Tuesday, 11 August 2026

Local disaster centres were placed on high alert as snow, icy roads, strong winds and heavy rain disrupted several provinces, with officials urging people to stay off risky routes and stop snow-chasing.

Stats SA revised net migration to 220,000 and pegged South Africa’s mid-year population at 63.52 million, saying irregular migration cannot be counted definitively because undocumented movement is outside formal systems.

City Power said illegal miners and cable thieves are shooting at technicians in Johannesburg’s underground tunnels, forcing it to spend about R250 million on security and delaying restoration work across more than 2,000 outage calls.

Maluti-a-Phofung remained trapped in dysfunction: five mayors in four years, unpaid July salaries, chronic water shortages and a debt of more than R10 billion to Eskom, while the mayor blamed low revenue collection and treasury delays.

A circular-economy programme has kept about 2 million retail items a year out of landfill, helping more than 8,000 unemployed South Africans start township businesses, mostly women building income through resale, repair and upcycling.