Today, the Pretoria High Court dismissed the urgent application by Advocate Dali Mpofu on behalf of Mzoxolo Magidwana, who was shot by police during the Marikana massacre, and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), for the Marikana Commission’s findings to be released immediately. The President has given a self-imposed deadline of 30 June for releasing the report.
Fairouz Nagia-Luddy
Opinion | 15 June 2015
Human rights lawyers have been engaged for ten years in a bid to secure massive damages for former gold miners who suffer from silicosis and TB. As the case heads for the courts, the mining industry is scrambling to offer its own and much less comprehensive solution.
Pete Lewis
Analysis | 11 June 2015
In a feature titled The Counted, The Guardian is keeping track of the number of people killed by police action in the United States. “US police kill more in days than other countries do in years,” says The Guardian. We wondered how the police in South Africa compare.
GroundUp Staff
Analysis | 10 June 2015
Apparently, it was Benjamin Franklin who said, “You fail to plan, and you plan to fail.” This axiom was repeated to me by a Blikkiesdorp community member.
Alison Tilley
Opinion | 9 June 2015
The De Waal Drive tenants’ campaign to resist relocation to Pelican Park is gaining momentum. This weekend signatures from most tenants to ratify their elected committee were gathered, and yesterday the committee had a strategic session with the South Road Families Association (SRFA).
Daneel Knoetze
Opinion | 8 June 2015
The terrible tragedy of the earthquake in Nepal has been swept off the front pages and news leads by the bribery scandal and arrests at FIFA. But they should be linked because it is the blood and suffering of many Nepalese workers that is a major cause of soccer now being seen as the ugly game.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 8 June 2015
To deploy the army is an exceptional measure. It implies that the police force is unable to control a situation that threatens a country’s security and well-being.
Lara Wallis
Analysis | 4 June 2015
If sex work was accepted as legitimate and legalised, much of the violence and abuse that sex workers face would be eliminated.
Savannah Russo. Photographs by Eric Miller.
Opinion | 2 June 2015
Mother’s Day has come and gone with the usual emphasis on happy mothers, loving families and children bringing breakfast in bed to their moms. For many this picture is a good reflection of what happens at home. But for some mothers this picture is far from accurate.
Adrienne Dodds
Opinion | 1 June 2015
“No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent.” So wrote the English poet, John Donne although, for continent he meant planet. Today, this is something that can be applied equally to a village, town, country or continent. Just as it can be to a trade union, business or employer organisation.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 1 June 2015
The latest in a string of articles by the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), disseminating inaccurate and misleading information, further warps the facts and the realities within which the City of Cape Town must operate. But then, the SJC never let the facts get in the way of the pretty graphics that they have begun to share widely with such gusto.
Ernest Sonnenberg
Opinion | 29 May 2015
The City of Cape Town says infrastructure for water and sanitation cannot be installed in 82% of informal settlements because the land is not suitable. Yet the City’s own data tells a different story, writes Dustin Kramer.
Dustin Kramer
Opinion | 28 May 2015
My column last week, comparing the pay and conditions of nurses and teachers to those of cabinet ministers, seems to have touched a raw nerve. And mainly among both national and local government employees that I failed to mention.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 25 May 2015
Mining companies and the government are ignoring the interests of the communities that should be benefiting from mining, writes the author. Now civil society organisations intend to take legal action.
Christopher Rutledge
Opinion | 21 May 2015
Just under a month ago today, South Africa was shocked by the images on the cover of the Sunday Times on 19 April 2015. The images depicted Emmanuel Sithole, a Mozambican man and breadwinner for his family, lying on his back amongst rubbish as he pleaded with three men bearing knives standing above him, moments before they fatally stabbed him in cold blood.
Lara Wallis
Opinion | 18 May 2015
South Africa is desperately short of nurses and many highly skilled practitioners are now over the age of 50 and nearing retirement. Yet there are estimated to be more than 30,000 South African nurses working abroad, everywhere from Dubai to Dublin.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 18 May 2015