The national minimum wage increase of 16% for farmworkers, which will increase farmworker wages to R21,69/hour, will come into effect from 1 March 2021. Farmers chorus in disapproval.
ANNELIE COLEMAN | FARMER'S WEEKLY |
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Workers want a R7,000 Covid-19 compensation allowance.
THAMSANQA MBOVANE | GROUNDUP |
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Municipal workers’ strike shuts down customer services and the traffic department in Nelson Mandela Bay.
THAMSANQA MBOVANE | GROUNDUP |
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Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality says it wants its trucks back and will settle the bill, while government steps in to save Kopanong’s assets being auctioned by municipal workers union.
CIARAN RYAN | MONEY WEB |
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Reclaim the City and the NGO Ndifuna Ukwazi have denied the City’s claims that they are an obstacle to the building of social housing in Cape Town and instead accused the City of not wanting to provide affordable housing.
MWANGI GITHAHU | IOL |
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South Africa remains a country in which some people are more equal than others. A dad can be arrested for flouting lockdown when out to buy milk for his baby. By contrast, a politician can be treated with kid gloves.
TSHEPO MATSEBA | IOL |
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An Australian mining magnate has been dealt a bruising legal smackdown by the South African legal system which he sought to ‘weaponise’, seemingly to bully and silence lawyers and environmental activists.
TONY CARNIE | BUSINESS MAVERICK |
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The January 2021 Household Affordability Index shows basic food items like sugar beans, rice, flour and bread have seen price hikes of between 31% and 68%.
CHANEL SEPTEMBER | EWN |
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According to the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, Rwanda, Togo and Tunisia are the African countries that have responded best to Covid, far ahead of South Africa and especially many rich countries.
OLIVER MARBOT | THE AFRICA REPORT |
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When the COVID-19 rescue package was announced last year, we had hoped that it would protect jobs and wages of workers, support businesses, and provide greater social assistance. This scorecard shows that, based on available data found by the IEJ team of researchers, this has not been the case.
IEJ |
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Cuba’s socialist approach to developing vaccines against Covid-19 differs strikingly from that of capitalist nations of the world developing vaccines.
W.T. WHITNEY JR | PEOPLE'S WORLD |
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The EU has introduced export controls on Covid-19 vaccines made in the region under a transparency mechanism that gives its member countries powers to deny vaccine exports.
MINI PERERA | TE MORNING |
Rich countries continued to block a proposal from South Africa and India to waive intellectual property protections on COVID-19 drugs and vaccines during a new round of talks Thursday at the World Trade Organization.
ANDREW GREEN | DEVEX |
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Only several weeks into the Biden administration, and the military is already lobbying for increased funding for questionable reasons.
MELVIN GOODMAN | COUNTERPUNCH |
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The U.S. government will continue to challenge a British judge’s ruling last month that Assange should not be extradited to the United States.
MARK HOSENBALL | REUTERS
Two dozen major human rights and press freedom organizations are calling on the new Department of Justice to drop the charges against Julian Assange.
ASSANGE DEFENSE |
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Protests in Haiti, which have been going on for a month now, have garnered more strength as president Jovenel Moïse refused to step down. In response to protests, Moïse's government has cracked down on opposition, arresting several leaders and unleashing violent repression on protesters in the streets.
PEOPLES DISPATCH |
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Amilcar Cabral is a household name. But what happened to the young women like Joana Gomes who helped lead Guinea Bissau’s independence struggle?
RICCI SHRYOCK | AFRICA IS A COUNTRY |
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Nigeria, along with more than half of the countries in Africa, has a plural legal system. In these systems, additional sources of law, based on local customs or religious texts and traditions, can permit discriminatory cultural and religious practices to persist.
TERRY MCGOVERN, MONIQUE BAUMONT, SAMANTHA GARBER | THE CONVERSATION |
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Scores of students hit the streets of Greece against a regressive education bill which they say will gag dissent on campuses. The bill allows the setting up of a state security division on university campuses.
PEOPLES DISPATCH |
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The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said in 2019 that there was a “reasonable basis” to open a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
FRANCE 24 |
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AU leaders condemned the continued construction of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land, the colonisation of East Jerusalem, and Israel's violence against Palestinians.
IOL |
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This isn’t actually about antisemitism at all, but about limiting our freedom to discuss the political and humanitarian situation in Israel and Palestine.
BRIAN ENO | THE GUARDIAN |
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By making ‘Zionists’ a de facto protected category, Facebook would shield the Israeli government from accountability and harm efforts to dismantle antisemitism.
ALISSA WISE | THE GUARDIAN |
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An open letter signed by British Academics who are also Israeli citizens opposing the governmental imposition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance ‘working definition of antisemitism’ on Universities in England. ISRAELI ACADEMICS UK
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You say you want a revolution? There are no “lessons” for anyone on the Left to draw from the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol building in Washington. PETE DOLACK | COUNTERPUNCH
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As our environmental organizations have grown stronger, more sophisticated and more global in reach, the environment has continued to slide downhill. And not just slightly downhill.
JAMES GUSTAVE SPETH | TRUTHOUT |
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NEW TECHNOLOGIES / NEW FORMS OF LABOUR
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Workers at Google’s parent company, Alphabet, publicly launched a “minority union” last month. Left Voice interviewed a software engineer at Google to learn more about the union, its implications, and advice for tech workers.
LEFT VOICE |
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Amazon just got caught stealing millions from its workers, but instead of grilling the retail giant, the media appear to be working hard to run defense for it.
ALAN MACLEOD | MINT PRESS NEWS
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Before Anton Pannekoek, astronomers sought only to interpret the cosmos — his goal was to change it. The renowned Dutch scientist who gave his name to an asteroid and a moon crater was also a Marxist revolutionary who debated with figures like Lenin about the road to power.
ALEX DE JONG | JACOBIN |
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E. P. Thompson, author of 'The Making of the English Working Class,' was born on this day in 1924. His work reclaimed history for the masses – and displayed a resilient hope in their capacity to remake the world.
PAUL BUHLE | TRIBUNE |
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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is intended to serve as a channel of special and alternative news, information and knowledge source for all those interested in issues relevant to promoting political, social and economic equality and the eradication of poverty. The articles contained herein are obtained from various electronic media platforms and do not necessarily reflect the views of WWMP.
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