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Your weekly round up of alternative news you ought to know • 22 July 2016

Xolobeni: MRC pulls Pondoland investment. Beginning of end or end of beginning?

“MRC has announced that it is disinvesting its 56% share in Transworld Energy and Minerals, the applicants for the Xolobeni Mineral Sands project on the Pondoland Wild Coast, and has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with its Black Economic Empowerment partner “Keysha Investments 178”.”
read more…http://www.fin

Johannesburg: Tearful Blade ready to call time on the SACP

“SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande has given the strongest indication yet that he will not be a candidate when the party holds its elective conference next year.”

“POPCRU has a bought a building for the SACP”
read more… http://www.tim

Cape Town: Meet Terry Crawford-Browne: Fighting to recoup R70bn SA taxpayers spent on crooked Arms Deal

“Meet South Africa’s version of Andrew Jennings, the British investigative journalist who took more than a decade trying to convince the world FIFA was corrupt to the core.”
read more…http://www.fin

Turkey: Erdogan’s purge may give Nato no choice but to expel Turkey from the alliance

“Ever since Turkey joined Nato in 1952, its membership has been viewed as a vital bulwark in the defence of Europe against threats emanating from Russia and the Arab world.”
read more… http://www.tel

Turkey’s coup may have failed – but history shows it won’t be long before another one succeeds

“Too late did Erdogan realise the cost of the role he had chosen for his country – when you can no longer trust your army, there are serious issues that need to be addressed.”
read more…http://www.ind

Turkey: Most Mechanical Turkers Are Young, College-Educated and Making Less Than $5 an Hour

Mexico: Teachers Protest at Tests as Talks on Dispute Begin

“Striking Mexican teachers marched in the capital on Tuesday as their CNTE union sat down to talks with the government over draconian education “reforms.””

read more…h ttps://www.mor

Michigan: Supreme Court upholds GM’s workers’ comp cuts

“The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday ruled that General Motors could reduce costs of paying injured workers by coordinating disability pension and workers’ compensation benefits. The ruling reverses a decision last year by an appellate court that protected the full benefits due to the late Clifton Arbuckle, a former GM worker who was injured on the job in 1991.”
read more…http://www.fre

USA: In Advanced Economies, Two-Thirds of Population Have Seen Incomes Stagnate, Study Shows

“Across 25 of the world’s advanced economies, about two-thirds of the population—more than half a billion people—earn the same as or less than their peers did a decade ago.”
read more…http://www.wsj

USA: How the internet was invented

“In 40 years, the internet has morphed from a military communication network into a vast global cyberspace. And it all started in a California beer garden.”
read more…https://www.the

Pretoria: SABC interdicted from enforcing censorship decision

“The High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday granted an order interdicting the SABC from implementing or enforcing its censorship decision.”
read more…http://www.news

Cape Town: Pallo Jordan’s mom dies

“One of South Africa’s great – and largely unheralded – fighters against apartheid and for women’s rights died on Sunday in a hospice in Taylor in the US state of Michigan. Phyllis Priscilla Ntantala-Jordan, the mother of former African National Congress government minister Pallo Jordan, was 96.”
read more…http://www.new

Xolobeni: Ministers duck questions on mining

“Government ministers at a packed meeting in Xolobeni yesterday ducked questions on the controversial titanium mining project and on the violence which has wracked the Eastern Cape village for years.”
read more…http://www.gro

Johannesburg: Bill Gates’ silver-bullet misfiring at the Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture

“On July 17, Bill Gates delivered the annual Mandela Lecture in Johannesburg, justifying his philosophy of market-orieted, technology-centric philanthropy. Last year, French economist Thomas Piketty’s speech on inequality attracted healthy debate, with even business notables endorsing his concerns, given South Africa’s intense social conflict.”
read more…http://www.cou

Turkey: Who prevented the coup and who hit the streets?

“There has been a claim making the rounds among government supporters and some sections of the opposition since the momentous events of 15 July: “The attempted coup of 15 July was stopped by the people exercising their right to resistance for democracy.”
read more…http://sen

India: Private Schools for the Poor – A low in Education

“A new Education International independent research on school privatisation in India reveals the plans of global edu-businesses to invest in, grow, and profit from education for the poor.”
read more…https://gro

California: French billionaire offers free code education, housing at 42 USA

“A coding school that offers both free tuition and free housing opened last week in Fremont. Named 42 USA, it’s being bankrolled by French telecommunications billionaire Xavier Niel, whose company, Free, pioneered dirt-cheap Internet and cell phone service in Europe.”
read more…http://www.sfc

Chicago: U.S. and Chinese labor groups collaborated before China Wal-Mart strikes

“Our Walmart, the American worker group, has taken the unusual step of collaborating with a group of Chinese Wal-Mart workers trying to fight work schedule changes and low wages.”
read more…http://www.reu

Russia Asks For The Impossible With Its New Surveillance Laws

“It’s been a rough month for Internet freedom in Russia. After it breezed through the Duma, President Putin signed the “Yarovaya package” into law…”
read more…https://www.eff

USA: Oliver Stone warns of Pokemon Go ‘totalitarianism’

“Filmmaker Oliver Stone tore into the Pokemon Go smartphone phenomenon on Thursday, describing it as “a new level of invasion” that could lead to totalitarianism.”
read more…http://www.dai