GroundUp 11 - 17 September is published!

12 September 2013 | News

Featured Story - News

Cold reception for AngloGold Ashanti in Colombia

Featured news: AngloGold Ashanti, one of South Africa\xe2\x80\x99s biggest mining multinationals, is currently concerned about their investment of over US$255 million in Colombia. Chris Lodder, president of explorations of AngloGold Ashanti for the Americas, has described Colombia as a \xe2\x80\x98diamond in the rough\xe2\x80\x99.

Camila Osorio

News

Living with Albinism

Brief: According to the Albinism Society of South Africa one in 4000 people is born with albinism. Living with albinism is an ongoing challenge against prejudice.

Nwabisa Pondoyi

A Tale of Rural Health

Opinion: The failing healthcare system in the Eastern Cape affects everyone: urban communities, migrants from Gauteng and Cape Town too sick to work anymore or returning home to retire, and healthcare workers who don\xe2\x80\x99t have the medicines, equipment and a functioning referral system, to offer the care their patients need.

Marije Versteeg

Human rights work is not about the fees

Opinion: The debacle around Dali Mpofu's fees at the Farlam Commission is an important moment.

Jack Lewis

The life of a transgender sex worker

Opinion: At over six-foot tall (with heels) and a body to rival any Hollywood starlet, Leigh cuts an impressive figure. Her jet-black hair and thick eyeliner give her an almost brooding and feline quality. She looks directly at you with a friendly smile and moves with finesse.

Jonathan Dockney

The case for decriminalising the use of drugs

Opinion: Drug abuse harms the individual, their family, community and country. As the drug trade increased globally, to save people from themselves, in 1970, US president Richard Nixon launched the \xe2\x80\x9cwar on drugs\xe2\x80\x9d.

JP van Niekerk

SJC activists arrested during protest outside Mayor's office

News: Several Social Justice Coalition (SJC) members who chained themselves to railings at the Civic Centre in Cape Town this morning vowing they would not budge until Mayor Patricia de Lille addressed them, were arrested and held at Caledon Square Police Station. They have not yet been charged.

Tariro Washinyira

Help kickstart Khayelitsha baker's bicycle dream

News: An obsession with spinach makes a good baker — that at least applies to 25-year-old Lufefe Nomjana.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

Civil society organisations visit gang stricken Manenberg

News: Members of various civil society organisations led a solidarity visit to gang stricken Manenberg to monitor the situation and to lend a helping hand to the community.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

Millions for Western Cape substance abuse programmes

News: The Department of Social Development in the Western Cape has increased this years annual budget for interventions to address substance abuse to R87-million.

Nwabisa Pondoyi

Taxi associations fight over routes

News: Two taxi drivers from the Delft Taxi Association were shot dead during the course of last week in a shooting spree between taxi drivers from Delft, Nyanga and Khayelitsha over ownership of certain routes.

Pharie Sefali

When the solution compounds the problem

Opinion: In April 2012, the Eastern Cape Department of Health (ECDoH) put in place a moratorium on the appointment of healthcare workers to vacant posts at facilities throughout the province. This moratorium was instituted in an attempt to control the chronic overspending that was pushing the department deeper into financial crisis each year.

Daygan Eagar

Asylum seeker claims intimidation

News: A Zimbabwean woman, Faith Muchina (not her real name), 48, claims that officials at the Cape Town Department of Home Affairs (DHA) intimidated her into changing her application for refugee status to cite economic and not political reasons. As a result she lost her asylum seekers status in October 2012 and is now illegally in the country. She has now been in the country for eight years.

Tariro Washinyira

IKapa Dance Theatre gives gives back to the community

News: Ikapa Dance Theatre is a non-profit arts organisation established in 2007 by Theo Ndindwa, Tanya Arshamian and founding member Mbulelo Ngubombini. The organisation focuses on identifying and developing talent among children from the townships around Cape Town.

Tariro Washinyira