Friday, 19 July 2019
Under administration and seriously failing its residents, a single administrator’s proposed turnaround strategy appears to be all that might keep the capital city of KwaZulu-Natal from complete collapse.
By installing battery-operated smoke detectors, an innovator in Khayelitsha is making homes safer for shack dwellers underserved by firefighters who battle with blocked access.
George Barasa faces jail time in his country for being gay, and claims home affairs is making an example of him after he spoke out about the department’s homophobic officials.
An updated report on human rights abuses in the disputed territory, and India and Pakistan’s failure to do anything about it, has drawn the ire of the United Nations.
It is vital that traditional leaders set examples for their communities in understanding HIV and AIDS and how to manage it.
Despite a new funding mechanism to upgrade shack settlements, they appear to be absent from minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s priorities.
The Nelson Mandela Bay branch of Demawusa is trying to come to terms with the loss of their chairperson, shot and killed outside his home. Was it a political killing?
The sound of gunshots regularly reverberates through the Cape Town suburb where gangs and residents vie for the lives of their youth.
Statistics reveal that 900 people have been killed in gang-related violence on the Cape Flats so far this year and police volunteers risk suspension by speaking out about it.
Environmental organisations’ issues with the Western Cape phosphate mine’s water use licence will go before the Water Tribunal, after a preliminary hearing found aspects of its granting ‘questionable’.
The Elandsfontein phosphate mining company built its mine amid delayed appeals, legislative uncertainty and a repealed section of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.
Reliant on donations of building materials, food and paraffin as they rebuild shacks in the middle of winter, some residents are fearful they may have lost their jobs in addition to their homes.
Two brothers born in South Africa to Angolan refugees have won their legal fight for citizenship in the only country they have ever known. But the Department of Home Affairs still wants to deny them this right.
Thandeka Mzimela fell off a ladder and drowned in Durban’s sea two years ago. But the company allegedly failed to provide her grieving husband with her cause of death report despite his repeated requests for information.
Buyiselwa Daweti blames gynaecologist Danie van der Walt for medical negligence after the miscarriage of her twins and her daughter’s death in childbirth.
A reblocking initiative in Tembisa has left a number of residents in the cold. But, despite winning an interdict against the development process, shack dwellers remain vulnerable.
The courts declared it unconstitutional to exclude domestic workers from being compensated for injuries sustained on duty. But legal protection continues to be difficult to access.
Armed with brooms and mops, domestic workers took to the streets to demand better wages, recourse to legal protection against unscrupulous employers, proper paid leave and payslips.
After severe delays on Metrorail, transport minister Fikile Mbalula went back to his sirens and “blue light brigade”.
Sibusiso Zondi has been trapped in his eighth storey flat for nine years because he is a wheelchair user and the lift is broken. His mother’s protest has led to eviction.
As the strike at Oak Valley Farm drags on, workers face either total ruin as their families begin to starve or long-term destitution if they give in and take the lower wage offer.