Environment
Lawyers in black and white: Spoor vs Boqwana
The recent furore over the lawyers in the huge silicosis court case focused on race, but the real issue is how lawyers advance the cause of justice, argue Pasika Nontshiza and John Clarke.
Pasika Nontshiza and John GI Clarke
Opinion | 23 October 2015
Silicosis case: mines are being obstructive, say miners’ lawyers
If the court did not decide in favour of the gold miners in the silicosis case, hundreds of thousands of sick miners and their families would not be heard, advocates for the mineworkers told the Gauteng High Court yesterday.
Pete Lewis
News | 23 October 2015
Silicosis: Anglo American plays the race card
Attempts by lawyers for mining giant Anglo American to play the race card in the silicosis case were rebuffed by the South Gauteng High Court yesterday.
Pete Lewis
News | 22 October 2015
Court hears whether silicosis miners can bring class action
Lawyers for the mining companies have begun to set out their case in the South Gauteng High Court, which is hearing an application from mineworkers to be allowed to claim for damages due to exposure to silica dust on behalf of a bigger group of affected mineworkers.
Lwandile Fikeni and GroundUp staff
News | 15 October 2015
The Piketty puzzle: reproducing inequality in everyday life
While the government earnestly pledges its commitment to reversing inequality, it reproduces inequality in the normal behaviour it expects for itself and the broader elite of South Africa’s political-economy. Two recent and very public events illustrate these opposing positions.
Jeff Rudin
Opinion | 13 October 2015
Will gold miners get justice?
In King Leopold’s Ghost, the historian Adam Hochschild uncovers the horrors committed in the Belgian Congo in the years before and after 1900. It is a history of slavery, murder and mutilation – anyone who’s seen the pictures of piles of cut-off hands cannot but be horrified by it.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 9 October 2015
Act now to protect Western Cape’s bees
South Africa’s R7 billion a year fruit industry is threatened with potentially massive job and financial losses. It is a looming crisis that calls for urgent and comprehensive action at government level before the threat, still restricted to the Western Cape, spreads. It is also something that highlights the integrated nature of the modern economy.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 14 September 2015
Some of SA’s top companies are quietly breaking the law
Some of the top companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are flouting environmental laws and not telling their shareholders, according to a study by the Centre for Environmental Rights.
Alide Dasnois
Feature | 8 September 2015
Cape Town’s informal recycling squad
Robert Thompson has been collecting material for recycling in Cape Town since 1999. On an average day he makes R100, selling the cardboard and paper he collects to Harrington Buy Back Centre (HBBC) in the city centre.
Bernard Chiguvare
News | 7 September 2015