Author: newsnote correspondent
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…
Hashim Amla, South Africa’s second highest Test run-scorer of all time, has retired at the age of 39. Amla scored 9,282 runs – second only to Jacques Kallis’ 13,206 – at an average of 46.64 in 124 Tests. He amassed 18,672 in all formats for the Proteas from 2004 to 2019, and no-one has scored more than his 27 one-day centuries for South Africa. Amla’s 311 not out against England at The Oval in 2012 remains the highest Test score by a South African. He was part of the Surrey team that won the County Championship in 2022, having retired from…
Elvis Presley’s iconic Graceland mansion will stay in the family after the death of his only child, Lisa Marie Presley. The 54-year-old singer died last week after suffering a cardiac arrest. Presley’s three daughters, Riley, Harper and Finley, will inherit the Tennessee estate, according to a representative. Presley became the sole heir to Graceland and its 17,500 sq ft (1,626 sq m) mansion when she turned 25. The mansion, which was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2006, was opened to the public as a museum in 1982 following the death of Presley’s father five years earlier. It brings in…
On Monday Operation Dudula T-shirts protesting inside and outside the clinic, telling immigrants to leave and get health care in their countries of origin. Several people we spoke to said they had not been able to collect their medication or keep their appointments. Members of Operation Dudula harassed immigrants outside several Gauteng clinics last year, including Hillbrow and Kalafong in Tshwane. The current focus appears to be Jeppe Clinic. Violet Ncube, from Zimbabwe, says Dudula members ordered her out of the clinic last Friday when she went with her three-year-old granddaughter, who was suffering from flu and a fever. “Dudula came…
SMMEs are especially heavily effected by ongoing power outages since many cannot afford alternate power sources such as generators. During load shedding, they are obliged to halt trade. Some small enterprises thus turn to selling perishable commodities like meat and vegetables at low costs to prevent them from spoiling, which has an impact on their much-needed income. This has led Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, the minister of small business development, to engage with her team to discover measures that might decrease the effect of load shedding on small enterprises. The Minister has instructed the Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) and the Small…
About R1.4 billion has been set aside for the construction of the Taolelo Tawana Memorial Hospital. The brains behind the project say the plan is to bring private healthcare services closer to rural communities. Named after the late former traditional leader, Kgosi Taolelo Tawana, the Taolelo Tawana Memorial Hospital will be built next to the N18 road linking Vryburg and Mahikeng. About 600 to 800 jobs will be created during the construction phase. While about 300 to 400 jobs will be created after the completion of the hospital. The facility will have 83 beds, two theatres, a mortuary and a…