http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1100367Invaders take over vacant council land
Canaan Mdletshe
28 December 2009

Mayor says third force behind illegal invasion

UMTSHEZI municipality mayor Maliyakhe Shelembe has lambasted a massive Zimbabwe-style illegal land invasion in Estcourt in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands on Christmas Day.

About 300 people arrived at vacant municipal land and erected shacks and makeshift structures in a move Shelembe said was spearheaded by a “third force hellbent on destabilising the municipality”.

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/60020

South Africa's success is about ‘we’, not ‘me’
William Gumede

Almost every developing country that has become rich since the Second World War has done so by lifting the majority of people out of poverty collectively and not the elite only. In fact, the developing countries that have been successful since the Second World War, particularly those from the East Asian developmental states, have done so by empowering the widest number of people – at the same time, not just an elite. Those developing countries where only a small elite became prosperous, have as countries stagnated.

Bring SA’s security apparatus under civilian control
William Gumede
2009-10-22, Issue 454

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/59686

As is now becoming increasingly clear from the many court trials, towards the end of the presidential term of Thabo Mbeki, elements of the security apparatus increasingly started to behave like their apartheid predecessors in their muzzling of rivals and legitimate criticisms of the state, and in the abuse of power for personal and factional interests.

The leadership succession battle of the ANC, ahead of the party’s December 2007 Polokwane national conference, saw rival factions inside the ANC often using state security agencies, the police and intelligence services, to try to eliminate each other. At the height of the tussle, a state of paranoia reigned, where smear campaigns, deliberately planting stories and entrapment – such as the attempt by rogue intelligence agents to plant drugs on a Mail & Guardian journalist – were used as a devastating weapon to discredit opponents.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1068831

MEC under siege over ‘false promise’
23 September 2009
Anna Majavu

Tenants await ‘their’ houses

NEW Western Cape housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela is on a collision course with backyard residents from Mandela Park in Khayelitsha.

The tenants have accused him of breaking a promise to give them houses in a new development.

But Madikizela has counter-accused residents of causing a R1million worth of damage to houses during a weekend protest.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1041226

It’s not xenophobia

29 July 2009
Peter Alexander and Peter Pfaffe

Promises made but nothing has happened

CONCERN that service delivery protests will degenerate into xenophobic violence was fuelled by reports from Balfour, Mpumalanga.

But there is a history of opposition to xenophobia in Balfour’s township, Siyathemba. An analysis of the protest must take a different form.

This was said by Mohammed Waqas, spokesman for 30 foreign nationals, mostly Ethiopians, gathered outside Balfour police station.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1037889

Protests erupt, piling pressure on Zuma to deliver
By Tiisetso Motsoeneng
22 July 2009

Violent protests are spreading, piling pressure on President Jacob Zuma to deliver on government promises of help for the poor three months after elections.

Protesters pelted cars with stones and blocked a highway near Johannesburg in the worst disturbances since Zuma took office, intensifying uncertainty after a wave of strikes and threats of industrial action in Africa’s biggest economy.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1035297

‘Give us a basic grant of R1500 or we’ll wreak havoc’
17 July 2009
Canaan Mdletshe

UP IN ARMS: Unemployed people have vowed to destroy shops in KwaZulu-Natal if the government fails to meet their demands within seven days . PHOTO: THULI DLAMINI

A GROUP representing the unemployed in KwaZulu-Natal has threatened to set townships alight and unleash an army of looters on shops unless all jobless people received a basic income grant of R1500 a month.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1022517

On the boil - angry residents clash with cops in protest
24 June 2009
Canaan Mdletshe - mdletshec@sowetan.co.za

DISGRUNTLED residents in Lindelani, north of Durban, went on a rampage yesterday blockading roads with burning tyres and forcing the closure of schools.

The residents are complaining about lack of service delivery, particularly the allocation of low-cost housing in the area.

Lindelani was in flames from the early hours as incensed residents became violent.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1023879

Fired firm can sue municipality
26 June 2009
Anna Majavu - majavua@sowetan.co.za

?Strong case of unfair treatment

JUSTICE department director-general Menzi Simelane says the law firm axed by the City of Cape Town last week may bring a case of unfair discrimination against the municipality in the Equality Court.

Sowetan reported on Tuesday that Cape Town had terminated Smith Tabata Buchanan Boyes (STBB) as one of its service providers after the firm took on a case for the Abahlali baseMjondolo shack dwellers movement against the city.

Click here to read the judgment in word and here to read it in pdf.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1015832

Court puts an end to life in Joe Slovo
11 June 2009
Anna Majavu - majavua@sowetan.co.za

Residents to get new area

One of Cape Town’s largest informal settlements – Joe Slovo, Langa – is set to be entirely demolished after the Constitutional Court ruled yesterday that its 20000 residents be moved out.