Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, is expected to adopt minimum norms and standards for school infrastructure at the end of this week.
GroundUp Staff
News | 27 November 2013
Over 15,000 people were diagnosed with drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in South Africa last year. The risk of death for people with ordinary treatable TB is high. But it is much higher for patients whose illness cannot be treated using the standard TB medicines.
Koketso Moeti and GroundUp staff
News | 26 November 2013
The bell rings for break time, triggering a mad rush for the toilet. Many learners won’t make it in time. After all, “how do you expect 550 boys to share six toilets … when there is only one break?”
Brad Brockman
Opinion | 26 November 2013
Louis Titus, a 60-year-old married man from Elsies River, was introduced to the Vineyard soup kitchen in Parow four months ago by a friend. Titus worked for the City of Cape Town for 20 years. He currently receives a R1,500 monthly pension. His wife is unemployed. Titus takes the food he receives home to his four children.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 20 November 2013
The third lecture of this year’s Grootboom Memorial Dialogue Series took place at the Woodstock Town hall last night. Hosted by the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), the dialogue explored the impact of urban design interventions on the safety and security of people living in informal settlements.
Sibusiso Tshabalala
News | 20 November 2013
On the edge of the university hamlet of Grahamstown, there’s a municipal dump where people discard trash. It’s far enough out of town to not smell the stench – or for most locals not to be reminded of the haunting plight of the poor who subsist off the waste.
Mandy de Waal
Feature | 20 November 2013
All people are affected by the law but few understand it. Lawyers and judges speak and write using complicated language. Nearly any non-lawyer who picks up a law journal would find it dry and unintelligible. Enter the People's Law Journal, a publication that aims to change this.
GroundUp Staff
News | 19 November 2013
Cassiem Mohammed is a 70-year-old retired boiler cleaner from the now-closed Athlone Power Station (APS). He was diagnosed with asbestosis (fibrosis of the lung) in the mid-1990s from exposure to asbestos while he was working at the APS.
Jonathan Dockney
News | 13 November 2013
This week we have reports from Corruption Watch, the Social Justice Coalition, the International Organisation for Migration and the Aids Rights Alliance for Southern Africa.
Delphine Pedeboy
News | 6 November 2013
The President’s Fund was established in 2003 under President Thabo Mbeki to compensate apartheid victims. It has accumulated over a billion rands. Nevertheless, many apartheid victims who were identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to receive compensation from this fund, have still received nothing. Some have died waiting.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 5 November 2013
Instead of fulfilling its vision to “enhance the quality of health”, the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) tried to stop details of the health crisis in the Eastern Cape being made public.
GroundUp Staff
News | 4 November 2013
The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is a statutory body that regulates health workers. It registers doctors and disciplines them if they do something wrong. If it had to perform its tasks properly, patients would benefit. Instead, according to several organisations and doctors, the HPCSA’s inefficiency hurts patients.
Delphine Pedeboy and GroundUp Staff
News | 30 October 2013
It is in the interests of large multinational companies to secure as many patents as possible. The Treatment Action Campaign, in line with the Draft National Policy on Intellectual Property (IP), argues that patents should only be granted for medicines that are truly new and innovative, for example a brand new cancer cure.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 24 October 2013
The long-awaited criminal case against Paul Kasonkomona began on 16 and 17 October in the Lusaka Magistrates Court. Witnesses for the prosecution testified during the hearing. According to Anneke Meerkotter of the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC), the “evidence led by the State during Kasonkomona’s trial confirms suspicions that the arrest and prosecution of Kasonkomona was politically motivated”.
Jonathan Dockney
News | 24 October 2013
A decision taken in 2012 by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to stop processing new applicants at the Cape Town refugee reception office has resulted in asylum seekers having to travel long distances at great cost to be documented and renew their permits.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 23 October 2013
Thousands of people in South Africa have drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Many of them will die. Death from TB can be slow and horrible. Many of those who do survive will struggle with severe side effects and may need daily pills and injections. Some, like 23-year old Phumeza who described her experience of TB treatment at a Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) press conference last week, will live, but lose their hearing.
Marcus Low
Opinion | 23 October 2013