This country sweeps international travel prizes and has travellers raving about its beauty so much that it has the highest repeat tourism of any long haul destination in the world! Considering how crazy people are about the place, it’s not surprising that South Africa takes the top spot in the beauty stakes.
Not only does the country have stupendous natural beauty, but it’s urban-amazing too. The town of Franschhoek has been named amongst the five loveliest in the world, and the metropolis of Cape Town is more often than not picked as the most beautiful city on earth by travel lists and tourists alike, because of both its unparalleled natural setting and gorgeous architecture.
This setting is on a coastline hailed as the most beautiful on earth. In fact the country has three of the world’s ten most beautiful coastal drives including Clarens Drive and Chapman’s Peak. These were number one and number two most beautiful coastal drives respectively.
South Africa also has an astonishing variety of marine life, with almost twice the number of marine species as the whole Mediterranean in a coastline only 2000 miles long. It’s the best place in the world to view whales from shore, and to swim with great white sharks. The world’s largest migration of Ocean life occurs here, and is one of the two largest migrations of any kind on earth.
source
Zimbabwean told Road Accident Fund doesn’t help foreigners
In November 2015, Zimbabwean born Innocent Ticharwa was knocked down by a vehicle in a hit and run incident in Addo township. Since then, he has been struggling to get compensation from the Port Elizabeth Road Accident Fund (RAF) office.
“I was crossing the road to where I was going to sell my brooms and mops. I just heard a heavy sound, then I passed out,” he says. “A passerby phoned the police, who in turn called the ambulance. I spent three days in Kirkwood hospital before being transferred to Uitenhage hospital where the doctors took an X-ray of my body.”
“I was eventually transferred to Addo hospital where four teeth were removed from my mouth … The doctors wanted to take all six affected teeth, but I begged them to leave the two that were not serious.”
Source
Tears at the airport as families denied boarding
Nearly two years after the implementation of South Africa’s regulations for travelling minors, travellers are still being denied boarding as foreign airline staff try to implement the unabridged birth certificate (UBC) regulation.
With effect from June 1, 2015, children travelling to, from and transiting through South Africa are required to produce an unabridged birth certificate.
An Inter-Ministerial Committee, last year recommended changes to these regulations but, to date, no change has been made.
According to Martin Wiest, CEO of Tourvest Destination Management, more than 30 people were unable to fly from Paris to Johannesburg last week as a result of the regulations.
Source
It’s official, South Africa is the most beautiful country in the world
This country sweeps international travel prizes and has travellers raving about its beauty so much that it has the highest repeat tourism of any long haul destination in the world! Considering how crazy people are about the place, it’s not surprising that South Africa takes the top spot in the beauty stakes.
Not only does the country have stupendous natural beauty, but it’s urban-amazing too. The town of Franschhoek has been named amongst the five loveliest in the world, and the metropolis of Cape Town is more often than not picked as the most beautiful city on earth by travel lists and tourists alike, because of both its unparalleled natural setting and gorgeous architecture.
This setting is on a coastline hailed as the most beautiful on earth. In fact the country has three of the world’s ten most beautiful coastal drives including Clarens Drive and Chapman’s Peak. These were number one and number two most beautiful coastal drives respectively.
South Africa also has an astonishing variety of marine life, with almost twice the number of marine species as the whole Mediterranean in a coastline only 2000 miles long. It’s the best place in the world to view whales from shore, and to swim with great white sharks. The world’s largest migration of Ocean life occurs here, and is one of the two largest migrations of any kind on earth.
source
China’s ambitious new ‘Silk Road’ trade route takes shape in Africa
Four years and hundreds of billions of dollars later, China’s ambitious global trading strategy known as the “New Maritime Silk Road” or “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) is now coming to life, particularly in parts of East Africa where major infrastructure and defense projects are being built. New ports in Tanzania, rail lines in Kenya, naval facilities in Djibouti and industrial zones along the Suez canal in Egypt are all intended to support this massive new trade network that president Xi Jinping hopes will become a key pillar of his foreign policy agenda.
With the first phase of construction nearing completion in East Africa, focus is now shifting to the next stage where Chinese planners are reportedly considering expanding the trading route inland into Central Africa. This is prompting intense new lobbying battles among African countries to win Beijing’s favor and the billions of dollars of badly-needed infrastructure investment that come with being a node on the “One Belt, One Road” network.
Many outsiders know very little about “One Belt, One Road” and its history. The incorrect assumption is that this is a new phase of Xi’s more assertive global foreign policy designed to challenge the US-led international economic order. In contrast, OBOR is rooted in a decade-old policy that was actually designed to counter fears of a hegemonic China. The so-called “Peaceful Rise” or “Peaceful Development” was first introduced by former Chinese president Hu Jintao when he promoted the concept of fusing China’s expanding foreign policy objectives with a development agenda and a global trading strategy.
source