On Thursday, following protests at Sobantu in Pietermaritzburg on Monday police used rubber bullets and teargas to disperse angry residents blocking road access to the township. This came after Msunduzi Municipality refused to accept the hand over of a memorandum from the residents.
Ntombi Mbomvu
News | 24 July 2015
Eleven months after the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into policing released its finding that the South African Police Service (SAPS) allocation of resources was unfair and irrational, the situation has hardly improved. Khayelitsha residents still suffer from a severe lack of police resources and there are still reports of poor communication and distrust between the police and the community.
Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik
News | 23 July 2015
A freelance reporter for GroundUp found himself all but held hostage on his way back hitchhiking from Zimbabwe.
Bernard Chiguvare
News | 23 July 2015
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development are about to submit a new Magistrates' Court Amendment Bill in a bid to curb “illegal” garnishee orders.
Barbara Maregele
Brief | 23 July 2015
Seedtime is an impressive retrospective exhibition of works by South African artist, photographer and former political activist, Omar Badsha, spanning a period of 50 years.
GroundUp Staff
News | 23 July 2015
Fifty-three year old Annacleta Zungu, who has only one leg, uses a plastic bag as a toilet at night because she is afraid to use the pit toilet outside her Pietermaritzburg house. Zungu, who is diabetic, lost her leg last year.
Ntombi Mbomvu
News | 22 July 2015
The controversial “white house” in Hout Bay, scene of the murder earlier this month of a Congolese resident, could be demolished in August, says Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for transport.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 22 July 2015
Diena Twala, a 71-year-old grandmother from Mbekweni says illegal deductions for airtime and electricity from her South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) account are still ongoing despite countless attempts to have it stopped.
Barbara Maregele
News | 22 July 2015
Results of two large medicine trials, known as START and TEMPRANO, published this week show that the health of people with HIV will benefit from starting antiretroviral treatment earlier. These findings are a climax of a bit more than three decades of research on this relatively new disease.
Nathan Geffen
News | 22 July 2015
Vendors at the Cape Town taxi rank complain that they do not get their goods back after a police raid.
Pharie Sefali
News | 21 July 2015
At the weekend the Methodist Church in Nyanga near the taxi terminus operates as a church. But on weekdays it is the scene of a money lending business, with dozens of people queuing for loans from Moneyline Financial Services, a subsidiary of NET1, the company that pays social grants on behalf of the South African Social Security Agency.
Pharie Sefali
News | 21 July 2015
On Monday, the Sobantu community in Pietermaritzburg took to the streets with burning tyres demanding that a prepaid electricity system rolled out in April 2014 be removed from their homes. Residents say the march came about because Msunduzi Municipality failed to attend a meeting with the residents as planned.
Ntombi Mbomvu
News | 21 July 2015
Nomahlubi Mbulu is 47. She lives in a house in Old Crossroads. She has three children, a 12-year-old girl, a 17-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old son. Her last born, Lilitha, and her eldest, Sibusiso, are both disabled. She is struggling to cope.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 21 July 2015
A battle over jobs at Mawose Cleaning Services, contracted by the City of Cape Town to clean Barcelona informal settlement, sparked a protest which cut off a section of the N2 highway on Sunday night.
Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik
News | 20 July 2015
On Saturday at a meeting convened by police at Siviwe Primary School in Khwezi Park, police pleaded with the Khayelitsha community not to resort to vigilantism.
Vincent Lali
Brief | 20 July 2015
Behind a very flimsy screen of unity and cohesion promoted over the past week by Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini, the divisions in the country’s largest labour federation have become even greater. And, amid a welter of contradiction and debates about constitutionality, it is not surprising that so much confusion reigns.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 20 July 2015
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