Author: newsnote correspondent

A tiger escaped from a residence and roamed the countryside outside Johannesburg, South Africa, for four days this month. It attacked a man and killed several animals, and was eventually shot by the authorities. Tigers aren’t native to South Africa and are considered an alien species. Its escape highlights the country’s controversial commercial captive breeding industry and the key role South Africa plays in the international big cat trade. Tigers are being intensively farmed for tourism, hunting, and commercial trade in live individuals and in their body parts. What are your main concerns about South Africa’s captive predator industry? The recent tiger escape in Johannesburg…

President Cyril Ramaphosa and Eskom haven’t found a silver bullet to ease load shedding in South Africa, despite canceling their trip to Davos and holding emergency meetings all week. It appears that these emergency meetings failed to come up with any new quick-fix solutions to load shedding this week, instead relying on past long-term plans to boost grid capacity. Meeting attendees said that the president’s plan was only useful now if it had been announced three years ago. There are three phases to the new plan – which is the old plan: Providing Eskom with more diesel for its open-cycle…

Karpowership, the Turkish company seeking to supply 1,220 megawatts of power to South Africa, will get a decision on its application to proceed with the projects from the nation’s environment department by March 7. The application, which was filed earlier this month, comes at a time when the nation is suffering its worst-ever power cuts. An earlier appeal was rejected by the department after a legal challenge from environmental activists and the company has since carried out a fresh series of public consultations. The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment confirmed the receipt of the application and the decision…

As South Africans grapple with rolling blackouts due to Eskom’s load shedding, a civil rights movement called ‘Not In My Name International’ took to the streets demanding that President Cyril Ramaphosa declare a National State of Disaster and call regular ‘family meetings’ as he did during the two years of Covid-19. About 100 members of the movement marched to Nersa and to the Presidency to demand an end to load shedding and for Nersa to reverse the electricity tariff hike it allowed Eskom to impose on its cash-strapped customers. The president of the movement, Siyabulela Jentile said electricity is a…

According to the City of Johannesburg and Tshwane, the lengthy power outages have put a strain on their water towers, and the sweltering heat have boosted demand for water. Reservoirs, according to both metros, are not filling up quickly enough. Eskom has instituted power outages in order to prevent a potential collapse of the energy system, but these outages have had an impact on services, notably water supplies. To feed the water towers in the metropolis, several water pump stations in Johannesburg and Tshwane require a steady supply of energy. Sipho Stuurman, a spokesman for the City of Tshwane, stated…

A Northwest police officer has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. He killed a man who had allegedly broken into his wife’s tavern at Ikageng near Potchefstroom. Lukhanyo Mnembe received a tip-off that 30-year-old Thamsanqa Phoofolo was the alleged intruder. He then went to Phoofolo’s home, where he shot him in front of his family. The National Prosecuting Authority is welcoming the conviction and sentence. “He shouldn’t have taken the law into his own hands,” said North West NPA spokesperson Henry Mamothame. “We discharge our responsibilities without fear or favour, even when perpetrators are within our ranks.”

There is an allure to sending your child to a private school in South Africa because of the perception that these schools provide superior education. Due to their greater funding, private schools are often able to provide smaller class sizes, more individual attention, and access to highly qualified teachers. Their matric results reflected these differences, with the IEB confirming a pass rate of 98.42% in 2022, up from 98.39% in 2021. For 2022, the Department of Basic Education has released final National Senior Certificate results showing an 80.1% pass rate, an increase of 3.7 percentage points. St. John’s College, Hilton,…

Russia and China will conduct naval drills in the Indian Ocean off the coast of South Africa next month, in another indication of their strengthening relationships with Africa’s most developed country amid the war in Ukraine and global financial uncertainty. The South African armed forces said Thursday that they and the Russian and Chinese navies will engage in “a multinational maritime exercise” from Feb. 17-27 off South Africa’s east coast near the cities of Durban and Richards Bay. The drills will happen around the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and will bring more focus on…

A second case of the highly transmissible Covid-19 subvariant XBB.1.5 has been found in South Africa, but the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said on Wednesday that there was nothing to indicate that either symptoms or severity would be different from those caused by other subvariants. Dr Nicole Wolter from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said there was no South African data on symptoms and severity caused by this subvariant, as only two cases of XBB.1.5 had been reported in SA to date. She said data from other countries where XBB.1.5 is circulating more widely indicate that the…

Many South Africans struggle to prioritise saving for their child’s education amid the rising cost of education, a deepening cost-of-living crisis, and several years of recession and pandemic-related upheaval. In light of these headwinds, many parents in 2023 are considering alternatives to traditional schooling, including the fast-growing options of online and homeschooling. This is according to new data provided by Old Mutual, which warns that the situation is expected to worsen as the cost of long-term education is outstripping salary inflation and outpaces the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by between 2.5% and 3% annually. “If your child starts from Grade…