October 2026

Jili was arrested on Wednesday. The allegation is that he took the R100 000 in exchange for processing payment for a service done for the municipality.

Dlamini was allegedly delivering the R600 000 to police officers to make the case go away when he was arrested in Durban.

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs urged the municipality to keep services running and to appoint an acting municipal manager. Spokesperson Siboniso Mngadi said: "The department calls upon all the senior management and councillors of uThukela District to ensure that the service delivery continues uninterrupted."Share

Mbalula spoke to community members at Emamnedwini Hall. He said young people without matric should get a stipend through a basic income grant. In his words: "They mustn’t stay there without hope because they don’t have matric."

Mbalula said some employment initiatives are already under way. He said these should not be presented as promises for the future.

Unemployment among people aged 15 to 34 was 47.4% in the second quarter of 2026, up 1.5 percentage points. The number of unemployed young people rose by 264,000 to 5-million.

The mid-term budget did not settle the future of a permanent basic income scheme. National Treasury confirmed the R370 social relief of distress grant will run until March 2028. Treasury said a High Court ruling, if upheld, could widen eligibility and raise the annual cost to between R36bn and R74bn.Share

The meeting will focus on multi-messenger and multi-wavelength transients. It will also cover research collaboration, skills development and public engagement.

The National Research Foundation (NRF) issued a statement on the delegation. It said the delegates' participation highlights South Africa's contribution to the Working Group. It also said the role of national research institutions and universities in advancing collaborative astronomy is part of this.

A statement on the working group said it reinforces the contribution of astronomy to scientific advancement and sustainable development across BRICS countries.Share

The latest Co-Chairs Report said the working group advanced catalytic investment projects worth R32 billion. It also said municipal financial performance has stabilised. The report said governance measures improved compliance and accountability.

The report also recorded progress in reducing water losses and strengthening tourism promotion. Co-Chair Mike Mabuyakhulu said the joint work of all spheres of government and social partners is starting to yield tangible results.

Mabuyakhulu said: "We are seeing meaningful progress in key areas such as infrastructure development, transport, investment attraction and service delivery."

Mashatile said a safe, vibrant, well-managed, clean and hospitable city centre will send a strong message that eThekwini is open for business.Share

The fire broke out in the early hours of Saturday. Tshwane firefighters responded to the blaze. Dozens of families lost their homes. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The Human Settlement Department said the fire had a devastating impact on the affected families. It called for urgent mobilisation of humanitarian relief, particularly from Home Affairs. Some residents may have lost their identity documents.Share

Rasilingwane said Ekurhuleni needs accountable leadership focused on delivering measurable results. He said the ANC has brought chaos to the city and the DA will replace it with competence.

He gave examples of failing services. A Tembisa grandmother has waited 30 years for a house, and communities in Primrose endured 22 days of water interruptions.

Rasilingwane described his pledges as a commitment to disciplined leadership, decisive leadership and measurable progress. He said: "These pledges are not a claim that every problem will disappear overnight."Share

Residents settled at Gate 7 in July. They had left rented homes in Dunoon and Joe Slovo in Milnerton. Reports said they hoped to escape high rent and crime there.

Resident Lennox Shumani said people asked officials what to do. He said they were still organising zinc sheets to build houses when the demolitions happened.

Naeema Makarani-Hamid also lost her home. She said the mayor of Cape Town is breaking children down by demolishing the homes. Her children attend nearby schools in Kensington.Share

The department commissioned the study on virginity inspection. It will include 1000 face-to-face interviews, 10 focus group discussions and up to 33 key informant interviews. The focus groups will involve people who have undergone virginity testing.

Pule said the approach does not aim to undermine African culture and traditions. She said it aims to promote constructive dialogue and evidence-based policy. She said: "Our responsibility is to work together to ensure that cultural considerations are approached with respect, while safeguarding the rights and best interests of every child,"

The King said boys should not be left behind in discussions on cultural practices, particularly male circumcision.Share

The authors say this result eases privacy concerns about sharing anonymised genome data. The work is peer-reviewed. Only a short summary of the paper was available, so the methods and the conditions behind the word "negligible" are not known. The finding may depend on the settings the authors assumed.Share

Mashatile said government is committed to improving the quality of education that learners receive. He said it will keep working to improve access to quality education, skills development, entrepreneurship and employment opportunities.

The planned upgrades include better classrooms, specialised workshops, better sanitation, digital learning resources and stronger security. They also include sports facilities and sustainable energy solutions.

Mashatile told the learners: "Never allow your circumstances to determine the size of your dreams".

Earlier on Friday, he visited the home and gravesite of John Langalibalele Dube, a founding President of the African National Congress and an education pioneer. Mashatile recalled that Nelson Mandela went to the gravesite after voting in 1994.Share

The researchers, who wrote about their own project, say the maps show a thriving local economy. They say this contradicts the 2025 Draft Wild Coast Coastal Development Plan, which portrays the area as poor. The maps record wetlands, sacred places, grazing land and food areas. The authors give an estimate of R60,000 a household each year from sweet potato and amadumbe sales. This is the researchers' own account, and it gives no results on how the maps were used.Share

The interviews took place between January and August 2025: five in Cameroon, five in Kenya, five in Nigeria and four in South Africa. In Cameroon, fact-checkers said they mostly avoid politics out of fear. In more open systems, the work grows into education and accountability. Across all four countries, many fact-checkers are moving from labelling claims true or false towards helping people judge information themselves, including through "prebunking". The authors wrote about their own study in an article. It is not the peer-reviewed paper, and the sample is small.Share

Gauteng leads with 49 518 applications, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 33 661 and the Eastern Cape with 17 441. Limpopo has 16 251 and the Western Cape has 16 249. Mpumalanga has 14 900, the Free State 11 345, the North West 9 179 and the Northern Cape 4 177.

SAPS said over 232 000 applicants have completed profile verification. It said over 190 000 have started an application.

Van Wyk said officials are working around the clock to keep the portal running smoothly. She also gave an assurance to those who have already applied.

"Applicants who have successfully submitted their applications are assured that their submissions remain valid and that no further action is required."Share

The US cyber agency CISA said it had not seen anyone exploit the flaws as of publication. Researchers also reported very little activity beyond reconnaissance.

CERT-EU said the flaws could affect every PHP version from 5 onward. It advised organisations to prepare to update quickly. Britain's National Cyber Security Centre gave the same advice and also urged organisations to isolate internet-facing applications.

OpenAI said in a blog that the AI firm Calif found the bug using OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol. The security firm Wiz found and reported it independently. OpenAI described a two-month effort involving PHP maintainers, researchers and security providers.Share

The department said the learner has received psycho-social support and is continuing with the exams. The learner was writing the senior certificate examination.

Department spokesperson Howard Ndaba said the department held an urgent virtual meeting with chief invigilators from all schools. He said "no candidate may be denied access to an examination room on grounds of outstanding school fees or any matter unrelated to eligibility to write".

The department also reminded principals and chief invigilators of a national examination instruction, E06 of 2026. It says candidates may not be denied access to exams over fees.Share

Directorate spokesperson Lizzy Shuping said the woman is now 20 years old. She lived with the officer when the alleged abuse happened. The officer is held at the Moroka holding cells.

Shuping said the woman was intimidated while the rape took place. She also said the woman's silence was bought with money. These are the directorate's claims, and the officer has not yet answered them in court.Share

Mbalula said people who wanted the ANC to collapse threatened the interests of the people. He said the ANC's death would be the death of the people of South Africa. He also said people from his party were being called refugees in Cape Town.

Mbalula said the problem was the person, not the party. He described an individual who gets a job, does not work and puts a hand in the till. He also said that being a councillor is very hard, and that being an MEC is easier because an MEC is far from the people.

He said the ANC-led government intervened so that Tongaat Hulett continues to operate and jobs are saved. He also said the government planned to cut the fuel levy from November 4 to reduce fuel costs and ease pressure on food prices. He cited finance minister Enoch Godongwana's medium-term budget policy statement.

Mbalula said the ANC is very confident that its councillor candidates in the area are loved by the people.Share

The engagement took place in Sephaku village in the Elias Motsoaledi Local Municipality. Godfrey Skosana, the party's Ward 23 councillor candidate, was among the party representatives.

One resident asked the party to help small businesses grow so they can employ people. The resident said this would also help with the water shortage. Some households have no one in work and must buy water every day, the resident said.

Another resident said: "We are requesting that if FF Plus wins, they should provide us with water and fix our streets; our youth should be employed"Share

Convovo is a conversational AI studio led by Cornell professor Tapan Parikh. Its researchers tested the models through developer interfaces and forced them to name one candidate. In the consumer apps, ChatGPT and Grok refused to say who to vote for.

The bias held in safe seats. GPT chose the Democrat in 57 of 67 heavily Republican districts. Grok chose the Republican in 47 of 72 deep-blue districts.

The researchers also tested 30 races with web search switched off. GPT chose the Democrat in 24 and the Republican in one, and declined five. Grok refused 27 and chose the Democrat in three.

An OpenAI spokesperson said the study used developer interfaces with prompts that explicitly demand a recommendation, which does not reflect how people use ChatGPT. SpaceXAI, which makes Grok, did not respond to a request for comment. The US midterm elections are on 3 November.Share

Official commission documents say Malambe wrongfully registered and issued an Eswatini birth certificate to a foreign national, Vusimusi Dlamini, on February 12 2024. The documents say she did this with intent to mislead.

Malambe faced two counts of dishonesty under the Public Service Act. The commission also found her guilty of corruption.Share

Farmer Willem van der Merwe said the road needs four to five days of grading to become drivable again. He said it stays drivable for about two weeks, depending on traffic. His machine uses 150 to 170 litres of diesel a day.

Alex Mabelebele, a farmer in Alldays, said the state of the road makes vehicle maintenance too costly, so he is not making money. He said: "For the years that I have had my farm, this road has cost me an arm and a leg."

The R572 is 320 km long in total.Share

Forbes spoke to reporters at the Cape Town regional court this week. Forensic experts told the proceedings that Anele Tembe may have jumped or may have been pushed from a 10th-floor hotel balcony. The experts presented conflicting possibilities.

Forbes said the family has the truth and that the media plays an important role in making it come out. He also gave a reason for going without a lawyer: "I do not have resources for expensive [legal representation] to sustain such a long fight."Share

In an article on The Conversation, the palaeontologist describes an animal that walked on two legs, reached about 4.5 metres and weighed 220kg. The team, led from the University of the Witwatersrand, found it in rocks about 210 million years old. They suspect that environmental conditions explain the differences from South African species, but this is still being investigated. The article does not name the study or say whether it was peer-reviewed.Share

Graduate student Qifan Yu, graduate student Nina Cao and assistant professor Kaitlyn Becker built the fibres from a clear rubber core with one roughened side. An algorithm reads how the light changes as the fibres bend. The sheet still rebuilt its shape accurately when a few fibres were cut or disconnected. The team suggests uses in physical therapy, gaming and robot control, but these uses have not been tested yet.Share

The team traced collagenase genes across 700 bacterial genomes. They argue the enzymes evolved in microbes and spread around the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition, which made soft-bodied animals harder to fossilise. The work is peer-reviewed and appears in the journal Current Biology. The link to the fossil record is an inference from genome and timing analysis, not direct fossil evidence, and the authors present it as a possible mechanism.Share

The water probe covers two problems: the water crisis in Bronkhorstspruit and a contamination problem in the Pretoria CBD. A news briefing on the week's stories raised both. The municipal elections are about a week and a half away.

Carrim is a North West businessman. The briefing said his legal troubles are piling up after he failed to appear before the Madlanga Commission. It also said he tried to leave the country while the commission was seeking his testimony.Share

Thulile Dlamini, Acting Director for Subsistence Farming at the department, spoke during Food Security Month. She said poverty, unemployment, income inequality, hazards and food price volatility limit what households can get. The survey figure was 15.9 million in 2024.

The 2023 National Food and Nutrition Security Survey found that 63.5% of households were food insecure to some degree. Among children aged 0 to 5, stunting stood at 28.8% and wasting at 5.3%. Underweight stood at 7.8%, overweight at 25.3% and obesity at 32.1%.

Dlamini said the second National Food and Nutrition Security Plan has a weakness. In her words: "The centralised design of the plan restricts responsiveness to localised needs and emerging challenges".

The 2025/26 Budget Vote set aside R3.2 billion for food security and farmer support programmes. The SA-GAP certification programme has supported at least 740 producers and plans to reach 1 700 farmers in the coming year. Dlamini said below-normal summer rainfall is expected, so farmers should prioritise drought-tolerant and locally adapted cultivars.Share

IEC CEO Sy Mamabolo said the judgment on candidate lists has made the logistics for the municipal elections harder. The elections take place on 4 November.

Mamabolo said the coming week is a very big week. He said it could decide whether 24 months of IEC planning succeeds or fails.Share

The five people who died were four men and a woman, aged 21 to 33. Police said they died at the scene.

The three wounded people were a man and two women. They were taken to a medical facility.

Police spokesperson Novela Potelwa said a manhunt is under way for the gunmen. The Western Cape Anti-Gang Unit is investigating the shooting.Share

The Badgers scored 243-8 in their 50 overs. Verunissa Reddy made 52. Annerie Dercksen then took career-best List A figures of 5-44, and the Warriors were all out for 145.

In Tshwane, the Titans were all out for 135 in 32.3 overs. Titans captain Leah Jones took 3-17 with the ball, and Cobras bowler Kayla Reyneke took 2-12.

The Cobras chased down 136 and finished on 138/5 with 17.3 overs to spare. Goodall opened the innings and scored 58 off 91 deliveries.Share