e-News bulletin 17 April 2020

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Community Careworkers continue to work without personal protective equipment

Elitsha walked a day in the shoes of Cynthia Tikwayo while she did her work in the Ndlovini informal settlement in Khayelitsha together with a team of community careworkers.

               COVID-19: SOUTH AFRICA

The biggest lockdown threat: Hunger, hunger, everywhere

Residents in Mitchells Plain clash with police over food parcels. Residents are furious with the government for not fulfilling its promise of delivering food parcels.
REBECCA DAVIS DAILY MAVERICK

‘Hunger will kill us, not corona’ – unemployed mother fears family will not survive extended lockdown

LUBABALO NGCUKANA CITY PRESS

UIF blow for unpaid SA Express staff

The Department of Public Enterprises has, on behalf of SA Express, applied to the UIF for financial assistance to pay March salaries to employees. However, UIF commissioner Teboho Maruping said SA Express would not qualify for assistance under a special UIF Covid-19 scheme.
RAY MAHLAKA BUSINESS MAVERICK

SA car industry may have to lay off 10% of workers

Jobs losses could rise up to 30% if Covid-19 lockdown is extended until the end of May.
EMMA RUMNEY BUSINESS DAY

Workers and the Coronavirus in South Africa

Report issued by the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa and the Casual Workers Advice Office.
CWAO, GIWUSA

Spain did it, so why can’t South Africa nationalise healthcare to save lives?

South Africa is working towards establishing a publicly-funded universal health service and now, amid the coronavirus pandemic, is the time to implement it.

NIMI HOFFMAN M&G

City officers shoot at Khayelitsha protesters

Conflict over how to respond to land occupation during lockdown intensifies.

VINCENT LALI GROUNDUP

SANDF and police’s violent Easter gift to Masiphumelele

Without warning, you are surrounded and abused and beaten by police. And when you have no inside or outside left to flee to? That is the crux right there; because now there is no other place for these people to go but to rise up. This is not my government anymore.
JACQUES MARAIS DAILY MAVERICK

Apartheid aggression lingers on as police, army brutalise blacks

This level of brutality meted out to black people by the SANDF and SAPS reveals an army and police force that is still fundamentally untransformed 26 years into democracy.
MZUKISI MAKATSE  CITY PRESS

Bheki Cele’s skop skiet en donner approach encourages Police criminality, but will Parliament hold the Minister accountable?

Police Minister Bheki Cele threatened that law enforcement will come down harder on shebeens that continue to supply alcohol during the lockdown. While doing so, he promised that the police would break the law to enforce the liquor ban. Surprisingly, there has been little criticism of the Police Minister’s statement.
PIERRE DE VOS CONSTITUTIONALLY SPEAKING

Share your lock-down stories on TV

Cape Town TV encourages the public to participate in its productions by sending in their own home-made videos about life under lock-down, as well as by participating in shows such as Open Studio COVID-19 Show.
CTV

Public sector unions prepare for legal action over wages

First April salaries will be paid on Wednesday and workers will be watching to see whether the state has stuck to its agreement.
LUYOLO MKENTANE  BUSINESS DAY

           COVID-19: INTERNATIONAL

How to ensure poor people in Africa’s cities can still get food during lockdowns

To avoid a hunger crisis, governments must think of sustainable solutions to keep food supply chains working. The COVID-19 crisis may last for many more months.
ASTRID HAAS THE CONVERSATION

Spain Is Moving To Establish Permanent Basic Income

Spain has rolled out scores of measures to provide relief to both corporations and average people.
JOSEPH ZEBALLOS-ROLG  BUSINESS INSIDER

COVID-19 Crisis Highlights The Need For A Much Stronger Public Sector

The situation is such that the public sector, long maligned by neoliberal economists and weakened by governments beholden to neoliberalism, is playing a major role in the fight against coronavirus.
SUBIN DENNIS PEOPLES DISPATCH

Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build ‘the Architecture of Oppression’

An interview with whistleblower Edward Snowden.
VICE

10 countries are now tracking phone data as Covid-19 heralds a massive increase in surveillance

Governments across the world are galvanising every surveillance tool at their disposal to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.
ISOBEL ASHER HAMILTON BUSINESS INSIDER

Coronavirus is disproportionately killing African Americans

Early data from the US coronavirus pandemic exposes how systemic racism and inequality put minority groups at risk.
VIOLET LAW AL JAZEERA

COVID-19 And The Crisis Of Racial Capitalism

This pandemic is revealing the deeper inequities for Black and brown people that have always been present in our economy and democracy but that are often papered over in ordinary times.
K. SABEEL RAHMAN DEMOS

Nurses Unions: ‘Our Members Are Dying. We Demand Protections Now!’

As COVID-19 cases continue to skyrocket in the United States, unions representing 230,000 nurses across the country have joined forces to demand hospitals and the government act now to give nurses optimal personal protective equipment.
NATIONAL NURSES UNITED

Hospital Food Workers And Janitors Are Stuck In A “Death Trap”

Overlooked workers are risking their lives to keep the healthcare system running. Now, they’re fighting back.
IN THESE TIMES

UNAIDS condemns misuse and abuse of emergency powers to target marginalized and vulnerable populations

UNAIDS is extremely concerned by reports of new laws that restrict rights and freedoms and target criminalized groups in a manner that will harm the rights and health of people living with or vulnerable to HIV.
UNAIDS

Violence Against Women And Girls: The Shadow Pandemic

Statement by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women.
PHUMZILE MLAMBO-NGCUKA UN WOMEN

Coronavirus didn’t bring the economy down — 40 years of greed and corporate malfeasance did

don’t place your bets on the economic elite helping out those hit hardest — company leaders are more likely to invest in themselves through buying back their own stock.
PAUL CONSTANT BUSINESS INSIDER

The Coronavirus Crisis Exposes How Fragile Capitalism Already Was

When this is all over, will we be able to patch up the economy and get things back to normal? Weak attempts to patch up the problems of capitalism—as much as the coronavirus itself—are what got us into the current economic meltdown in the first place.
STEPHANIE LUCE LABOR NOTES

Half A Billion People Could Be Pushed Into Poverty By Coronavirus

Oxfam is calling on world leaders to agree an ‘Economic Rescue Package for All’ to keep poor countries and poor communities afloat, ahead of key meetings of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and G20 Finance Ministers’ next week.
OXFAM

1 Million Bangladeshi Garment Workers Lose Jobs Amid COVID-19 Economic Fallout

At least one-quarter of garment workers in Bangladesh — the world’s second-largest clothing manufacturer, after China — have been fired or furloughed because of declining global orders amid the coronavirus crisis.
LAUREN FRAYER NPR

This Pandemic Will Lead to Social Revolutions

As the coronavirus sweeps the world, it hits the poor much harder than the better off. One consequence will be social unrest, even revolutions.
ANDREAS KLUTH BLOOMBERG

COVID-19 crisis is a wake up call for system change

Friends of the Earth expresses its deep concern and solidarity as the world faces the COVID-19 crisis, which can only be tackled with peoples’ sovereignty and environmental, social, gender and economic justice.
FOEI

Total System Failure Will Give Rise To New Economy

Nobody is betting on an L-shaped recovery anymore – not to mention a V-shaped one. Any projection of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 gets into falling-off-a-cliff territory.
PEPE ESCOBAR INFORMATION CLEARINGHOUSE

[PODCAST] Amazon Fires Warehouse Worker for Organizing Protest over Coronavirus

Amazon’s plans to smear a warehouse worker who was fired after organizing a protest over the lack of coronavirus protection for 5000 workers was racist and classist, illegal and “immoral” says New York’s Attorney General.
KEN NASH, MIMI ROSENBERG BUILDING BRIDGES

Pakistan, China and Russia decide to conduct trade in local currencies skip dollars

The eight-member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), including China, Russia, and Pakistan, have made the principle decision to conduct bilateral trade and investment and issue bonds in local and national currencies instead of US dollars.
ALI AHMED BUSINESS RECORDER

               ENVIRONMENT

Abrupt Ecosystem Collapse

A new study in Nature (April 2020) casts a disturbing light on the prospects of abrupt ecosystem collapse. The report analyzes the probabilities of collapsing ecosystems en masse, and not simply the loss of individual species.
ROBERT HUNZIKER COUNTERPUNCH

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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.