Latest news with #Nyathi
The South African
7 days ago
- The South African
SA-registered truck involved in deadly Zimbabwe crash that killed 17
At least 17 people died on Tuesday after a South African-registered haulage truck collided with a commuter omnibus in Zimbabwe. The incident occurred near Manyame River Bridge on the road linking Harare and Chitungwiza. ZimLive reports that the South Africa-registered truck was travelling to Harare while the commuter omnibus was headed for St Mary's in Chitungwiza. According to witnesses, the truck veered into oncoming traffic as it tried to avoid hitting a Honda Fit in its lane. Moments later, the South African-registered truck crashed into the commuter omnibus, crushing it under its weight. Zimbabwe national police spokesperson Paul Nyathi confirmed that all 17 victims, including some pedestrians, died at the scene of the crash. 'The ZRP confirms a road traffic accident which occurred this morning (on Tuesday) along Chitungwiza Road involving a haulage truck and a kombi,' Nyathi said in a statement. 'The police urge the media and public to be patient as police officers are currently attending the scene. More details will be released in due course.' Among the dead were two children and two pedestrians who were hit first by the truck before it rammed into the kombi. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1. Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
The South African
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The South African
Did Nompumelelo Vilakazi save Chrispen Nyathi's acting career?
Actor Chrispen Nyathi has publicly thanked fellow DiepCity actress Nompumelelo Vilakazi for helping him land a major TV ad when he was facing financial struggles. Nyathi is best known for his role as Pastor Charleston in the popular DiepCity drama series. In a Facebook post, the Zimbabwean-born actor explained that after DiepCity ended, he was unemployed and couldn't afford to attend auditions. 'End of 2023, when I was down and out, no job, DiepCity had come and gone. I needed money to go for auditions for the KFC advert,' Nyathi wrote. 'Nompumelelo Silindile Vilakazi sent me that [money] and encouraged me to go and give it my all.' Vilakazi, who played Sne in DiepCity , stepped in to send him money to travel to the KFC commercial audition, and then again for the callback, wardrobe fitting, and shoot. Despite still owing her from the first time, she continued to help without hesitation. 'This is how Nompumelelo Silindile Vilakazi contributed to my resurrection in the film and television industry,' Nyathi wrote. 'After that advert, I never lacked.' Audiences now best know the actor for his role in the KFC ad where he famously said: 'Ngicela ushintshi baba.' Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 . Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp , Facebook , X, and Bluesky for the latest news.
TimesLIVE
08-07-2025
- Business
- TimesLIVE
Biochar boom? South Africa bets on super charcoal for green jobs
Sithandekile Nyathi confidently hoists herself into the compact loader, lowers the metal caging around the vehicle and drives towards large mounds of wood timber chips. The chips go up a conveyor belt into a converter, where they are heated and turned into a type of 'biochar' called activated carbon, a charcoal that stores carbon and could help cut planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions. 'I used to be a maid. I never thought I would work in an industry that helps lives and the environment,' said Nyathi, a controller at the plant in Brakpan owned by Adsorb, a local manufacturer of activated carbon. South Africa is a coal-rich country but has been the poster child for international efforts to shift towards cleaner energy and industries. However, funding challenges, high unemployment rates and political divides have stalled the efforts, raising questions about how the transition should happen. Darryl Phipps, a chemical engineer and manager of the Adsorb plant where Nyathi works, said he thinks the plant east of Johannesburg is the first of its kind globally. It uses self-sustaining energy, the heat in the converter, to turn wood chips directly into activated charcoal or steam-activated biochar, which allows for greater binding of organic molecules to its surface and has clean flue gas as its only byproduct. Some proponents see the biochar sector as one answer to job creation and carbon capture, but the young industry is struggling with a lack of South African data and funding support, experts said. Globally, the industry was valued at $600m (R10.6bn) in 2023, up 97% from 2021, according to the International Biochar Initiative (IBI). Biochar and activated carbon have been praised by some researchers, farmers and industry experts for improving soil quality and water retention, absorbing toxins and capturing carbon. When used as a fertiliser, biochar improves water holding capacity which helps plants survive drought conditions, according to research publisher Frontiers. Initial studies into South Africa's agricultural sector have showed biochar improved maize yield and soil health, but researchers called for further long-term research, according to the University of Venda.
Daily Maverick
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Matabeleland: A cinematic reflection on love, loss, and the shadows of history
Seven years in the making, Nyasha Kadandara's Matabeleland tells the story of a man striving to exhume and rebury his father who was killed during the Gukurahundi Genocide in Zimbabwe. Other stories — along themes of masculinity, love and the troubles of immigration — emerge as the bigger story plays out. The protagonist of the story is Chris Nyathi, a Zimbabwean who makes his bread in Botswana by driving freight trucks. On camera, he flips out his cellphone and begins counting his children for the director. When asked for the total number, he struggles, he has never counted with the aim of getting to a total; the number tallies up to 17. That is not the whole story, though. Dumi, Nyathi's long-time girlfriend in Botswana, loves him, but would prefer to be his wife instead of being a mere 'girlfriend'. Nyathi says he cannot marry her now because his father was killed and buried improperly, and his affairs have never been in order — he first needs to successfully bury his father. Nyathi's father was beaten to death by the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwean army, a unit that reported directly to then prime minister Robert Mugabe. He was one of more than 20,000 people, many of them Ndebele-speaking natives of Matabeleland in southern Zimbabwe, systematically murdered by the brigade from 1983 until 1987 — in what is today called the Gukurahundi Genocide. Many were shot dead, but not Nyathi's father. Nyathi was 22 years old when he came home from work one day and was told that his father had been killed. He worked for the Matobo National Park, a reserve adjacent the family home. Shari Eppel, who makes an appearance in the film, says he was beaten to death while handcuffed. Eppel is director of Ukuthula Trust, an organisation that facilitates the exhumation for reburial of the remains of those who were killed during the genocide. Exhumed When Julius Mvulo Nyathi was exhumed in 2024, they discovered that the bones of his forearm — the radius and ulna — were broken at the same place on both hands, right where the handcuffs had been secured. And the autopsy report concluded that he was probably beaten with a metal object or rod while attempting to protect his head, until many bones on his body were broken, and until he could no longer resist. And until he was dead. Kadandara was both the director and the cinematographer of the film. She told Daily Maverick that she fell in love with the camera during her studies at Columbia Journalism School, where she was enrolled in the MS Documentary Specialization in 2014. There is a warmth in both the images of the characters and those of Matabeleland, the land. The characters seem absolutely relaxed in the glare of the camera, like they are oblivious of its presence. Kadandara said that both Nyathi and Dumi warmed to being filmed from the beginning. We also see a lot of mopane trees and close-up images of the worms that feast on their leaves. And there are images of the lizards whose home are the crevices of rocks on the Great Dyke Mountain Pass that cuts through Zimbabwe. 'It was very much me filming home; and also wanting to show in little ways the beautiful things that I love about where I come from,' she said. The filmmaker was born in Bulawayo in 1988, a year after the genocide officially ended — when, on 22 December 1987, Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union and Joshua Nkomo's Zapu signed what they called the Unity Accord and merged to form Zanu-PF, thus ending the killings. Kadandara — who was raised in Malindela, a suburb of Bulawayo — says she did not know that so many people had been systematically killed in Matabeleland in the years just before she was born. 'You know, I grew up not being taught about it at school, and not being told about it by adults,' Kadandara says. Atrocities It was way into adulthood that she learnt of the scale of the atrocities that had taken place right in her backyard. And so she went to her mother for answers. She told her about what she remembered. 'My mother told me that there was a curfew. She told me that people used to get stopped, intimidated and beaten by the police,' she said. She did not know that the genocide would be a big part of the documentary when she began. In an interview with Marmalade Collective, a Nigerian online magazine, she explained that she had initially wanted to make a seven-minute story focused on life a year after Robert Mugabe was deposed by a military coup in 2017. 'This shift happened after consulting with others, including my producer, who encouraged me to explore the story more deeply. What started as a short video within a larger multimedia piece turned into a feature documentary, which required much more time to tell the story properly,' she said. For this film, Kadandara worked with LBx Africa, a Kenyan production company. Sam Soko, the co-founder, took on the producer role for Matabeleland. 'We are creative partners and have worked with each other in different combinations. I was, for example, one of his cinematographers for his 2022 documentary Free Money, available on Netflix,' Kadandara said. They have even more projects on the way, including a film about the Zambian women's football team that participated in the 2023 World Cup. Kadandara has lived in Kenya for at least eight years now. When Kadandara began filming in 2018, she flew to Zimbabwe from Kenya. She would also routinely fly into Botswana to film with Nyathi and Dumi together and, sometimes, separately. 'I would usually go for about two weeks at a time and sort of see what I could capture,' she said. Covid-19 restrictions The film was shot over six years. Some of the scenes were filmed at the height of the Covid-19 period, with restrictions sometimes complicating travel between countries. For most of 2024, she worked with editor Jordan Inaan and producer Sam Soko to figure out what story to tell; a lover of music, Kadandara also compiled the playlist that composers Eduardo Aram and Gabriel Milliet used for the film score. Nyasha said the producer was a big part of crafting the story and wanted him credited. The result is a story that works at many levels. It is a love story, a story about a man struggling with the weight of his father's violent death at the hands of a powerful government; and the story of the estimated 20,000 people that who killed from 1983 until 1987. The film carries images of skeletons dug up from shallow graves distributed across the region — exhumed for reburial. Kadandara said she hoped the film inspired a reckoning with the past. She and some Zimbabwean partners had planned a series of screenings across Zimbabwe and she was especially excited for potential screenings in rural Matabeleland. When asked if she was worried about possible censorship, Kadandara said she was not because she wanted to be hopeful about Zimbabwe. 'And a lot of the things people love about the film is not necessarily the political. It is the human story, the intimacy, the relationship dynamic,' she said. DM
The Citizen
26-06-2025
- Automotive
- The Citizen
Mind the hole: Good news in Johannesburg's pothole crisis
According to JRA, the upgrades will improve ride quality, enhance drainage, prevent new potholes from forming. The City of Johannesburg has unveiled a R149.9 million investment to resurface key roads across the metro in the 2025/26 financial year. This is part of a multi-pronged strategy to address its worsening pothole crisis and decaying road network. The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) said the funding will be used to comprehensively resurface main arterial and collector roads. It will prioritise areas such as Kliptown, Nasrec, Eldorado Park, Ivory Park, Sandton, Soweto Highway and stretches of the M1 North and South. 'This increased budget, up from R105 million last financial year, reflects our commitment to addressing roads that have deteriorated beyond repair,' said JRA CEO Zweli Nyathi. 'We understand the immense frustration caused by the current state of the city's roads.' Resurfacing 85km of road The resurfacing programme aims to upgrade 85 kilometres of road between July 2025 and June 2026. The work follows a Visual Conditions Assessment (VCA), which flagged many of these roads as being in 'very poor' condition, requiring urgent reconstruction or resurfacing. According to JRA, the upgrades will improve ride quality, enhance drainage, prevent new potholes from forming, and extend the lifespan of the roads. The asphalt will be supplied by JRA's own Booysens Asphalt Plant to ensure quality and efficiency. 'We are focused on delivering tangible improvements that will alleviate the daily challenges faced by commuters,' Nyathi added. ALSO READ: Joburg speaker removed in vote of no confidence Coordinated repairs and reinstatement Alongside resurfacing, JRA continues with daily pothole patching, crack sealing and deep patching. It is also working on a regional road reinstatement programme to restore roads and sidewalks dug up during infrastructure repairs, particularly by Johannesburg Water. A Service Level Agreement between JRA and Johannesburg Water has helped cut the reinstatement backlog by 75% of 10 000 cases in the current financial year. ALSO READ: How Joburg plans to spend R89 billion Long-term planning underway MMC for Transport Kenny Kunene said the city's road network was under pressure from more cars being on the road. 'Johannesburg's road infrastructure, in some areas, was not designed for today's traffic volumes. Resurfacing main arterial roads is critical to ensuring safe and efficient mobility,' he said. Last year's resurfacing work included projects in areas such as Kyalami Estates, Quellerina, Florida Park, Protea Glen, Birdhaven, and Suideroord. The City said the new investment signals its ongoing commitment to safer, more reliable roads. NOW READ: No budget, no bridge, no answers from JRA
