Opinion

Time for serious action on road carnage

The road crash massacre on the Moloto Road in Mpumalanga last week provides an horrific portent for the annual festive season slaughter on the highways and byways of South Africa. And the manner in which the deaths of 29 people were reported, being consigned, for the most part, to the inside pages of newspapers, reveals just how accepting the country has become of such carnage.

Terry Bell.

Opinion | 18 November 2013

Where’s Wally? Liberals in the DA

Leaders, former leaders and the main cheerleaders of the Democratic Alliance have publicly debated these last weeks about whether or not the party has betrayed its liberal tradition with its stance on black economic empowerment.

Nathan Geffen

Opinion | 18 November 2013

Occult crime unit is offensive to common sense and morality

Decades after its formation, the Occult-Related Crime Unit (ORCU, founded by Kobus “Donker” Jonker in 1992) continues to waste public resources, misdirect police attention, and stigmatise young people who are by and large more misunderstood than malignant.

Jacques Rousseau

Opinion | 13 November 2013

Economic apartheid and the builders of the world city

Christmas is clearly coming. The store decorations are in place and chocolate Santas jostle on the shelves with strings of lights on ornamental trees while bins of festive season toffees and biscuit specials vie to keep the tills ringing.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 12 November 2013

A changed world requires ditching dogma

Trade unions the world over are embattled and apparently finding difficulty adapting to the changed circumstances of this century. To varying degrees they react to challenges in the manner of decades past, without apparently realising the potential they have to influence the way forward in what is a changed world.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 6 November 2013

Genetically modified foods: let the science speak

Genetically modified food has become a highly politicised, emotional issue with heated arguments and accusations between those for and against their use.

Kerry Gordon

Opinion | 6 November 2013

Was South Africa sold out in 1994?

Ronnie Kasrils argued in the Guardian in June that the ANC in 1994 accepted a "devil's pact ... " that tied South Africa's economy "to the neoliberal global formula and market fundamentalism ...". Here Rob Petersen explains why he thinks Kasrils is mistaken. This is the text of a speech given at an Equal Education event on 31 October.

Rob Petersen

Opinion | 6 November 2013

Ambrosini is wrong about cancer

Receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis in your early 50s is frightening. It is difficult to imagine what Mario Ambrosini is going through. That he wishes to beat cancer and that he is disappointed with medical science because it offers him so little hope is entirely understandable.

Nathan Geffen, GroundUp Editor

Opinion | 4 November 2013

A still flickering beacon of hope

“South Africa has rather fallen off the radar,” the BBC journalist noted. This was similar to comments voiced by former anti-apartheid activists and by several one-time strugglista exiles, mainly in London, who never returned home to settle. Because, in the mainstream media of Europe, there is little mention of South Africa: and, after six weeks abroad, it was, for me, a useful reminder of how minor is our role in global political and economic affairs.

Terry Bell

Opinion | 28 October 2013

Patents must serve the public interest

It is in the interests of large multinational companies to secure as many patents as possible. The Treatment Action Campaign, in line with the Draft National Policy on Intellectual Property (IP), argues that patents should only be granted for medicines that are truly new and innovative, for example a brand new cancer cure.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 24 October 2013

Patents must serve the public interest

Thousands of people in South Africa have drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Many of them will die. Death from TB can be slow and horrible. Many of those who do survive will struggle with severe side effects and may need daily pills and injections. Some, like 23-year old Phumeza who described her experience of TB treatment at a Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) press conference last week, will live, but lose their hearing.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 24 October 2013

How a patent is blocking access to a life-saving TB medicine

Thousands of people in South Africa have drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Many of them will die. Death from TB can be slow and horrible. Many of those who do survive will struggle with severe side effects and may need daily pills and injections. Some, like 23-year old Phumeza who described her experience of TB treatment at a Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) press conference last week, will live, but lose their hearing.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 23 October 2013

The strike wave and what it means

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last week that if South Africa wants to achieve higher growth and cut unemployment “a social bargain” is needed that would pull together trade unions, business and the government to implement the NDP (National Development Plan). It also suggests that trade unions moderate wage demands and that the State implement its massive infrastructure spending plans. The IMF flagged "escalating labour tensions" as a "key domestic risk".

Jack Lewis

Opinion | 10 October 2013

Khayelitsha residents on the O’Regan/Pikoli Commission

The O'Regan/Pikoli Commision of Inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha is to go ahead after a Constitutional Court ruling last week. GroundUp went to the streets of Khayelitsha to gauge people’s reaction to the ruling.

Nwabisa Pondoyi

Opinion | 9 October 2013

Responsible investment in the wake of Marikana

For the first time since its inception in 2006, the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) conference was held on the African continent during the first week of October. This event brought together a wide variety of stakeholders, from banking groups to mining giants, as well as consultancy and investment firms from around the globe.

Delphine Pedeboy

Opinion | 9 October 2013

We need to change how we think (and talk) about social grants

On September 30, the government announced the second increase this year in disability grants, old age pensions, care dependency grants and war veterans' pensions. These increases will come in addition to the child support grant and grant-in-aid increases, which were already budgeted for in March. Although the increase is only R10, it will equate to a R41 million increase in government spending per month.

Gabrielle Kelly

Opinion | 7 October 2013