South African strike turns violent
7.6.2007. 20:03:23

South African police used stun grenades and a water cannon to disperse striking hospital workers in the port city of Durban.

The violence came as a crippling public sector strike entered its seventh day.

The pay strike has highlighted the ideological battle facing the ruling African National Congress as it prepares to elect a new leader in December,with unions saying President Thabo Mbeki's business friendly policies have
left millions behind.

The SAPA news agency said police in Durban moved against about 200 workers who they charged were blocking the entrance to the King George V hospital.

http://gregarde.blogspot.com/2007/05/are-we-doing-enough-to-house-poor-in.html

Are we doing enough to house the poor in Durban?

This story appeared on May 4 in The Mercury

Unveiling the eThekwini Municipality's R17.4 billion budget, Mayor Obed Mlaba has taken issue with critics who complained that Durban was spending R500 million on a new soccer stadium instead of building more houses for the poor.

Mlaba defended the city's spending on major infrastructure like the stadium, saying: "When one simply gives away houses to the poor who have no means of sustaining themselves or building communities, you had better be sure that you have other income-generating programmes in place to pick up the slack."

For as long as shackdwellers are denied electricity the fires will keep coming. Winter is the worst time. But they come all the time. When the eThekwini Municipality decided to 'discontinue the electrification of the informal settlements' they were deciding to continue with avoidable fires rampaging through people's lives. Their electrificity policy states that 'In past (1990s) electrification was rolled out to all and sundry...electrification of the informal settlements has now been discontinued'.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20070522232447844C869489
The Star

South Africa

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3806952
April 30, 2007 Edition 1

BRONWYN GERRETSEN

The ground was a mass of black ash, and the stench of burned flesh and charred debris filled the air at the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban yesterday, just hours after a fire destroyed 100 shacks and killed two people.

Residents believe the fire was started by a candle in a shack at the bottom of a hill on Saturday night. The blaze spread rapidly, engulfing the homes of more than 200 people and destroying everything but the clothes on their backs.

The two who died in the blaze were identified as Ephraime Phungula and Ben Mhlakwana, a 31-year-old mother of two - the youngest of whom is a 6-month-old baby.

SA told get its housing in order

April 25 2007 at 04:43AM

By Wendy Jasson da Costa

South Africa is likely to receive a damning report from the United Nations's special rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, when he ends his tour of the country on Thursday.

On Tuesday Kothari said that although South Africa's legislation was good and the right to housing was recognised in the constitution, implementation was "very weak" and there was a lack of co-ordination between departments.

He described the situation as "a mixed result".

Kothari is investigating the state of housing in different countries, access to water and electricity, sanitation, land rights, forced evictions and displacement because of development and disasters.

Available at

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=305766&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

Pretoria, South Africa

24 April 2007 06:56

The United Nations's chief housing watchdog called on Tuesday for a halt to forced evictions in South Africa, saying people were being left homeless in breach of the country's Constitution.

"I am calling for a moratorium on evictions across the country until policy is brought in line with constitutional provisions," Miloon Kothari, the special rapporteur on adequate housing, told reporters.

Despite the fact that the right to adequate housing is enshrined in the Constitution, increasing numbers of people are being removed from dilapidated buildings by the security forces.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=305591&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

24 April 2007 07:16

Too often land for the poor is demarcated in apartheid fashion far from employment opportunities, President Thabo Mbeki told the South African Local Government Association (Salga) conference in Midrand on Monday.

"Except for a few cases, there is still a settlement pattern for poor black people to be on the outskirts of town, far from employment," he said. "It is unacceptable for the allocation of land close to employment centres to be solely for the upper end of the income market."

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=305261&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

19 April 2007 06:16
Miloon Kothari, United Nations special rapporteur for adequate housing, was appalled at the living conditions of Johannesburg's poor. “These are emergency conditions … it's worse than I expected,” he said on Tuesday, walking through San Jose, a dilapidated, 16-storey building in Berea.

Kothari is on a two-week visit to assess the state of housing and land rights in the country. Guided by researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals), he visited poor peripheral communities and derelict inner-city buildings like San Jose to gauge the government’s efforts to care for the housing needs of the poor.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3794964

Published on the web by Mercury on April 23, 2007.

Slipping down pathways between rickety shacks, Miloon Kolhari tried not to fall into the mud and the filth of the Foreman Road squatter camp in Durban at the weekend.

The United Nations special rapporteur got a first-hand look at the living conditions of the 7 000 people who call the squatter camp home. He visited the city as part of his global study on housing, a tour that has seen him meet national, provincial and municipal representatives across the country.

Kolhari seemed visibly moved by the plight of the Foreman Road residents and the 7 000 shack dwellers in nearby Kennedy Road.

Available at
http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3797426

April 24, 2007 Edition 1

Amelia Naidoo

Life is generally very hard for women who till the land.

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka spoke on these shared hardships experienced by rural women in South Africa at the Fourth World Congress of Rural Women, which opened in Durban yesterday.

More than 2 000 delegates, including rural women themselves, the government and civil society, are attending the congress at the International Convention Centre, which is being held for the first time on African soil.