“Not everything that came out of this Covid-19 situation was bad,” says aspiring artist Njabulo Khuzani. Khuzani is one of the many homeless people who were moved into eThekwini Homeless shelters across Durban since March as part of the municipality’s attempt to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. Dozens of homeless people in Durban have been […]

The South African government has initiated a process to formalise and regulate the country’s large, yet informal minibus taxi industry, with a view to making it viable and free of violence. The government envisions the industry being restructured “along legally recognised business units” that pay corporate tax and comply with labour laws. Formalisation will eventually […]

The wheels of justice are grinding slowly at one of South Africa’s most important courts. The Pretoria High Court (or Gauteng Division as it is also known), has its home in the administrative capital of the country and jurisdiction-wise hears most cases involving legal challenges to government, many of which are deemed urgent. However, according […]

In a recent interview with News24, Police Minister, Bheki Cele, scapegoated and victim-blamed farmers for the brutality, torture, rape, mutilation and murder of farmers and their families. To state that the motive for these brutal attacks is due to worker conditions show utter ignorance on the part of the Minister… writes Dianne Kohler Barnard MP […]

In line with the mission of World Animal Day on 4 October, young South Africans have stepped up to raise welfare standards and conserve our collective wildlife heritage, starting in South Africa… writes Louzel Lombard Steyn. A new generation of conservationists are on the rise and on World Animal Day, young leaders have called for […]

Thousands of workers and union supporters downed tools in support of a nationwide strike on Wednesday. In Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth memorandums were handed over to government representatives (protests reportedly took place in other cities, but these were the ones our reporters witnessed). The largest union federations participated in the strike, including […]

Jane Bwanya, a former domestic worker who was “swept off her feet” six years ago by a relatively wealthy businessman, has succeeded in changing the provisions of the Intestate Succession Act, which had barred unmarried partners in a heterosexual union from inheriting. The High Court has ruled that the Intestate Succession Act is unconstitutional because […]

With just a month left until the November 3 US presidential election, contracting the virus could have politically positive or negative consequences for President Donald Trump. These will, of course, be contingent on how severe the president’s illness becomes. But we should not count him out and Biden in just yet. Here are the ways […]

The Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (CONTRALESA) in the Eastern Cape is threatening to take government to court should the summer circumcision season not be allowed. Traditional leaders are threatening to go to court if the December circumcision season is not allowed. The June season for traditional circumcision schools was suspended because of […]

Farms and unused parcels of land sitting empty for years in rural areas will be occupied and instead used for housing and other recreational facilities. Farm workers and dwellers have warned that unused land will be occupied. They were attending a three-day land colloquium webinar hosted by the Women on Farms Project. Issues discussed included […]

The rezoning of the River Club property in Observatory to allow a R4.5 billion mega-development including headquarters for Amazon was given the go-ahead by the City of Cape Town’s Municipal Planning Tribunal on Friday 18 September. A city tribunal has made way for Amazon to move in to River Club mega-development in Cape Town. The […]

South Africa’s Police Minister, General Bheki Cele, will today, Monday 21 September, host a rural safety imbizo in KwaZulu-Natal. The imbizo will take place at the Normandien Auction Saleyard Hall in Newcastle at 10am. The Imbizo follows the Minister’s first visit to the area on 2 September 2020, after the murder of two elderly farmers, […]

Many Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality residents are already experiencing Day Zero, with tanks delivering water to them daily. The situation is worse in the western areas like St Albans, and in KwaNobuhle, Uitenhage. Residents of these neighbourhoods are blaming the municipality for managing the situation poorly. Several neighbourhoods in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality are […]

Who would have thought that something as simple a strelitzia seed pod would give a retrenched Salt Rock man the business opportunity of a lifetime. You could very well call Peter Shanley an innovative opportunist who not only has a creative eye, but plans to help others make a living through his breathtaking ‘lockdown lights’. […]

The clichéd adage “boys will be boys” has, over the ages, normalised unbecoming behaviours. It has also socialised young men into thinking that being a man could entail getting away with reckless behaviour, even the use of violence and aggression to assert power. In her analysis of violent masculinities in post-apartheid South Africa, feminist scholar Pumla […]

In May 2017 we (GroundUp) took photos of Cape Town’s dam levels at the height of the drought. This is what the Berg River looked like then: And this is what it looked like on Saturday: And below is what Theewaterskloof, which can hold more than half of Cape Town’s water at capacity, looked like […]

Women photographers, and black African women photographers in particular, are largely absent from early histories of the medium. Even in South Africa, which has attracted more attention than other parts of the continent, few women photographers from the early and mid-1900s appear in the historical record. There are even fewer whose work has been collected […]

On the first Saturday of September every year, International Vulture Awareness Day is celebrated – a time to not only reflect on the importance of vultures and the essential role they play in a healthy ecosystem, but also a time to spread awareness and take action… writes Chris Kelly, Species Director – Wildlife ACT These […]

Eskom has been ordered by the high court to restore full maximum electricity supply to several areas in the Free State and Mpumalanga provinces immediately. North Gauteng High Court Acting Judge Anthony Millar heard a combined urgent application at the end of August. Read the judgment here. Applicants were the Vaal River Development Association, which […]

At the height of the Covid-19 outbreak in the Western Cape, a project was implemented that saved lives, and has the potential to save many more. As the epidemic escalated, it became clear that the disease was hitting people with diabetes especially hard. A study looking at over 15,000 Covid-19 infections showed that of every […]

“I had over 200 children coming to me saying they are orphans and are hungry. I couldn’t turn them away so I started cooking for them,” says 71-year-old Sylvia Mvumvu from Alexandra, Johannesburg. Mvumvu was born in Johannesburg and has always lived in Alexandra. She has been running a non-profit organisation (NPO) called Siyondla Umphakathi […]

In March three unemployed men from KwaNobuhle, Uitenhage, decided to start growing their own food. As it turned out, a week later the Covid-19 national lockdown started. Siyabulela Booysen, Sakhumzi Mbaduli and Mendo Vece had no experience. They started by collecting empty bottles from friends and family and selling them to get the money they […]

Eight-year-old Clarence Solomons lost his life during a protest over a house demolition, after being hit by a stray bullet. The Elsies River woman whose house was demolished by the City of Cape Town’s law enforcement says she now has to share her mother’s small flat with six other people. She wants the City to […]

The City of Cape Town’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit (ALIU) will not be allowed to evict people or demolish their structures, whether occupied or unoccupied, without a court order while the country remains in a state of national disaster. Judges Shehnaz Meer and Rosheni Allie in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday afternoon granted an […]

When conservationist Menzi Nxumalo spoke to people in rural KwaZulu-Natal, he struggled to communicate with them, even though they were speaking the same language. “We’d go to communities and try to communicate to them about the impact of invasive species, but we failed to deliver the message because of the communication failure,” he explains. Government […]