Life-saving AIDS medicine out of stock in Gauteng, and other stories

Featured story

Who is behind the airport shoe shine business?

Lere Mosieane Mgayiya dreamt of being a pilot. But when that didn\xe2\x80\x99t work out he started the shoe shining business that you find in every major South African airport.

Zintle Swana

Life-saving AIDS medicine out of stock in Gauteng

Hospitals throughout Gauteng ran out of essential medicines in recent weeks, including a life-saving drug for people with AIDS called amphotericin B.

Daneel Knoetze and GroundUp staff

Fishing the Black River

When Wayne Wilke lost his job many years ago, his doctor recommended that he take a break. Heeding his doctor's advice, Wayne visited Princess Vlei in Retreat and started to fish.

Photos by Masixole Feni. Text by Kevin Elliot.

Unions should rescue TAC, says Achmat

Former Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) leader, Zackie Achmat, has called on the trade unions to come to the rescue of TAC which has been mired in financial difficulties.

Alide Dasnois

Reports

Parow\xe2\x80\x99s block of flats from hell

Immigrants who live in Goodman Close and Le Ruth Close at 194 Voortrekker Road Parow are fed up with the awful conditions they live in.

Tariro Washinyira

Troubling questions about role of banks in scam

It might come to light why and how local banks readily granted bonds to people who couldn\xe2\x80\x99t afford them when investors in a scam, run by the now liquidated Brusson Finance, head to the Gauteng High Court early in 2015.

Mandy de Waal

Residents blame Eskom and Zuma for fire that leaves dozens homeless

Residents of Kanana informal settlement in Gugulethu have blamed power cuts for a fire that left over a hundred people homeless on Friday evening.

Johnnie Isaac

Moving up in Joe Slovo

Approved Joe Slovo housing beneficiaries, who were deemed to be \xe2\x80\x9ctoo young\xe2\x80\x9d by government to receive houses in October, this week moved into their new units at the N2 Gateway development. Other families, who remain behind in the informal settlement, and who are now being moved to make space for the next phase of the housing development, remain unhappy.

Daneel Knoetze

Aftermath of a shack fire

With summer heat and seasonal gale force southeaster winds, it is a time of high risk for shack fires. There were 123 fires in the past month in informal settlements in the Western Cape. This December, load shedding may well be adding to that risk. GroundUp visited a family in the aftermath of a recent shack fire to see how they are coping.

Pharie Sefali

Brief

Csaawu launches campaign to save it from bankruptcy

Farmworkers union Csaawu has launched an online crowd-funding campaign to save it from bankruptcy.

Daneel Knoetze

Opinion

Know Your Constitution: a challenge to students

This is a challenge to young people, and to law students in particular, to think about how we can use the law to effect change: we have a Constitution now, but what are we going to do with it?

Rachel Mazower and Isabeau Steytler

UCT responds on minimum wage

UCT's Deputy Vice-Chancellor responds to the article by Budlender and Lorenzen that criticised UCT's policy for next year on minimum wages.

Francis Petersen

UCT's muddled minimum wage

Josh Budlender and Johan Lorenzen argue that the reasons given by the University of Cape Town (UCT) for the minimum wage of outsourced workers in 2015 do not make sense.

Josh Budlender and Johan Lorenzen

Why domestic workers keep fighting

Nearly 17 years ago, sitting behind a slightly battered desk in Cape Town\xe2\x80\x99s Salt River, Myrtle Witbooi told me that the dream of domestic workers being \xe2\x80\x9ctreated like other workers\xe2\x80\x9d would not die. \xe2\x80\x9cWe want a living wage and proper hours. It is a dream\xe2\x80\xa6but we will get there,\xe2\x80\x9d said the woman who, in Cape Town in 1965, convened the first organisational meeting of domestic workers.

Terry Bell