http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5234313

South Durban residents in service delivery march

November 06, 2009 Edition 2

MPUME MADLALA

More than 250 South Durban residents and Abahlali baseMjondolo supporters marched down Pixley Kasema (West) Street to Durban City Hall to protest against poor service delivery.

The marchers, mostly dressed in white Wentworth Development Forum T-shirts, shouted slogans like: "Down with Eskom's high rates" and carried banners reading "Dear mayor, please fire Sutcliffe", "Logie Naidoo, please bring Clairwood back to former glory" and "Stop the talk implement the upgrade of Wentworth".

The Kennedy Road Thirteen have now appeared in court 6 times - each time in the face of an often drunken and armed ANC mob making open threats against AbM and its leaders. On each occasion the prosecution have failed to provide any evidence that the accused may be guilty of the crimes for which they have been arrested. On each occasion the case has been remanded to give the police a chance to provide such evidence - and in each case they have failed to do so. Are these endless delays not a means of achieving their detention without trial and without a bail hearing? The Kennedy Thirteen were severely assaulted in the Sydenham Police Station after their arrest and are also being subject to assault in Westville prison.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5224758

Church leaders call for probe

October 30, 2009 Edition 3

DASEN THATHIAH

CHURCH leaders continue to rally behind Kennedy Road shack-dwellers, calling for a judicial enquiry into recent violence in the area.

Two people were killed in a mob attack last month and 13 suspects have since been arrested.

However, shack-dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) has claimed repeatedly that its own members were being targeted and indicated that a certain faction of the ANC was fuelling the violence.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5209954

Protecting the vulnerable
Attempt to remove informal settlers in conflict with Constitution

October 20, 2009 Edition 1

Sayed Iqbal Mohammed

The poor and the government, as interested parties, eagerly awaited the Constitutional Court's judgment on the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Act 6 of 2007 (the Slums Act).

Security of tenure and the prevention of concentrated power in the hands of government were of great concern to the first two applicants, Abahlali Basejondolo Movement of SA, and Sibusiso Zikode.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5199449

Violent campaign against homeless people's group
The Kennedy 8 are the new Rivonia trialists, writes Jared Sacks

October 12, 2009 Edition 1

Jared Sacks

I was at the bail hearing for the "Kennedy 8" on Thursday when they were denied bail and sent to the notorious Westville prison.

I had come to Durban from Cape Town to meet up with staff members of the Clare Estate Drop-in Centre, which operated in Kennedy Road until the recent attacks, when it was ransacked and forced to close. The CEDIC had supported hundreds of orphaned and other vulnerable children from the community and also helped run a community creche next door.

http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5136238

Resources of our society should be used for the benefit of all
Accountability as a strategy leaves loopholes

August 24, 2009 Edition 1

Andrew Nash

The outcry about cabinet ministers and MECs spending millions on new luxury vehicles, with every imaginable accessory, at the same time as they call on workers to tighten their belts, is surely justified. But it misses the bigger picture.

When Minister of Communications Siphiwe Nyanda said that the cabinet-approved ministerial handbook entitled him to his new cars, he summed up the new model of accountability that comes with our constitutional democracy.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/?fArticleId=5095860

Looting sprees to continue
94 arrested for protest thefts at supermarkets

July 23, 2009 Edition 3

MPUME MADLALA

PROTESTERS behind the looting of two Durban supermarkets have pledged to continue targeting food retailers to highlight their hunger and desperation.

One of the supermarkets has announced, in the wake of surprise invasions yesterday which saw 94 people arrested, that it would pursue prosecutions in each and every case.

KwaZulu-Natal has been hardest hit by the recession in terms of job losses, and the SA Unemployed Peoples' Movement (SAUPM) said today the food snatches would continue until the plight of the jobless was recognised.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5085725

Protesters besiege city hall
Sutcliffe refuses to take memos

July 16, 2009 Edition 1

SLINDILE MALULEKA

A PEACEFUL march almost turned violent yesterday when more than 1 000 protesters waited three hours for city officials to receive a memorandum outside the Durban City Hall.

The protesters, including disgruntled bus drivers, took to the streets to demonstrate against the loss of jobs and the removal of traders from the market.

They have also called for a commission of inquiry to investigate the collapse of Remant Alton.

So if business and political elites, with their mutual dependence, are a 'public-private partnership' where does that leave the (neither public nor private) people of eMacambini as Mabuyakulu continues to evict in his new portfolio?

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5069173

Solution will be found, says MEC

July 06, 2009 Edition 3

Barbara Cole

FINDING a solution to the controversial proposed AmaZulu World leisure and entertainment development on the North Coast was one of the provincial government's high-est priorities, MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu has said.

This is not even vaguely accurate...it is what happens when stories are written with, of all people, the police as a single source. And it must be noted that there are always attempts to slander the victims of shack fires - most often as ungrateful quarrelling drunkards who cause the fires and then reject help.In fact the police arrived long after the fire brigade who had already got the blaze under control. There was a clash with the police after they tried to arrest a woman who had been blamed for the fire. People resisted the attempt at arrest and then started shooting with rubber bullets. They always shoot at any crowd of people in or coming from a shack settlement. Negotiation is not on their agenda. Not ever. It was after they started shooting that the stones were thrown. The actions of the police, and what they told this journalist, was just more of their usual attempts to blame the victims. The Kennedy Committee has to intervene and explain to the police that their job was to protect this woman.