CEO Jorge Mendes was all smiles on Cell C’s maiden annual results call as a standalone company listed on the JSE, but the press statement may have been a little too optimistic.

Police recently cracked down on another suspected crystal methamphetamine factory on a Limpopo farm and arrested individuals from countries including Mexico, adding to concerns about Mexican cartel activity in South Africa. The US, meanwhile, says those cartels have converged with counterparts in Ecuador.

A sweeping grant review process by the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa), aimed at tackling fraud, is leaving some vulnerable South Africans with legitimate claims to social grants stranded without critical income support.

While columnist Stephen Grootes is away, the rest of us can cosplay as finance bros. The economics of a reckless night out.

The former chief executive of a state entity that spends upwards of R4-billion a year, and her then spokesperson, put R60,000 in a Dior shopping bag on a table in front of a Daily Maverick journalist. We filmed it, published it and laid charges. More than a year later, the docket still isn’t trial-ready.

Labour Court finds Andries Helani accepted more than R3.2-million in payments linked to private student accommodation providers.

Flyhalf Handrè Pollard returns to the Springboks starting line-up for Saturday’s second Greatest Rivalry Test against the All Blacks, while captain Siya Kolisi is bracketed.

German investor Klaus-Michael Kuehne, the controlling shareholder of Swiss logistics group Kuehne + Nagel KNIN.S, has died aged 89, the company said on Monday.

A coach carrying high-school students from Germany crashed in the east of the Netherlands early on Monday, injuring eight people, who were taken to hospital, Dutch police said.

Essential steps include choosing the caregiver, updating your will with care instructions and calculating necessary funds for your pets’ care.

SEOUL, Aug 24 (Reuters) - South Korea's Defence Ministry said North Korea was continuing preparations for an additional troop deployment to Russia, but had detected no signs that such a deployment was imminent, according to a South Korean lawmaker's office.

Cilliers Brink promises a bigger role for private companies in Tshwane while arguing that stronger governance is essential to addressing the city’s deep inequality and service-delivery failures.

Lieutenant Colonel Deendadayalan (Deena) Govender’s sensational testimony has placed sidelined police minister Senzo Mchunu at the centre of allegations that he was part of an effort to pressure a witness into implicating KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

It has been more than a year since Daily Maverick’s explosive video ‘sting’ captured former Independent Development Trust CEO Tebogo Malaka and the organisation’s spokesperson offering this journalist a cash ‘bribe’ in exchange for dropping an investigation into Malaka’s financial dealings with an IDT contractor. Despite the clear video evidence, the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority are yet to act.

AWS Summit Johannesburg brings together many of South Africa’s most influential techies. Standard Bank’s tech chief Jörg Fischer chose the occasion to answer questions from Daily Maverick.

When South Africa changes an energy policy, much of the public conversation understandably concentrates on the government, Eskom, electricity tariffs, investors and large infrastructure projects. But there is another question we should be asking.

Sensationalist headlines about rotting produce misrepresent South Africa’s farm labour dynamics. Q2 data confirms sector stability, though legal frameworks for seasonal foreign labour require ongoing care.

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus tacitly admitted that he and his staff had been out-coached by New Zealand counterpart Dave Rennie and his assistants in the first Greatest Rivalry Test. What do the Boks have in response?

A team at the University of Cape Town has successfully recreated and modelled the process by which tumours bypass the body’s natural defences.

From a booming talent pipeline to unprecedented investment, junior rugby is flourishing, but it does have troublesome aspects.

Serious questions are emerging from Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala’s evidence about his relationship with suspended deputy police chief Shadrack Sibiya, which he was reluctant to discuss.

At Letaba, a wall of brown water turned an orderly camp into an evacuation zone. At Pafuri, the river tore the ground away. Four camp leaders remember the cold, the roar – and the tourists who would not leave.

As a new tool, body-worn cameras can help in building accountability and trust in a police force that has lost the confidence of the public, but the question remains: who governs its use?

Aug 24 (Reuters) - Two U.N. peacekeepers from Ethiopia were killed and seven other people injured in an ambush on Monday in South Sudan's Jonglei State, bringing to nine the number of peacekeepers killed in the line of duty worldwide this year, the United Nations said.

Evidence before the Madlanga Commission illustrates how security companies have become shadow militia, used by criminals to access tenders and guns that they use to intimidate the opposition

This imagined letter places a composite speaker inside the thirty-minute silence of 9 August 1956. It draws on the events of the Women’s March and the demands articulated by the Federation of South African Women.

The deputy mayor’s response to Daily Maverick’s Municipal Planning Tribunal exposé suggests that anyone who tries to hold the tribunal accountable for its far-reaching decisions will be denounced and discredited.

Four people are missing after torrential rain lashed southern and eastern Taiwan on Monday, closing offices and schools, with authorities bracing for a typhoon to hit the island later in the week.

Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has travelled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working and dying for cobalt in Congo.

Three recent murders in Knysna have raised fears among the community that this might signal the return of politically linked killings associated with faction fighting.

Santarama Miniland was once one of Joburg’s biggest tourist attractions. Now it can be booked for private events, while its operator has no valid lease agreement.

The SACP’s lack of governing experience shows up in its manifesto, which has some strengths but weaknesses too.

The National Treasury says Nelson Mandela Bay’s proposed R23bn write-off is unlawful because the Municipal Public Accounts Committee failed to investigate the expenditure item by item, while an affidavit prepared by the acting city manager, Lonwabo Ngoqo, is legally defective.

A Constitutional Court victory has allowed West Coast communities the right to determine what happens to the land and the ocean on which they so much depend.

OSLO, Aug 23 (Reuters) - The health of Norway's King Harald, 89, has deteriorated during the weekend while in hospital, the royal household said in a statement on Sunday.

Historic artefacts from the country’s rich air force history are at risk — the buildings at the South African Air Force Museum in Nelson Mandela Bay are steadily deteriorating.

Martha Evans’s biography of anti-apartheid activist Lilian Ngoyi, one of the leaders of the 1956 Women’s March, is published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the march. This excerpt details her visit with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island in 1973.

You may want to give surplus money to a child now if it will materially improve their life, but several considerations need careful assessment first.

The stink of corruption engulfs Fifa under Gianni Infantino more than at any time during the tenure of the outsize ego that is Sepp Blatter. And as Patrice Motsepe’s bromance with the Italian blooms, Africa looks set to continue to be a Fifa vassal, totally bereft of dignity.

CA Sales Holdings has a vast distribution footprint, but one source of concentration risk has spooked the market: Botswana. There the destruction of the diamond mining industry has filtered through the economy, both in terms of consumer spending and the depreciation of the Botswana pula. Diversification may be the group’s only option.

Reforms under President Cyril Ramaphosa appear increasingly entrenched, with business confidence growing and Operation Vulindlela maintaining momentum. But local government and the rule of law could prove the limits of how far the reform drive can go.

Tech is transforming human resources processes as well as practitioners’ work scope and risks.

The facts at the heart of the Kastelo affair remain allegations, not findings – but the DA’s handling of them is no longer a matter of due process. Having defended Mark Burke, then backed his withdrawal from Parliament’s finance committees, the party now appears to be trying to claim both a principled U-turn and its original position, exposing a deeper problem of political discipline and credibility.

WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. on Monday announced an expansion of secondary sanctions it hopes will "sever every economic lifeline" sustaining Iran, as President Donald Trump's administration struggles to resolve an unpopular war that has pushed energy prices higher.

Predictable small talk is a human technology that opens interactions. Here are practical suggestions for how brief comments or specific compliments can turn polite pleasantries into genuine connection.

South Africa’s first generic semaglutide injection arrived in August, with many more expected. More competition should push down the price of blockbuster GLP-1 drugs – but will they become cheap enough to stamp out a booming black market and reach the public-sector patients who need them?

Suspected insurgents set fire to government buildings, shops, cars and utility poles in more than 70 locations across four of Thailand's southernmost provinces over the weekend, injuring at least three people in a coordinated series of arson attacks, authorities said.

As South Africa’s data centre boom accelerates, civil society groups are petitioning the SAHRC for strict regulation and transparency before unmonitored facilities strain local water, land, and energy grids.

LONDON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham will visit Ukraine on Monday on his first overseas trip since taking office, and will announce British support to help Kyiv improve its domestic production of long-range missiles.

When suburbs are forced to build ‘shadow municipalities’ to sustain security, water and power service delivery, City leadership has failed – The Gathering: Cities Edition probes whether metros can be saved.

While legal and engineering bodies publicly log disciplined members, South Africa's environmental assessment regulator faces questions over years of silence regarding professional misconduct and sanctions.

Struggling under declining voter support, the ANC has pledged tight timelines and targeted interventions on water and electricity to turn around failing municipalities ahead of the local elections.

Minister Dean Macpherson is taking his ‘turn SA into a construction site’ energy to local government and municipal level, and leveraging the power of infrastructure development to lift our cities and metros.

Rescue operations were continuing at the site of the landslide, which witnesses said was large enough to bury an apartment building along with more precarious dwellings.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa has called for public comment by 2 September on Nelson Mandela Bay’s plan to restore the inclining block tariff and reimburse customers who were overcharged under the flat tariff.

Now that robots are escaping the pages of novels and entering warehouses, hospitals and factories, one cannot help wondering whether the energy going into making them resemble people is just silly.

In Nyakallong, Free State, community caregivers at We Care Daycare centre are keeping their kitchen doors open to ensure local children get fed during school holidays. By stepping in when government school-feeding programmes pause, the centre combats severe holiday hunger driven by widespread regional unemployment.

England’s top-flight Premier League promises another exciting campaign this season.

Being guided by hope, and not fear, we can liberate ourselves and each other.