Feature

Will clinics provide medicines to prevent HIV transmission?

A pill reduces the risk of women getting HIV but there are challenges to making it widely available

By

Feature | 9 March 2016

How clean are Cape Town’s rivers?

Five years after a clean-up was launched there is progress, but not everywhere

By

Feature | 3 March 2016

New technology might transform small-scale fishing

App connects fishers, scientists and fishery management

By and

Feature | 24 February 2016

How drought is destroying KZN’s cattle farms

Lack of rain has forced farmers to make difficult decisions

By

Feature | 11 February 2016

Ward 69: Fragmented by apartheid era planning

This area will be closely contested in the Municipal elections

By

Feature | 1 February 2016

Philippi ward beset by internal politics

There is a political battle underway in Philippi's Ward 33. The fight is not between opposing political parties, however, but within the ANC itself, with former ward councillor Monwabisi Mbaliswano in one corner and the present incumbent, Nico Mzalisi, in the other.

By

Feature | 14 January 2016

Where are the traffic death statistics?

The government agency responsible for publishing them has not done so since March 2011.

By and

Feature | 11 January 2016

Old and on the street

Theresa Fisher was born in what was then Rhodesia, in 1950. Simon Jacobs was born in what was then Transkei, in 1957. Both of them have ended up, in 2015, begging on the same street corner in Rondebosch.

Tariro Washinyira

Feature | 11 December 2015

State accused of letting Tormin damage West Coast

Activists have accused government officials of turning a blind eye to a pattern of environmental violations at the Tormin dune mine on the West Coast – including a “catastrophic” cliff collapse – after state departments failed to act on a string of letters, objections and a formal appeal.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

Feature | 11 December 2015

Dismay as cops withdraw cases against Tormin managers

Police cases against three Tormin mine managers, one of whom was accused of driving into and knocking over a mineworker during a strike, have all been withdrawn.

Barbara Maregele

Feature | 11 December 2015

Bellville South is bursting at the seams

Mercia Kleinsmith has been the councillor of Ward 9, or Bellville South, since 2009. She won a by-election following the death of her husband Glen, the day after the DA won the province in April that year. Glen had been hailed in the press as the city’s “leading drugbuster”.

Steve Kretzmann

Feature | 9 December 2015

Students in state scheme get certificates for courses they didn’t complete

The National Rural Youth Service Corps (Narysec), set up to train unemployed young people in rural areas, seems to be in disarray in the Eastern Cape, where some students have given up hope of graduating while others say they have been given certificates for courses they did not complete.

Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik and GroundUp staff

Feature | 8 December 2015

Residents fight back against banks’ eviction tactics

A group called Lungelo Lethu Human Rights Foundation is preparing a class action suit against the four major banks for what it says are the unlawful evictions of thousands of South Africans from their homes.

Ciaran Ryan

Feature | 2 December 2015

Can Dunoon overcome its housing problems?

In a dimly-lit room, about 50 people wait to have proof-of-residence documents authorised by Dunoon ward councillor Lubabalo Makeleni.

Steve Kretzmann

Feature | 27 November 2015

We’re like cockroaches to the City, say Johannesburg residents

The corridors are long and institution-like, lined by doors. Light peeks in through the staircase windows, but the corridors are dark, despite it being 10AM on a bright Johannesburg day.

Sarita Pillay

Feature | 20 November 2015

The great escape: Young women of the Flats in the clutches of gangs

“Every time they go murder somebody, the guns come to me, I clean it and I load it again,” says 21-year-old Shireen. “Yoh! … If you’re on drugs, you catch on to all the stuff, man. You’re not the same.”

Anne Gonschorek

Feature | 29 October 2015