The Latest Breaking News from South Africa

South Africa’s 2025-6 budget has been subjected to more comment than usual. This is due to the political tensions generated by a proposed increase in value added tax (VAT).

Schools should be a safe environment, a place of learning where children can develop their potential. In South Africa, many public schools aren’t like this. Instead they are hothouses for teachers’ poor performance, financial mismanagement, assault and sexual misconduct.

Just over 30 years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, public opinion is divided over how to evaluate the post-apartheid, democratic state. Characterisations range from “failed or failing state”, to “mafia state” to the more optimistic “developmental state” committed to addressing historical patterns of injustice through decisive state intervention.

Credit rating agencies like S&P Global and Fitch have an outsized influence on the economic fortunes of developing countries. Their assessments shape investor perceptions, influence borrowing costs, and ultimately shape a country’s development path. With many African countries now issuing bonds in global markets amid falling levels of official development…

The rhino lay frozen in the sand, its grey legs stiff, glassy eyes open, horn crudely sawed off.

In today’s newsletter: The US aid agency has been a lifeline for developing nations since the 1960s – its destruction is already having huge consequences around the world

Some men married their sixth or seventh wives while other grooms married multiple brides at once

Elon Musk wasn’t the first to shape the national conversation. Joshua Norton, a San Francisco cult figure, was.

Other lives: Barrister specialising in criminal and international law who in the 1960s was one of the ‘London Recruits’

F1 has not raced in Africa since the Kyalami circuit hosted the South African GP in 1993

Zimbabwe is the only country to have suspended tariffs on US imports so far.