Despite criticism for the use of potentially harmful chemicals, companies are still selling the products around the world

It was just before Christmas, and eight-year-old Gloria Moraa sat holding a mirror as her aunt painted her curls with chemicals that would straighten every strand. “All the young girls would get matching hairstyles for the holidays, and relaxers were fashionable back then,’’ says Moraa, now 28, who lives in Nairobi, Kenya.

She no longer straightens her hair because she thought it was starting to thin. But over the years, Moraa used almost every relaxer on the market , with one goal: making her coily hair silky. The ingredients didn’t matter.

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Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula resigned amid accusations she solicited bribes when she was defence minister

South Africa’s former parliament speaker has been arrested as part of a corruption inquiry, the latest scandal to hit the governing ANC party ahead of elections in May.

Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who resigned her speaker post on Wednesday, was formally detained after handing herself in to police near Pretoria, prosecutors said.

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Only survivor after vehicle falls and catches fire is eight-year-old taken to hospital with serious injuries

An eight-year old child was the sole survivor after a bus carrying 46 people plunged off a bridge in South Africa , fell into a ravine and caught fire.

The child, who has not been named, was taken to hospital with serious injuries, the transport ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.

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Dublin joins South Africa’s case in the international court of justice that stopping essentials may constitute ‘genocidal intent’

Ireland is to seek to widen the definition of genocide to include blocking humanitarian aid in a landmark international court of justice (ICJ) case against Israel .

The Irish government will intervene in the case taken by South Africa and argue that restricting food and other essentials in Gaza may constitute genocidal intent, the foreign minister Micheál Martin said on Wednesday.

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I expected criticism of my documentary, but the racist trolling and support for an apartheid stronghold was truly awful

The morning after my most recent documentary, Whites Only: Ade’s Extremist Adventure , aired on Channel 4, I got a stream of concerned phone calls and WhatsApp messages from friends, family members and work colleagues, asking if I was OK. At first I was confused. It wasn’t until they started talking about social media that I understood why they were all so worried. I’d pretty much removed myself from X (formerly Twitter) a few months ago: it was just becoming a place of polarised conversations that made the platform toxic and close to unusable.

I knew there would be an extreme reaction to the documentary as sadly, the topic of race, especially in connection with South Africa, will probably always be provocative in our lifetime. In my documentary, I visit an all-white town called Orania in the central Karoo region of South Africa. The film is a pilot for a potential series where I would meet a whole range of extreme groups across the globe, including those attracting Black and Asian people. I wanted to understand why these people held such extreme views, what the consequences were, and what lessons could be learned. I also knew many of our viewers had never heard of Orania, so just seeing the town and its inhabitants for them would be a new experience.

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Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula denies allegations she took bribes over three years while defence minister

South African prosecutors said on Monday they intended to charge the parliamentary speaker with corruption, alleging she took $135,000 (£107,000) and a wig in bribes over a three-year period while she was defence minister.

Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the speaker of the National Assembly, has not been arrested or charged. The prosecutors spoke at a court hearing over her claims that authorities hadn’t properly informed her of allegations or followed correct procedure.

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Her song Water made the South African a global star, while her undulating dance moves inspired TikTok challenges. Now the 22 year old is ready to take her ‘popiano’ sound to the next level

Tyla may have 4.3 million followers on Instagram (called the Tygers), but she isn’t yet used to the equivalent real-world level of fame. For instance, she was recently approached by TikTok troll Harry Daniels . “There’s this guy that finds celebrities and sings to them,” she explains. “He sang Water” – her breakthrough single – “and poured water on his head.”

She laughs down the phone from Los Angeles, where she is promoting her self-titled debut album, which is out today. At 22, Tyla has already won a Grammy for Water (it netted best African music performance, a new category), and has performed it on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, while the song charted in more than 30 countries. This level of cut-through isn’t common for South African musicians, and Tyla knows that she is blazing a trail for the country’s music scene. “More people are starting to know about South Africa now,” she says. “They want to hear me say ‘Yoh!’ and they love the dancing.”

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More than 100 countries impose levies on sugar, but should tariffs increase to improve wellbeing and generate revenues to help tackle related illnesses?

Lying in the shadow of Table Mountain, a short drive from the sprawling vineyards that help generate so much of South Africa’s tourism revenue, is Langa. In the city of Cape Town, this is the oldest example of a township, settlements originally created to segregate the black African community from urban areas. Today, Langa is home to just under 90,000 people, many of whom live in wooden or corrugated iron shacks.

But while Langa and South Africa’s other townships have traditionally suffered from diseases of deprivation such as tuberculosis , an infection facilitated by crowded and poorly ventilated living conditions, lifestyle-related illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, stroke and heart disease have become rife in recent decades.

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Ade Adepitan makes a brave attempt to understand South African racial separatists; GoT’s creators deliver a mind-blowing sci-fi epic; Kristen Wiig tries to infiltrate a Palm Beach elite; and vaping goes under the microscope

Whites Only: Ade’s Extremist Adventure Channel 4 | channel4.com
3 Body Problem Netflix
Palm Royale Apple TV+
Jordan North: The Truth About Vaping (BBC Three) | iPlayer

Where to start with the Channel 4 documentary Whites Only: Ade’s Extremist Adventure? It’s one of the tensest you are likely to see all year. British Paralympian Ade Adepitan is the first black person to stay (for a week) in the South African whites-only Afrikaner town of Orania . In a global climate of attacks on multiculturalism, Adepitan asks if “racial separatism can ever be justified”.

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