Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s 2026 mini budget stabilised debt, beat the deficit target and found R10 billion for fuel relief. But it came 2 days after Ramaphosa warned that South Africa could lose AGOA, and 12 days before the US deadline to announce it. The speech never mentions AGOA, China or tariffs. This article puts the expectations next to what was delivered.
A caller told King Phalo Airport there was a bomb on a FlySafair flight from Johannesburg. Every passenger was taken off, the bomb squad searched the aircraft and the luggage, and the SAPS has now confirmed it was a false alarm. This article sets out what the police and the airline confirmed, the charge, and why the reason for the call is still unknown.
The City of Tshwane’s Bronkhorstspruit plant sent out water without chlorine for 3 weeks, and 408 people got sick, most of them children under 4. The city’s first statement came the day after it closed the plant, and the warning the law requires came 25 days after the chlorine stopped. This article puts the dates next to each other, gives the mayor’s own account of why the chlorine ran out, and tests the 3 claims going around: cholera, a water tanker mafia and sabotage.
White South Africans may not apply to lease a state farm. The rule is the first line of every advert the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development publishes, 216 of them since 2023. Lex Libertas raised it 6 days after President Ramaphosa promised 2.5 million hectares of state land to black farmers. This article reads the adverts, the policy behind them, and what the President, Ronald Lamola and a parliamentary committee say about racism in South Africa’s laws.
Sources told Rapport that Brian Smith, the Crusaders member accused of the Little Britain Pub shooting in Pretoria, was beaten so badly by MAC’S members in June that his eyes were swollen shut. The MAC’S have answered in a signed statement, the pub has posted its own version of the night of 10 October, and the bail hearing is on 20 October 2026.
Akademia’s new R3.2 billion campus at Mooiplaats, east of Pretoria, is ahead of schedule and privately funded. Naledi Pandor, Jonathan Jansen and Carl Niehaus object to it. This article goes through what is being built, who pays, what the critics said, and how Afrikaans left the public universities one court case at a time.
Suliman Carrim told the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court that his doctor encouraged the trip he was arrested for, after months of being too ill to testify at the Madlanga Commission. The police and the prosecutor gave two different answers about his return ticket, and the bail hearing continues on Monday, 19 October 2026.
Suliman Carrim told the Madlanga Commission through his lawyers for 6 months that he was too ill to testify. On 15 October 2026 he was arrested at OR Tambo moments before an international flight. What the police confirmed, why the commission wanted him, and why the charge he faces is the smallest of his problems.
Fikile Mbalula wants the ANC to review the DA’s place in the Government of National Unity. Without the DA, the GNU holds exactly 200 of the 400 seats. This is what Mbalula said on camera, what the ANC’s own written version left out, and what the DA can and cannot force if it walks out.
Communications Minister Solly Malatsi wants a new SABC funding model by 31 March 2027. Every public option described so far, from a household levy to a grant out of tax, draws on your money, and the collectors being considered include SARS, municipalities and banks. This is what is on the table, and how you would pay under each option.
