Johannesburg Archives - Kaab TV

Mandela’s Grandson Says Palestinians’ Plight Is Worse Than Apartheid

Staff Reporter — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 10:18:41 +0000

JOHANNESBURG (KAAB TV) – Nelson Mandela’s grandson has said Palestinians’ lives under Israeli occupation are worse than anything Black South Africans experienced under apartheid, and urged the global community to come to their aid.

Mandla Mandela, 51, spoke to Reuters on Wednesday evening at Johannesburg Airport, where he was boarding a flight to Tunisia to join a flotilla aiming to deliver food and humanitarian supplies to Gaza despite an Israeli naval blockade.

“Many of us that have visited the occupied territories in Palestine have only come back with one conclusion: that the Palestinians are experiencing a far worse form of apartheid than we ever experienced,” Mandela said.

“We believe that the global community has to continue supporting the Palestinians, just as they stood side-by-side with us.”

Israel rejects comparisons between the lives of Palestinians who have lived under occupation or economic blockade for more than half a century and the apartheid era in South Africa, when the Black majority was ruled by a repressive white minority government.

It has also defended its tight restriction of the supply of humanitarian and other goods to Gaza, saying it aims to stop weapons from reaching the militant group Hamas.

Starvation is widespread in the enclave, according to the World Food Programme, and an authoritative hunger monitor says a quarter of the population are suffering from famine.

Mandela is joining a group of 10 South African activists in the Global Sumud Flotilla, which includes dozens of boats and hundreds of people from 44 countries including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

South Africa’s African National Congress said their mission “echoes our own struggle for liberation”.

Mandela emphasised that, when apartheid ended in 1994, it was after intense pressure and sanctions from other nations.

“They isolated apartheid South Africa and finally collapsed it. We believe that the time has come for that to be done for the Palestinians,” he said.

(Reuters).

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South African President Removes Minister Criticised By Key Coalition Partner

Staff Reporter — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:09:23 +0000

JOHANNESBURG (KAAB TV) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has removed the higher education minister from her position, his office said on Monday, after his party’s key coalition partner accused her of misconduct.

The removal of Nobuhle Nkabane from her post could help defuse tensions between Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), the two biggest parties in the coalition government, ahead of a budget vote this week.

The DA alleges that Nkabane helped engineer the appointment of ANC-connected individuals to the boards of skills development organizations and lied to parliament to cover that up.

Nkabane has denied the allegations against her, according to local television station eNCA. She said in a statement that it had been a privilege to serve in her position.

The DA welcomed Nkabane’s dismissal. The party stepped up its criticism of the minister after Ramaphosa fired its deputy trade minister for not receiving presidential permission for an overseas trip, in the latest spat between the two main governing parties.

The DA threatened to vote against the budgets of departments led by ANC ministers it has accused of wrongdoing, including Nkabane, potentially disrupting the national budget.

Lawmakers are due to consider the last major piece of budget legislation, the Appropriation Bill, on Wednesday.

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South Africa’s DA party Withdraws From National Dialogue Amid Coalition Dispute

Staff Reporter — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 07:53:02 +0000

JOHANNESBURG (KAAB TV) – South Africa’s Democratic Alliance party has withdrawn from a national dialogue but stopped short of leaving the coalition government after President Cyril Ramaphosa fired one of its deputy ministers, DA leader John Steenhuisen said on Saturday.

The national dialogue is a process launched by Ramaphosa to unite the country after last year’s election, which saw his African National Congress lose its parliamentary majority for the first time in three decades, forcing it to team up with the DA to form a government.

The two parties are far apart ideologically and have clashed repeatedly over the last year, as the DA has accused the ANC of acting against its interests and without proper consultation.

Steenhuisen said the DA federal executive had also considered tabling a motion of no confidence against Ramaphosa, but decided against it.

However, he said the party was “in the process of losing confidence in his ability to act as a leader not of the ANC, but of the GNU (Government of National Unity).”

Ramaphosa sacked deputy trade minister Andrew Whitfield this week over an unauthorised trip to the United States, and said the DA should nominate a replacement.

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South Africa’s Crime Intelligence Head Arrested on Corruption Charges

Kaab TV News Editor — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 16:28:00 +0000

JOHANNESBURG (Kaab TV) – South Africa’s head of criminal intelligence, Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo, has been arrested on allegations of fraud and corruption, in a move that has sent shockwaves through the country’s law enforcement community.

Lt-Gen Khumalo was apprehended on Thursday evening by members of the anti-corruption unit upon his arrival at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, according to local media.

He appeared in court in Pretoria on Friday alongside six other senior police officers. All seven are reportedly linked to an ongoing investigation into the alleged misuse of intelligence funds and irregular appointments within the South African Police Service (SAPS).

Their legal representative told the court that the group intends to plead not guilty to the charges.

While full details of the case remain unclear, this marks the second major round of arrests within the SAPS Crime Intelligence unit in less than two weeks. Three additional senior officials are already facing charges of corruption and misconduct.

The arrests have intensified scrutiny on the integrity of the Crime Intelligence unit, which is mandated to combat organized crime and internal threats. Critics argue that the wave of scandals is eroding public trust in law enforcement.

The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s second-largest political party, welcomed the arrests, describing them as a necessary step towards restoring credibility in a unit “on the brink of collapse.”

“This points to yet another serious breach of trust within a critical state institution,” the party said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Economic Freedom Fighters said the arrest of Lt-Gen Khumalo was “not an isolated scandal” but part of a broader pattern of systemic failure, calling for a structural overhaul of the country’s policing system.

Lt-Gen Khumalo was appointed as the head of Crime Intelligence in 2022, following more than 20 years of service in various SAPS departments.

Corruption allegations against senior police officials have long plagued the SAPS, further damaging public confidence in the force.

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South African Mother Given Life Sentence For Trafficking 6-year-old Daughter

Staff Reporter — Fri, 30 May 2025 06:54:01 +0000

JOHANNESBURG (KAAB TV) – A South African mother and two accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for trafficking her then-6-year-old daughter, in a case that gained nationwide attention since the child went missing last year.

Kelly Smith, her boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and their friend Steveno Van Rhyn were convicted of kidnapping and trafficking the girl, Joshlin Smith, after she disappeared from a small town in the Western Cape.

In a trial that shocked the country, a witness said Kelly Smith told her that she had sold her daughter to a sangoma, or traditional healer, for 20,000 rand ($1,100) and that the girl was desired for her “eyes and skin”.

Joshlin Smith has still not been found despite an extensive police search.

Announcing their sentences on Thursday, high court judge Nathan Erasmus said the fact Kelly Smith, Appollis and Van Rhyn were drug users was no excuse.

“There is nothing that I can find that is redeeming and deserving of a lesser sentence than the harshest I can impose,” Erasmus said.

For kidnapping the three were given 10-year jail terms.

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South Africa Town Leader ‘sad’ About Trump’s Misuse Of White Crosses Video

Staff Reporter — Sat, 24 May 2025 08:57:24 +0000

JOHANNESBURG (KAAB TV) – A local representative of an area shown in a video played at the White House said she was “sad” that U.S. President Donald Trump used the footage of hundreds of white crosses as false evidence of mass killings of white South African farmers.

Trump showed an aerial shot of a procession of cars moving along a road lined with white crosses during his meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, as he doubled down on false claims of a white genocide in South Africa.

He said the crosses were “burial sites” for over 1,000 white farmers.

The shot, whose location and date were verified by Reuters, showed crosses that were actually placed along the road between the town of Newcastle and the rural community of Normandien in 2020 as a tribute to a farming couple who had been murdered, said Bebsie Cronje, a ward councillor for Newcastle, in KwaZulu-Natal province.

The crosses, installed to accompany a memorial service for the couple, have since been removed.

“The crosses was not a display of how many farm murders (took place) or whatever. It was just a total tribute to the Raffertys,” she told Reuters by telephone.

“I feel it’s very sad that something like this is being used politically.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

South Africa’s police minister Senzo Mchunu also said in a press briefing on Friday that the crosses were linked to the murder of the Rafferty couple.

Three suspects were arrested and sentenced for their killing and are in jail, he said.

“They were sadly murdered by criminals in their home. The incident sparked a very strong protest by the farming community. The crosses symbolised killings on farms over years, they are not graves,” he said.

He added that claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa were “unfounded and unsubstantiated”, saying the country only recorded six farm murders in the first three months of 2025, which included one white person.

A total of 5,727 murders took place over that period, down from 6,536 in the same period last year, figures from the police ministry showed.

“The history of farm murders in the country has always been distorted and reported in an unbalanced way. The truth is that farm murders have always included African people in more numbers.”

Cronje said the placing of the crosses was not politically motivated.

“There was a group that was very close to the Raffertys.

And they organised the gathering and the travelling of everybody there,” said Cronje, referring to the long line of vehicles in the video.

She said that since then, another white farmer from Newcastle was murdered. But she did not feel that the crimes were linked to race.

“I can’t say that it’s just white people. If a black farmer is killed, it doesn’t come to the news,” said Cronje, who is from the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s second-biggest political party and a coalition partner of the African National Congress.

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South African Currency Falls After Trump Says He Will Cut Funding For South Africa

Staff Reporter — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 06:44:00 +0000

JOHANNESBURG (KAAB TV) – The rand slumped in early trade on Monday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would cut off funding for South Africa.

Trump said on Sunday, without citing evidence, that “certain classes of people” in South Africa were being treated “very badly” and that he would cut off funding for the country until the matter is investigated.

08:54 Monday (EAT), the rand traded at 18.97 against the U.S. dollar , about 1.4% weaker than its closing level on Friday.

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Gang Leader ‘Tiger’ Evades South African Police After 78 Mine Deaths

Staff Reporter — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 19:11:11 +0000

JOHANNESBURG, (KAAB TV) – A suspected gang leader known as “Tiger” escaped with the help of South African police after being pulled from an illegal gold mine last week where at least 78 miners died, the police said on Monday.

The Lesotho national resurfaced from the deep mine shaft in Stilfontein while officers had it surrounded, and was supposed to be escorted directly to the nearest police station for detention, said national police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe.

But during a routine inspection, a senior officer noticed “Tiger” was not in the holding cells, she told public broadcaster SABC.

“The only logical conclusion is that someone let him free,” she said. “Preliminary investigations indicate that he was let go between Shaft 11 and the police station.”

The police said in a statement that they had launched a manhunt and were investigating who within their forces might have assisted “Tiger”. Three other suspected ringleaders are in custody, Mathe added.

Police were widely condemned for their months-long siege of the illegal gold mine, in which they cut off food and water in an attempt to force the miners out and arrest them.

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said the state should not be held responsible for the deaths.

“You have got people who voluntarily entered mines and did some illegal activities and in the process died inside those mines. To then come back and say the state is going to take the blame for that, in my view, is misplaced,” he told Reuters at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Graphic video shows dozens of people killed and injured in northern Nigeria on Saturday after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and fuel exploded.00:0601:03

The standoff culminated in a state-sponsored rescue last week in which 246 survivors were retrieved from the mine, many emaciated and weak from hunger.

Police have cited miners as saying there was food underground, but that the gang leaders kept it for themselves.

Thousands of people are believed to be mining gold illegally in abandoned industrial mines in South Africa.

The operations are thought to be run by Lesotho-based gangs, and police say some of the workers are illegal immigrants recruited from neighbouring countries without knowing what they have come to do.

Reuters.

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An Ethiopian Immigrant Who was Held Hostage in Johannesburg Was Rescued

Staff Reporter — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 07:15:17 +0000

Johannesburg (KAAB TV) – South African police have rescued 26 migrants believed to be Ethiopians, who were held hostage in a house in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Also, fifteen of the migrants were found naked in a house, while another 11 with minor injuries were found near the house.

On the other hand, the operation to rescue these people took place on Thursday night in the north-east of Johannesburg, after information was received from neighbors according to the police, and three people were arrested in this case.

It is not clear how these migrants arrived in South Africa but the authorities are investigating if they are victims of those who trade in smuggling.

A statement from the police said that they destroyed a “network of people smuggling”.

Officials did not elaborate on the conditions the migrants were held in or why some were naked.

Finally, during the operation, some jumped out of the windows, according to the police, and were injured and taken to the hospital.

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