Click here to read the original version of this article at SACSIS.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article207581.ece

The poor won't go quietly

Nov 24, 2009 10:48 PM | By Richard Pithouse
The Big Read: After Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato was slapped in Blikkiesdorp, the police have warned politicians not to enter the area without police backup.

Blikkiesdorp is a government-built shack settlement on the barren sands of Delft, outside Cape Town. With rows of tin shacks, razor wire fencing, invasive lighting and armoured vehicles at the gated entrance, it looks like a concentration camp.

Click here to read the original version of this article at SACSIS.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article197072.ece

The State's just not that into you

Nov 16, 2009 11:06 PM | By Richard Pithouse

The Big Read: In the salad days of our democracy, it seemed fair enough to buy into the idea that our most pressing social problems would, in time, be resolved.

But the time when an easy assurance of a better future could justify the failures and horrors of the present has passed.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/local/article151537.ece

Shack dwellers celebrate Concourt victory
Oct 14, 2009 7:04 PM | By Sapa

________________________________________________________________________
An association campaigning for the rights of shack dwellers on Wednesday
celebrated its landmark Constitutional Court victory.

"After being the subject of political violence and shameless slander
over the last two weeks, we have something to celebrate," the Abahlali
baseMjondolo (ABM) said in a statement.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1040218

Residents angered at housing initiative
Yazeed Kamaldien Published:Jul 27, 2009

RESIDENTS of Delft in the Western Cape have told The Times that the government’s pilot housing initiative, the N2 Gateway Project, is “k*k and pathetic”.

They complained that they had been living in small one-bedroom steel units for more than a year.

The 1300 units at the Symphony Way temporary relocation area in Delft were meant to be the first step to proper housing.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1037748

Xenophobic attacks return
Sally Evans and Nkululeko Ncana Published:Jul 22, 2009

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has condemned attacks on foreigners in Mpumalanga.
The attacks, which have so far displaced about 100 foreigners living in Balfour, are chillingly similar to the early stages of last year’s xenophobic violence in which 67 people died around the country.

As with last year’s violence, the attacks in Mpumalanga happened under the guise of protests against service delivery. Residents began protesting on Sunday, demanding that local officials address complaints about access to water and electricity, and job opportunities.

Diepsloot is not an AbM settlement. Click here for video footage.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Article.aspx?id=1032366

More protests flare over lack of services
Charles Molele Published:Jul 12, 2009

‘They want to dump us in another slum without clean water, electricity or sanitation’
Huge shack settlement latest to ignite over government’s poor delivery record

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1030294

Arrests add to strain on church and refugees
Claire Myhill and Harriet Mclea

REFUGEES who were arrested for loitering, after seeking shelter outside Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Mission, are back on the streets after spending the weekend in jail.

Because the group can no longer sleep outside, for fear of being rearrested by the Johannesburg Metro Police and SAPS officers, the mission’ s Bishop Paul Verryn is now forced to let them sleep in the church’s sanctuary, which was previously kept clear for worshippers.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1002883

Click here for video footage of the protest and here to see how this memorandum delivered in Orange Farm connects to that delivered to Yakoob Baig by the Kennedy Road Development Committee back on 14 September 2005.

Orange Farm wants promises kept
Thabo Mkhize Published:May 20, 2009

ANGRY residents of Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg, yesterday barricaded a busy road with rocks and burning tyres to protest against government’s poor service delivery.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Insight/Article.aspx?id=953875

'Tide of change’ merely a dull merger,

Published:Mar 08, 2009

In Njabulo Ndebele’s imaginary interview, “A new breed of voters wants imaginative politics” (March 1), he manipulatively electioneers for the Congress of the People, depicting it as a “tide of change” for “real political choices”.

Ndebele should know that multiparty democracy is not, in itself, “imaginative politics”, and that COPE’s policies are a dull merging of the worst of the ANC and the Democratic Alliance.