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E-NEWS BULLETIN 14 September 2018 Links to present possibilities

SOUTH AFRICA

celeCrime stats from Hell – brought to you by years of instability, political pliancy and the SAPS’s internecine battles

Against the backdrop of the Cabinet security cluster of police, state security and defence not having met for two years, and 250 vacancies in the Hawks, the elite investigating directorate, Police Minister Bheki Cele admitted they had “dropped the ball”. After too many years of neglect, and sometimes plain sabotage, the chickens are coming home to roost. dailymaverick.co.za/


G6 cannonAuthority turns blind eye as SA sells arms to countries suspected of Yemen war crimes

According to the national conventional arms control committee, which oversees SA’s arms exports, SA sold more than R3bn worth of arms and ammunition, armoured vehicles and surveillance and military technology to the coalition’s most actively warring members, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in 2016 and 2017. At what point will the NCACC say “enough” and stop arming countries committing war crimes in Yemen? pressreader.com/ (Sunday Times)


rheinmetall denel“It’s time for Denel to move way from our communities”

Families of the workers who were killed in the explosion at the Rheinmetall Denel Munition plant near Somerset West earlier this week could not hold back their tears during a memorial service held at the Anglican Church in Macassar. The eldest of the eight workers who were killed was 51-year old Steve Isaac and the youngest, 18-year-old Bradley Tandy. wwmp.org.za/elitsha/


bank of lisbon blaze Occupational Health and Safety – Do workers’ lives matter?

Last week the country witnessed two workplace disasters, one in Cape Town and the other in Johannesburg that saw the horrific deaths of eleven workers. Eight workers died in the explosion at the Rheinmetall Denel arms factory in Somerset West and three firefighters lost their lives battling the blaze engulfing the building that housed the Gauteng Department of Health in Johannesburg. In this week’s Workers on Wednesday, we unpack why this happened, whether it could have been prevented and whether workers’ lives are taken seriously in South Africa. wwmp.org.za/


numsa logoNUMSA welcomes constitutional court victory on struggle song

The court found against an abusive company called Duncanmec which unfairly dismissed nine NUMSA members for singing a struggle song during a strike in April 2013. The song was “uMama uyajabula mangishaya ibhunu” – which means my mother rejoices when I beat the Boer. numsa.org.za/


malemaFirebrand Malema fights for land revolution in SA

The leader of the EFF has vowed that his supporters will increasingly seize unoccupied land to put pressure on the government to redistribute land to black people. “We are going to share the land, but it must first be owned by the state and reallocated back to all of us — black and white,” he moderated. dailymaverick.co.za/


sacsu logoSACSU: South Africa needs more social workers

The South African Civil Servants Union, operating within the government departments in South Africa, is disturbed by the arrogance of the government officials within the Department of Social Development. SACSU is pleading to anybody who cares to listen, that our country needs plenty of social workers as we’re having plenty of society which is hurt and angry. polity.org.za/


icasa logoGovernment finally gets around to licensing radio spectrum

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) is preparing to license high-demand radio frequency spectrum. Network operators have said for years that the lack of spectrum is hindering their ability to roll out services and to reduce the cost to communicate. businesslive.co.za/


thuma minaClick, copy, paste: Is our proposed copyright bill futureproof?

Did President Ramaphosa have permission from the Masekela estate to use the lyrics of Thuma Mina (Send Me) or did he violate Bra Hugh’s copyright? It is an example worth considering because a number of advocates for a more liberal copyright regime in South Africa, based on the principle of “fair use”, have suggested that the country’s 40-year-old copyright law is so rigid that even our president could have fallen foul of it. city-press.news24.com/


icescrSouth African civil society organisations submit a parallel shadow report to the United Nations Treaty Body on the implementation of socio-economic rights

As required by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights the South African government submitted its initial report to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in April 2017. A coalition of civil society organisations submitted a parallel report to the same United Nations Committee. Download the full parallel report here.

Cape Town Wednesday 19 September, 6.30pm
VENUE Dulcie September Hall, Athlone Civic Centre
RSVP events@wwmp.org.za 021 361 0119
Or confirm your attendance on the Facebook event page (Cape Town)

Johannesburg Friday 21 September, 6pm
VENUE University of Johannesburg, Bunting Road Campus, Auckland Park
RSVP katlegot@uj.ac.za 011 559 1148
Or confirm your attendance on the Facebook event page (Jhb)

INTERNATIONAL

dragonThe next financial crash is imminent, and China’s resource crisis could be the trigger

China’s economic slowdown could be a key trigger of the coming global financial crisis, but one of its core drivers — China’s dwindling supplies of cheap domestic energy — is little understood by mainstream economists. medium.com/


ali enterprisesComplaint filed against Italian auditor for ignoring fatal flaws in garment factory

More than 250 people died and dozens were injured in a fire at the Ali Enterprises textile factory in Karachi, Pakistan, on 11 September 2012. Only three weeks before, Italian auditor RINA Services S.p.A. certified the factory for abiding to international labour standards. cleanclothes.org/


exec jetBillionaires Plan Escape From Apocalypse

Billionaires are gutless, chicken-hearted cowards. The proof is found in the pudding as several Silicon Valley billionaires purchase massive underground bunkers built in Murchison, Texas shipped to New Zealand, where the bunkers are buried in secret underground nests. counterpunch.org/


Defying rain, thousands of women marched towards Indian parliament

“We are Indian Women, we are not flowers but the spark!” On September 04, thousands of women from across the country marched in New Delhi against rising violence against women, hunger and unemployment. peoplesdispatch.org/

Local news from Khayelitsha, East London, Port Elizabeth, Alexandra and Orange Farm in English and isiXhosa


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NEW TECHNOLOGIES / NEW FORMS OF LABOUR

google gazeWhat the Media Isn’t Telling You

Over the last few years, there’s been a quiet revolution in retail marketing empowering advertisers to track consumers in physical space. The capacity to track each of us in the physical world offers an untapped market for high-tech advertising that Google and Apple have already developed protocols for. counterpunch.org/


NYPD surveillanceIBM used NYPD surveillance footage to develop technology that lets police search by skin color

In the decade after the 9/11 attacks, the New York City Police Department moved to put millions of New Yorkers under constant watch. Warning of terrorism threats, the department created a plan to carpet Manhattan’s downtown streets with thousands of cameras and had, by 2008, centralized its video surveillance operations to a single command center. theintercept.com/


helical walkwayThe Fourth Industrial Revolution’s Biggest Impact will be on people – It’s time to talk about this

There has been talk on what the Fourth Industrial Revolution will mean for one important corner of our political economy, the future of work. This talk has raised questions on how it is that in the past two decades, jobs have been emptied of content, purpose and offer no security – either social or tenure. The social theorist, David Graeber, has called these “bullshit jobs”. dailymaverick.co.za/


bmw rosslyn plantThis is what it looks like inside the massive Pretoria BMW factory, which produces 15 luxury SUVs per hour

Some 288 robots assemble the new X3. The assembly plant manager says that the assembly plant is 95% automated. businessinsider.co.za/

ENVIRONMENT

floodClimate Change: What About the Marxists?

Ever-expanding production of things – progress, in other words – promotes destruction in the form of climate change. Perpetrators of boundless production dominate in our governments and society, and so climate change has advanced. The story might have been different had capitalism never existed. counterpunch.org/

 

Disclaimer:

This newsletter is intended as a special and alternative news, information and knowledge source for all who are 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.