24 hours in pictures, 27 May 2025
Through the lens: The Citizen's Picture Editors select the best news photographs from South Africa and around the world.
Jordy Smith of South Africa surfs in Heat 2 of the Semifinals at the Western Australia Margaret River Pro on May 27, 2025 at Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia. Smith went on to win the competition. (Photo by Beatriz Ryder/World Surf League)
Supporters of South Korea's Democratic Party's presidential election candidate Lee Jae-myung, cheer during a campaign event in Suwon city, Gyeoggi-do, South Korea, May 26, 2025. South Korea will hold its presidential election on 03 June 2025. Picture: Matrix Images The remnants of a small dwelling where six family members lost their lives when their home caught fire in the Marikana informal settlement located in Ekurhuleni on May 27, 2025 in Kwa-Thema, South Africa. It is reported that six family members died in the tragedy. The cause of the fire is still unknown. (Photo by Gallo Images/OJ Koloti) A young woman cools off amongst the water jets of a fountain during a hot spring day in Moscow, Russia, 26 May 2025. According to the Russian Hydrometeorological Centre, air temperatures are expected to climb up to 30 degrees Celsius in some areas of Moscow. Picture: EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV Cyril Ramaphosa ( President of the republic of South Africa) delivers keynote address at the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium South Africa (SIDSSA) at Century City on May 27, 2025 in Cape Town, South Africa. The symposium showcases infrastructure investment opportunities in both South Africa and the African continent, and also fosters regional cooperation and integration. (Photo by Gallo Images/ER Lombard) A handout photo made available by the press service of the 65th Separate Mechanised Brigade shows new recruits of the 65th Separate Mechanised Brigade attending their training on an obstacle course with psychological elements and a tank used on a shooting range in the Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, 26 May 2025, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory on 24 February 2022, marking the beginning of a conflict that has led to widespread damage and a humanitarian situation. Picture: EPA-EFE/Press service of the 65th Mechanized Brigade A female Hippopotamus seen along with her two days old calf at Delhi Zoo on May 22, 2025 in New Delhi, India. The National Zoological Park in the capital has welcomed a newborn hippopotamus calf after a gap of four years. The female calf was born on Monday to a nine-year-old hippopotamus. Picture: Matrix Images Actors defending the fortress of Zons at the medieval spectacle 'Sturm auf Zons', in Germany . The event focuses on a simulated attack on Zons by Burgundians in April 1475, which is staged with numerous disguised actors, and which is said to have happened in a similar way during the Neuss War in 1474 – 1475. Picture: Matrix Images Egrets build nests as they prepare to breed in the forest in Suqian City, Jiangsu Province, China on May 25, 2025. Picture: Matrix Images This aerial view shows damages following the passage of a tornado in the city of Puerto Varas, Region de los Lagos, southern Chile, on May 26, 2025. An unusual tornado rated as category EF-1 on the Fujita scale hit on the eve the city of Puerto Varas, almost 1,000 km south of Santiago, leaving eight people injured and some 150 homes affected, authorities said. (Photo by Javier TORRES / AFP) Contestants in the men's downhill race chase the cheese down the hill during Gloucestershire's famous Cheese-Rolling contest on May 26, 2025 in Brockworth, England. Every year competitors and spectators from around the world gather for the Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling competition that sees participants fling themselves down a steep hill in pursuit of a rolling 7 pound (3 kilogram) wheel of Double Gloucester cheese. The first contestant to the bottom of the 590 foot (180 meter) Cooper's Hill wins the wheel of cheese. The ankle-breaking extreme sport has officially been recorded since 1826, but is thought to have roots in an ancient pagan tradition. (Photo by) This aerial view shows trucks towing shipping containers at the port of Umm Qasr in Iraq's southern city of Basra on May 26, 2025. (Photo by Hussein FALEH / AFP)
PICTURES: Colourful Hillbrow parade entertains Joburg residents
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The Citizen
2 hours ago
- The Citizen
DJ Sumbody's murder exposes connection between crime and power
'The whole issue of killings of whistleblowers and assassinations generally is massively interlinked with procurement corruption.' DJ Sumbody at the Crypto Knight on 22 July 2022 in Midrand. Picture: Gallo Images/Oupa Bopape On a quiet November night in 2022, DJ Sumbody – a rising star in South Africa's music scene — was gunned down in a hail of bullets while heading home. Then, in April 2024, engineer Armand Swart was executed in a similar shooting after his company flagged a suspicious government tender in which prices had been inflated by over 4,500 percent. But dramatic arrests this week are tying those murders and many more together, exposing a murky underworld where criminals consort with political bigwigs for lucrative state tenders. The arrests came after explosive allegations by a senior police chief who accused the force and South Africa's police minister of a cover-up. ALSO READ: Malema accuses Kunene of lying about relationship with man accused of murdering DJ Sumbody Deep-rooted procurement corruption has seeped through every level of government for decades, security researcher David Bruce told AFP. 'The whole issue of killings of whistleblowers and assassinations generally is massively interlinked with that issue,' said Bruce, a consultant with the Institute for Security Studies. DJ Sumbody arrests Among those arrested this week are a former Johannesburg police officer at the time of DJ Sumbody's murder, as well as the prime suspect, a businessman named Katiso Molefe. British media have reported that a South African man of the same name and age as Molefe was sentenced to four years in prison in the United Kingdom in 2003 for drug trafficking. Two other men, already in custody for the 2023 attempted murder of former reality TV star turned influencer Tebogo Thobejane, are also believed to have played a role. It doesn't end there. ALSO READ: Firearms used in DJ Sumbody's murder linked to 10 other high-profile cases During the raid on Monday, police found prominent Johannesburg politician, Kenny Kunene, at Molefe's home. Kunene, a Johannesburg city council member, has since been suspended by his party leader, Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie, though police have not formally implicated him. Kunene denied any wrongdoing, saying he was merely trying to assist a journalist seeking to interview Molefe. 'Tenderpreneurs' At the centre of the widening web is businessman Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, described locally as a 'tenderpreneur', a term referring to individuals who have made fortunes through government contracts. Also, the head of a private security firm, Matlala, was arrested in May in connection with the 2023 attempt on his ex-partner Thobejane's life. Thobejane, famous for her role in the long-running local soap opera Muvhango, denied having 'snitched' on Matlala earlier this month. 'I am a victim,' she told News24. In 2024, Matlala secured a $20 million contract with the national police — now cancelled — despite being implicated in a $125 million public hospital embezzlement scandal. ALSO READ: DJ Sumbody's family welcomes arrests of suspects, thank police The Tembisa hospital case cost whistleblower Babita Deokaran her life in 2021, when she was shot nine times outside her home. No arrests have been made in Deokaran's killing, reflecting the impunity that reigns, with only 11 percent of murders solved, according to 2024 police statistics. 'All these three cases are linked somehow,' police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said, referring to DJ Sumbody, Swart and Thobejane. Four weapons, including the AK-47 rifle used to kill DJ Sumbody, have been linked through ballistics to at least 10 high-profile cases, she added. Police minister accused The implications run deep. KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi last month accused colleagues and Police Minister Senzo Mchunu of burying investigations targeting Matlala. In a bombshell televised press conference, flanked by armed security forces, Mkhwanazi alleged Mchunu had received payments from a corruption suspect and accused prosecutors of delaying justice. 'We do hope that pretty soon we might find some changes with good dedicated prosecutors and we might see arrests happening,' he said, adding that cases of murdered artists would finally 'come to the fore'. President Cyril Ramaphosa has since suspended Mchunu and announced a judicial inquiry into the allegations. But there has been no tangible action. ALSO READ: DJ Sumbody's friend, DJ Vettys in a 'stable condition' says manager, after being shot South Africa faces one of the world's highest murder rates, averaging more than 75 killings a day. Politically motivated contract killings have surged 108 percent over the past decade, according to a 2024 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. Studies show hiring a contract killer can cost as little as $145 in a country all too accustomed to violence. 'It's easier to silence someone with a bullet than contend with an investigation,' said Chad Thomas, head of private investigation company IRS Forensic.
The Citizen
2 hours ago
- The Citizen
Words won't feed Gaza Strip
Now it is a systematic attempt to destroy a particular group of people, also known as genocide. Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike in the northern part of the Gaza Strip near Beit Hanoun, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, 27 July 2025. Picture: EPA/ATEF SAFADI I have no words. I have a million words, I want to speak about Gaza, but what can I add about Gaza? More words won't feed anyone, yet people are starving; no, being starved to death. Because this is an entirely manmade famine. Just a few kilometres away, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) has 6 000 truckloads of food and medical supplies lined up to enter Gaza, but Israel blocks them. Even Unrwa's own staff in Gaza are weak with hunger, though they still have salaries to buy food. The reality is there's just no food. Meanwhile, as over 100 aid agencies warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the region, on Saturday, Benjamin Netanyahu's government declared it would start airdropping wheat, sugar and tinned food, a sop to the international outcry. ALSO READ: Children starve in Gaza as EU powers push ceasefire talks Here is a settlement of Palestinian refugees, packed in tight, with nowhere to go. It was always difficult, the political landscape intractable, rights and wrongs on both sides, and people – like me – were wary of saying anything because it was complex, fearing accusations of anti-Semitism, but now it's become impossible. Now it is a systematic attempt to destroy a particular group of people, also known as genocide. They say when someone tells you who they are, you should listen, so the recent words of far-right Israeli government minister Amichai Eliyahu should be noted. 'There is no nation that feeds its enemies,' he said on the radio, likening the situation to Russia feeding Ukraine, as if Gaza were an autonomous country, adding that the Israeli government was 'rushing toward Gaza being wiped out', and 'driving out the population that educated its people on the ideas of Mein Kampf.' ALSO READ: More than 100 NGOs warn 'mass starvation' spreading across Gaza Netanyahu responded that this wasn't government policy, but actions tell a different story. Eliyahu is correct about the decimation: 70% of buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, over 58 000 are dead, 2 000 families have been entirely wiped out. This is not a country they're annihilating in Gaza so much as a vast refugee camp created after the 1948 Palestine War, which Israel has continued to encroach upon, control and occupy, contrary to international convention and law. So perhaps it's no surprise that existing arrest warrants for war crimes do not faze Netanyahu, who reasons his people were ever victimised. Yet he forgets that sometimes victims become abusers too. READ NEXT: Israeli strikes kill children collecting water in Gaza
The Citizen
13 hours ago
- The Citizen
48 hours in pictures, 27 July 2025
48 hours in pictures, 27 July 2025 Through the lens: The Citizen's Picture Editors select the best news photographs from South Africa and around the world. Grace Caitlin Brammer of South Africa competes during the Women's 1m Springboard Diving preliminaries at the World Aquatics Championships Singapore 2025 in Singapore, 26 July 2025. Picture: EPA/RUNGROJ YONGRIT US President Donald Trump reacts as he plays golf at the Trump Turnberry Golf Courses, in Turnberry on the south west coast of Scotland on July 27, 2025, during the third day of his visit to the country, since his second tenure as President began. Trump and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen are set to meet later on July 27, in a decisive push to resolve a months-long transatlantic trade standoff with the US leader putting the chances of a deal at one in two. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP) Women sit at a makeshift camp for civilians displaced amidst clashes along the disputed Thai-Cambodian border, in the Oddar Meanchey province, northwest of Cambodia, 27 July 2025. Fighting between Thai and Cambodian forces continued on 27 July, marking the fourth consecutive day of border clashes. According to a Cambodia's Ministry of Defence spokesperson, the conflict has displaced more than 80,000 people in Cambodia, shutting down hundreds of schools across several provinces. Picture: EPA/KITH SEREY A participant wears a shirt that shows clergy licking a candle during the 'CSD Berlin 2025,' the Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin, Germany, 26 July 2025. The 47th Christopher Street Day takes place under the motto 'Never be silent again!'. Picture: EPA/CLEMENS BILAN Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike in the northern part of the Gaza Strip near Beit Hanoun, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, 27 July 2025. Picture: EPA/ATEF SAFADI Protesters take to the Hyde Park and the CBD streets during a rally against the Israeli invasion of Gaza, in Sydney, Australia, 27 July 2025. Picture: EPA/DEAN LEWINS Demonstrators gather for an anti-government protest calling for action to secure the release of Israeli hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip by Palestinian militants since the 2023 October 7 attacks, outside the US embassy branch office in Tel Aviv on July 26, 2025. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP) Sheriff Knight (C), the dancing Cowboy, leads the line dance during the International Cowboy Day at Ngong race course in Nairobi on July 26, 2025. Country music have a loyal fan base in Kenya and the popularity of the music continuing to grow, the event was celebrated by hundreds of attendees with a collective of country artists performing. The headline of the event was Sir Elvis, Kenya's biggest country star. (Photo by Fredrik Lerneryd / AFP) Parktown Girls marimba band performs at the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz festival Jazz for Young People at the National School of Arts In Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 26 July 2025. The concert dedicated to celebrating young jazz lovers while raising funds for the National School of Arts (NSA). Picture: Nigel Sibanda/The Citizen Jonathan Roxmouth performs in his 'My Favourite Broadway' show, 25 July 2025, at The Teatro at Montecasino in show sees him performing some of Broadway's most compelling anthems and showstoppers. He is accompanied by the newly-formed 32-piece Egoli Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by Maetsro Adam Howard. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen Joburg Zoo aquarist Peter Baloi is seen scuba diving in the zoo's walk-through tunnel tank, 26 June 2025, during an event inviting youngsters to find out what a career as an aquarist would involve. The presentations hoped to inspire attendees to consider careers in marine biology, zoology and diving. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen A man stands before one of the 'water spray fans' placed along the side of a the road on al-Sinak street in central Baghdad amid rising temperatures on July 27, 2027 during a severe heatwave. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP) Vaisnava Community members celebrate the festival called Padayatra in honour of Srila Prabhupadas the 50th Anniversary in Braamfontein in Johannesburg, 26 July 2025, after his visit to South Africa. Srila Prabhupada is the founder of the Hare Krishna Movement started in New York in 1966. Picture: Nigel Sibanda/The Citizen A group of DC cosplayers pose for a group photo during Day 3 of 2025 Comic-Con International on July 26, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Photo by) Firefighters and volunteers battle a wildfire in the area of Kryoneri, in the suburbs of Athens, Greece, 26 July 2025. Firefighting forces are battling the wildfire that broke out in Kryoneri, Attica. According to the Fire Service, the fire is considered difficult as it is spreading through a mixed area of forest and residential zones. There are reports of damage to homes, and some have been engulfed in flames. Picture: EPA/YANNIS KOLESIDIS MORE PICTURES: Decorex Joburg a feast for design and art lovers
