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
West coast mine workers in court
A group of nine miners and Vredendal community members who were charged with public violence after participating in a demonstration outside the Australian-owned Tormin mine on the west coast, made a brief appearance in court on Thursday. Meanwhile, on Friday a group of about 60 mine-workers and members of the west coast community where the Tormin Mineral Sand mine operates came to Cape Town to picket outside the High Court.
Barbara Maregele and Bernard Chiguvare
News | 9 October 2015
The small town whose residents live in fear for their lives
Residents of Busila near Gatyana (Willowvale) say they have lost faith in the police after two houses were set alight by unknown men in the early hours, Tuesday. Since July, four people have been killed and five houses set alight. Residents say police are failing to protect them.
Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik
News | 8 October 2015