A day in the life of a hairdresser

Loud reggae, pop and kwaito are some of the genres of music that compete with each other as you wander through the market at Cape Town central station taxi rank. Customers bustle through the rows of white container stalls, selling cheap snacks, fashionable clothing, haircuts and more. Among the many women entrepreneurs offering beauty services in the market is Odette Motema. She runs a hair and nail salon.

Text by Pasqua HeardPhotos by Juliette Garms

News | 13 October 2015

Parents want Parliament Primary school principal dismissed

Parents of children at Parliament Primary School, Mfuleni, set up to accommodate children who had been learning in a tent, have demanded that the principal be dismissed.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 13 October 2015

The Piketty puzzle: reproducing inequality in everyday life

While the government earnestly pledges its commitment to reversing inequality, it reproduces inequality in the normal behaviour it expects for itself and the broader elite of South Africa’s political-economy. Two recent and very public events illustrate these opposing positions.

Jeff Rudin

Opinion | 13 October 2015

New technology to help diagnose hearing disability

Software developed by University of Pretoria researchers could bring cheaper hearing tests to South Africa's rural areas. The hearScreen technology, which has been patented and is in the process of being licensed, can turn any smartphone into an audiometer to test people's hearing.

Sarah Wild

News | 13 October 2015

Bonteheuwel backyarder eager for City services

Bonteheuwel resident Qasin Khan and his family have been living in a small informal home in his mother's backyard for nearly 10 years.

Barbara Maregele

News | 12 October 2015

Abortion stigma harms thousands of young women

Many South African women are still resorting to unsafe abortions with illegal providers, often with disastrous implications even though safe legal abortion has been available since 1997.

Thembela Ntongana

Feature | 12 October 2015

Fire victim’s never-ending wait for a home

Bulelwa Vianne lost her parents, her sister and her brother-in-law in a fire in 2008. She was 18. Local officials promised to rebuild her home. They haven’t kept that promise.

Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik

News | 12 October 2015

“Why we don’t do maths” - high school students explain

At the end of grade nine South African students are expected to decide which subjects they would like to continue with for the rest of high school. One of the important decisions they make is whether or not they will continue with maths, or take maths literacy. As five students explain, the decision is tough, affects their future, and is not always made freely and based on their true ability and interests.

Sarita Pillay

Feature | 9 October 2015

Will gold miners get justice?

In King Leopold’s Ghost, the historian Adam Hochschild uncovers the horrors committed in the Belgian Congo in the years before and after 1900. It is a history of slavery, murder and mutilation – anyone who’s seen the pictures of piles of cut-off hands cannot but be horrified by it.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 9 October 2015