Actually the report found that self organised electricity connections radically reduce the incidence of fires.....Anyone who has lived in a shack knows this to be true. Amazing that the state exploits this tragedy to take forward its campaign to deny shack dwellers access electricity instead of to provide it!

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=17453

Anger over family’s fire deaths
16 Dec 2008
Shirley Jones

Survivors of a blaze that killed a family of five at the KwaDukuza informal settlement late on Sunday night waited with community members and local government officials for hours yesterday to discuss the tragedy with Welfare MEC Meshack Radebe.

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=17407

Demolition: uMngeni gets court order; residents evicted
15 Dec 2008

Thando Mgaga

More than a hundred residents were left homeless after the uMngeni Municipality bulldozed their shacks to the ground at kwaKani informal settlement near the Cedara College yesterday.

Families with children — among them orphans in the care of neighbours — were left to fend for themselves in the rain.

They were left without blankets and food and the demolishers did not allow them to remove their belongings before bulldozing their shacks to the ground.

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=17340

Dumpsite pickers protest
14 Dec 2008
Bongani Hans

“We may be poor, but we are not criminals. We need the right to pick up [waste] from the dump [Msunduzi landfill site] without being beaten up by your security guards.”

This was the plea from “fed up” waste pickers, who marched to the city hall on Friday to hand over a memorandum to the Msunduzi Municipality. About 100 protesters said they are angry about the everyday physical abuse they allegedly suffer at the hands of the municipality’s security guards stationed at the landfill site.

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=17064

All deserve to have electricity
09 Dec 2008
Mark Butler

In reply to the feature article in The Witness of November 24, “Double standards” by Paddy Hartdegen, the author makes two claims, both equally wrong.

Firstly, the author claims, on the basis of little more than guesswork, that Eskom’s shortages would be resolved “in the blink of an eye” if the state prevented shack dwellers from connecting to basic service supplies. The author provides us with no evidence to support this claim. Indeed, it is a reductio ad absurdum. This country effectively subsidises the cost of electricity to big industrial users (supplying the cheapest electricity in the world) while excluding shack dwellers from the grid. Excluded from safe and affordable energy, poor households self-connect so that they can eat warm food and see a little in the dark — that's hardly criminal. Even for those of us with little technical or scientific expertise, it should be clear that rational and humane solutions to the problems and complexities of national service provision are not through simply policing the poorest off the electricity grid.

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=16977

POLICE officers had their hands full yesterday when the Macambini clan on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast blocked the busy N2 and the R102, burning tyres and throwing stones at motorists.

Close to 400 people were protesting against the planned multi-billion-rand development in their area by Dubai’s Ruwaad Corporation, which is backed by Premier S’bu Ndebele.

Scores of police officers were deployed and reinforcements were called in to stop the protesters from blocking the two busy roads. When they failed to cope a police helicopter was sent in.

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=16630

Development: Marchers threaten blockades
26 Nov 2008
Bongani Mthembu

THE Macambini clan on KwaZulu-Natal’s north coast has threatened to
bring the economy of the province to its knees by blocking the two road
corridors that link two economic hubs, Richards Bay and Empangeni.

The community has given Premier S’bu Ndebele until December 3 to stop
pursuing the R55 billion tourism development by the Dubai-based Ruwaad

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=15442

Immigrants detained: ‘Don’t waste your energy on law-abiding people’
29 Oct 2008
Bongani Hans

A GROUP of South African women and men vented their anger at police at
Howick police station following the arrest of more than 30 immigrants,
apparently after their immigration permits had expired.

The immigrants were arrested on Friday evening in Howick West, where
they were renting rooms as individuals or in groups.

http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=15199

11 families evicted from New Hanover farm in rain by new owner

23 Oct 2008
Thando Mgaga

ELEVEN families are homeless after they were evicted from the Slavko Vukelic Farm in New Hanover.

One of the evicted people, Bongiwe Mabaso, said they have lived on the farm for more than 10 years and the eviction took them by surprise.

She said they have been engaged in a battle to stay on the farm since 2006. Their lawyer was informed about the eviction earlier this week and has been instructed by the Land Affairs Department to oppose it.

Sick settlers suffer as landowner cuts water
02 Oct 2008
Thando Mgaga

Residents of Sakha informal settlement in Mkondeni are up in arms with
Mayor Zanele Hlatshwayo and their ward 37 councillor, Sandy Lyne, over
the slow pace of service delivery to the poor community.

The informal settlement was in the media spotlight in July last year
when "larney land-grabbers" came in 4x4s and tried to stake a claim on
"free land".

Sakha community leader Nathi Zaca said that since then, Hlatshwayo and
Lyne have ignored invitations to listen to complaints about their basic

Land rights for the poor
24 Sep 2008
Lisa del Grande

Working for 30 years on land rights issues does not make one an expert
in land reform. This has been our experience in South Africa anyway.
Every day brings new and interesting twisted lessons for us on how to
make land reform work — for anyone. Given the recent reports on the poor
success rate of our land reform programme to date any new ideas must be
good ones right? Wrong. But we can now put a price on how much it costs
to make a land claim go away —R515 575 000.