1. News of the death of world-renowned trumpeter Hugh Masekela sent shockwaves around the country on Tuesday morning. South African music lovers, celebrities and government officials have sent tributes and condolences to his family and friends. Known affectionately as Bra Hugh, Masekela was born in Witbank, South Africa in 1939. He was introduced to music at the age of 14, when Sophiatown anti-apartheid stalwart Father Trevor Huddleston gave him a trumpet. Soon after, the Huddleston Jazz Band was formed. Read more.
2. It is like living in another country. The difference between captured South Africa in December and hopeful South Africa in January is like night and day. It feels to me like a Rainbow Revolution – another example of South Africa pulling itself back from the brink in remarkable style. How did we get here? Since President Jacob Zuma fired former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in December 2015, it often felt that state capture, the heightened form of corruption where state policy and the public fiscus are hijacked by private interests, was an ineluctable process. Read more.
3. The head of the judicial commission of inquiry into state capture, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, says he will investigate "everybody and anybody, no matter who he or she is" in the probe. However, Zondo still has no word from President Jacob Zuma's office on when he will release the terms of reference for the commission. Read more.
4. Former Eskom chief financial officer Anoj Singh, long alleged to be one of the main men used by the Gupta family to further their agenda of state capture, on Tuesday denied he had a relationship with them. He further denied that they had ever paid for any of his various trips to Dubai, or that he had ever met the Guptas there. "I didn't have a personal relationship with them," he told the parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption and mismanagement at Eskom. Read more.
5. A new international study recently found that young women are avoiding pap smear tests because they're ashamed of their bodies. The respondents said the awkwardness arose from both their general body image and the appearance and smell of their vaginas. In South Africa,fewer than 20 percent of the country's women have ever had a pap smear, according to the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA). Yet cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in South African women, the organisation points out. Read more.
6. It was on the debut of season two of popular Mzansi Magic show "Uthando Nes'thembu" – based on the lives of polygamist Musa Mseleku and his four wives – that MaKhumalo, the third wife, shared her discomfort around surrogacy. "I would rather love someone else's child like my own than have someone else carry my child for me. I find it too Western," she said. Read more.
7. Despite ushering in renewed confidence, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa should not be mistaken as the "saviour" of a post-Zuma South Africa, says political economist Moeletsi Mbeki. Speaking to HuffPost, the fierce critic of the ANC and brother of former president Thabo Mbeki said a prevailing narrative of "villains" and "angels" – emboldened by often "hysterical" media – is clouding South Africans' vision and leading to superficial understandings of how the country works. Read more.