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Field Notes: Practicing Self-Defense Outside an Ultra-Conservative Stronghold

Orania, South Africa: Niklas Kirsten, a former paratrooper in the South African Army, instructs Erik Du Pree on handgun self-defense in the fields outside an ultra-conservative, all-Afrikaner stronghold known as Orania.

Pacific Standard Staff

Social Justice

Women Are Being Left Out of South Africa’s Minimum Wage Increase

While looking to lessen wage disparities, the government has instead enacted legislation that leaves behind a large swath of female workers.

Jen Thorpe

Bare sand and dried tree trunks stand out at Theewaterskloof Dam, outside of Cape Town, South Africa.

Environment

Notes on a New Desert

Cape Town is on track to run out of water, and official city communication has been anything but exemplary—a fact that could doom the ruling political party.

Rosa Lyster

Widows of deceased striking miners who were killed during the Marikana massacre, walk from the memorial site, during the event's fifth anniversary in Marikana, on August 16, 2017. Thousands of South African miners sang remembrance songs on August 16, 2017, at the site of the 2012 Marikana massacre where police shot dead 34 strikers, as campaigners demanded prosecutions and compensation. The 34 miners were gunned down after police were deployed to break up a wildcat strike that had turned violent at the Lonmin-owned Marikana platinum mine, northwest of Johannesburg.

News in Brief

Viewfinder: Mining Widows March to Commemorate Their Deceased Husbands in South Africa

Widows of deceased striking miners who were killed during the Marikana massacre walk from the memorial site during the event's fifth anniversary in Marikana on August 16th, 2017.

Pacific Standard Staff

Residents throw stones during clashes with riot police in Johannesburg, South Africa, on May 8th, 2017, following a demonstration over land grabbing, housing, and unemployment in the area.

News in Brief

Viewfinder: Unrest in South Africa

Residents throw stones during clashes with riot police in Johannesburg, South Africa, on May 8th, 2017, following a demonstration over land grabbing, housing, and unemployment in the area.

Pacific Standard Staff

News in Brief

Voting, Even When It Makes You Sick

Millennials face an important choice this Election Day between idealism and pragmatism. By Glen Retief Mogomotsi More looks…

Pacific Standard Staff

Environment

South Africa Asks: Would Legalizing Trade in Rhino Horn Save the Species?

As poaching pushes the rhino toward extinction, South Africa considers a radical solution: Legalize the very thing that is killing them. It'd make some people very rich. But would it doom the species?

Austin Merrill