and am expecting to receive it in the next couple of days.’

The same day, Sarah forwarded the email to jeeproject@yahoo.com. This email address served as one of Epstein’s personal email accounts, and has appeared extensively in public document releases and investigative reports detailing his communications with high-profile associates, legal advisors and business figures.

Public records show an Ellmax LLC registered in Florida, and multiple investigations and reports have linked the name ‘Ellmax’ – clearly, an anagram of Maxwell – to Ghislaine Maxwell’s business entities, email addresses, aliases and property holdings. So, in the context of the 2008 Cape Town property emails, Ellmax appears less like an independent real-estate brokerage and more like a Maxwell-controlled entity involved in property transactions and administration. This associates the potential transaction with Maxwell’s corporate network rather than a standard external real-estate firm.

The ‘Sarah’ might have been Sarah Kellen, Epstein’s long-standing personal assistant. According to numerous survivor accounts and civil lawsuits, she became one of his closest aides, allegedly coordinating appointments, managing the movement of young women between his properties and overseeing aspects of his day-to-day private affairs. Survivors have also accused her of participating in and facilitating the abuse.

Was Epstein looking for a holiday residence or a hideaway? Depending on the outcome of the Florida state investigation, was he thinking about joining a growing flock of international fugitives who had found sanctuary in faraway South Africa? During the final decades of apartheid, the early years of democracy and into the 2000s, various factors had made it possible for some wealthy foreign fugitives and controversial businessmen to live in the country for prolonged periods while resisting extradition or avoiding legal action elsewhere.

Significantly, the Epstein archives for 2008 to 2017 also contain piles of promotional mailings from Cape Town, among them a high-end-villa-rental company advertising properties in Clifton, Camps Bay, Bakoven, Green Point and the V&A Waterfront for the December holiday season. These emails prove only that Epstein’s address was on a distribution list, but given Sasha Revel’s recollection of being photographed by his so-called attorney Amanda at The Conway in Bantry Bay in about 1998, it appears Cape Town property had been on his radar for some years.

The Devil Wears Sneakers: Jeffrey Epstein’s predatory paradise in South Africa is published by Tafelberg, an imprint of Jonathan Ball Publishers.

Story audio is generated using AI

Almost a year after the World Health Organization (WHO) backed GLP-1 drugs for long-term obesity treatment, South Africa’s health department has yet to begin assessing whether to make them available to public sector patients, a senior official has confirmed.

The national essential medicines committee is considering adding GLP-1 medicines to the list of drugs that can be prescribed for diabetes patients who rely on state health-care facilities, but it has not started to review the evidence for their use in obesity care, according to the department’s chief director for health promotion, Rebone Ntsie.

The WHO added GLP-1 drugs to its essential drugs list for managing diabetes in September 2025 and released guidelines for their use as a chronic treatment for obesity in December last year.

Consideration of GLP-1 medicines for obesity treatment is “on the radar”, but work has not yet commenced, Ntsie said on the sidelines of the Global Obesity Forum in Madrid. The event is taking place this week in parallel with the Global Obesity Summit hosted by the Spanish health ministry and the WHO.

South Africa has the highest prevalence of obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the third highest in Africa, according to the Global Obesity Observatory. The issue is of growing public health concern because it is contributing to rising rates of other noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

In 2016, 31% of adult males, 67% of adult females, and 13% of children under five years old living in South Africa were either overweight or living with obesity, according to the most recent national survey data. A person with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 25 is considered overweight, and obese if the figure is above 30. BMI is the ratio of a person’s weight to their height squared.

Clinicians will put people on diabetes treatment without addressing the fact that they are overweight or obese. It’s like the elephant in the room

Jeanette Hunter, DDG for primary health care

While a growing number of GLP-1 medicines are now registered in South Africa, they are only available in the private sector. Medical scheme cover is limited, and their out-of-pocket cost renders them unaffordable for most patients.

Novo Nordisk’s patent on semaglutide — the active ingredient in its weight loss treatment Wegovy and diabetes therapy Ozempic — expired in South Africa earlier this year, but only one cheaper generic alternative is available on the local market.

Sun Pharma launched a generic semaglutide, branded Semagard, in South Africa in August at a price that is about 18% below that of Ozempic, according to Bhekisisa.

The health department’s deputy director-general for primary health care, Jeanette Hunter, said she was optimistic that the price of GLP-1 medicines would rapidly fall when more generic products reached the market and rival pharmaceutical manufacturers competed for customers. The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority is reviewing more than a dozen applications for generic semaglutide, according to Reuters.

Other weight loss treatments available in South Africa include Novo Nordisk’s liraglutide and Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide, branded Mounjaro, which is marketed and distributed locally by Aspen Pharmacare.

Hunter told delegates to the Global Obesity Forum that the health department wanted to see health-care professionals pay more attention to obesity care at the primary health care level.

“Clinicians will put people on diabetes treatment without addressing the fact that they are overweight or obese. It’s like the elephant in the room,” she said.

• Kahn’s coverage of the Global Obesity Forum was supported by the World Obesity Federation.

Business Day

Speaking in the Bahamas on Tuesday at the start of a Caribbean tour, Charles said it was “only right” to acknowledge “the great suffering and injustices of the past in these islands and beyond”.

His remarks come before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda next week, where Caribbean leaders are expected to press demands for reparations for slavery and colonialism.

Charles added that some of what was “best” in Bahamian culture today — “the most joyful, the most hopeful, the most bright” — was “born out of darkness”.

The Caribbean has consistently asserted that reparations is fundamentally about justice

Carla Barnett, Caricom secretary-general

Charles and Queen Camilla are visiting the Bahamas and Guyana before travelling to Antigua and Barbuda for the biennial summit of the 56-nation Commonwealth, most of whose members are former British colonies.

The issue of reparations has gathered momentum across the Caribbean in recent years. Last month Caricom, the regional bloc, said it wanted the matter on the agenda at the summit.

“The Caribbean has consistently asserted that reparations is fundamentally about justice,” Caricom secretary-general Carla Barnett said last month.

Buckingham Palace has indicated that the king would address the issue during the tour, but not offer a formal apology, in line with British government policy, which also rules out financial reparations.

A palace spokesperson said the visit would focus mainly on “modern partnerships and opportunities for the future” in the region, but added that for Charles it was also part of “a lifelong” effort to engage with and educate about “the most shameful aspects of our past”.

Campaigners and some Caribbean leaders have called on Britain to go further, including through an apology, reparations in the form of financial compensation and the return of cultural artefacts.

From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5-million Africans were abducted and sold into slavery by European traders, with Britain transporting an estimated 3.2-million people across the Atlantic, making it one of the biggest slave-trading nations.

Reuters

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On Thursday this week, an African man from elsewhere on the continent was beaten to death in central Durban. It’s said he was set upon by a mob of about 50 people.

In September, it was reported that the body of a 66-year-old Mozambican was found, tied with wires and burnt in the bush near Lulekani in Limpopo. In May and June, several Mozambicans were killed during anti-immigrant protests and shack-burning incidents in Mossel Bay.

In June 2008, Mozambican Ernesto Nhamuave was set alight and burnt to death. This year we have murdered 78 migrants; the man killed in Durban on Thursday was the 79th victim.

There is a lot of anger and frustration among many South Africans on account of the porous borders and a very high unemployment rate. Youth unemployment climbed to 47.4% in the second quarter of 2026.

Young people are a big part of the activism against Africans from other countries. We desperately need meaningful economic transformation, away from the historical exclusion of Africans, coloureds and Indians. An inclusive economy should provide access to economic opportunities and equitable participation. The apartheid regime built the opposite of this — an economy based on racial exclusion, exploitation and the indignity of poverty.

There is the widespread belief that African migrants take jobs away from South Africans and engage in gross criminality from drug trafficking and illegal mining to kidnapping and extortion. It should be said though, that studies indicate that most crimes are perpetrated by South Africans, and that South Africans make up about 85% of the prison population.

Does any of this, the historical pain of black South Africans and the public perceptions about migrants, explain the killer instinct in our midst, reserved exclusively for other Africans who come to our land and are hounded like animals?

There is another reality to note. The South African economy was not built by South Africans alone; it was built on the backs of cheap labour from neighbouring countries, creating perennial livelihood routes across the region. This is largely responsible for the economic migration that fuels anti-migrant tendencies in South Africa today. In his 1986 book, Johannesburg Centenary: So rich an inheritance, James Ambrose Brown writes that from 1886 (when gold was first mined) to 1899 (Anglo-Boer War) most mineworkers were Mozambican or Basotho. South Africans did not want to leave their rural homes for the hostels of the mines.

We need to move away from the scarcity mindset of seeking to preserve ‘our space’ as South Africans, with a limited pie, to an abundance mindset

Brown writes that by 1904 there was hardly a young man in the villages of southern Mozambique who had not been to Johannesburg. He says the Zambesi became a labour recruitment highway, with barges ferrying recruits from Zambia and Zimbabwe, and recruiting extended as far as Tanganyika (now Tanzania). The late Prof Francis Wilson of the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit used to say that for generations, 60% of Lesotho’s able-bodied men came to South Africa, and that the development of Johannesburg went hand-in-hand with the underdevelopment of Maseru.

Our crude past can become our more civil and mutually beneficial future. To achieve that, we need to move away from the scarcity mindset of seeking to preserve “our space” as South Africans, with a limited pie, to an abundance mindset where creativity and smart strategic thinking can open opportunities for all. It is worth considering the potential impact of realigning regional interests and relationships to optimise our economic power and global comparative advantage.

Sadc comprises 16 countries with a total population of more than 363-million, which is forecast to rise to 618-million by 2043. As an economic region, it exhibits no clear regional economic consciousness or plan to speak of. Each country’s political and business elites seem to be internally focused, with hardly any evidence of a desire for a free-trade area, Sadc customs union, common market or monetary union as instruments to maximise value for the citizens of the region.

South Africa and Zimbabwe together hold more than 80% of the world’s platinum-group metal (PGM) reserves; Angola accounts for some 16.3% of Africa’s total oil output; and Mozambique’s gas reserves are estimated at 2.8-trillion cubic metres. We could go on about the collective wealth of Sadc, from the gold and chrome of Zimbabwe to the diamonds of Botswana and Namibia, the copper of Zambia and the limitless volumes of Congo minerals. Then there is the Orange Basin block of oil and gas prospects for Namibia and South Africa on the western seaboard.

Young people make up 50%-60% of the total population in the Sadc region. No borders will keep them from the perception of South African opportunities. Our mobs cannot kill them all. There must be a different way, a way of looking at the value of an integrated regional economy, and what opportunities could be created for all our young people by an expanded economic base that’s inclusive of all our regional economies.

The African Continental Free Trade Area has set the objective of removing tariffs on 90% of goods within 13 years and easing the movement of capital, investment and entrepreneurs. We are unlikely to arrive at that objective if we cannot take the first step towards meaningful regional economic integration.

This requires public awareness campaigns, including in schools, highlighting the positive effects of regional integration. A scarcity mindset is a hindrance to seeing the advantage of a broadened economic base.

• Bishop Mpumlwana is a former general secretary of the South African Council of Churches