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Even as public healthcare teeters on a precipice, healthcare workers are not issued with adequate gloves and masks to perform their duties safely.
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While their labour is deemed essential under the Covid-19 emergency, farmworkers are not considered important enough to be provided with safe transport.
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Informal meat traders at Embengweni in Khayelitsha were ordered to stop operating because they sell cooked meat and have no original permits. |
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Statistics about Covid-19 are confusing. Most of the Covid-19 numbers we have paint only part of the picture and can easily be misinterpreted. Here are some tips on understanding the numbers.
MARCUS LOW, NATHAN GEFFEN GROUNDUP
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A team from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the South African National Bioinformatics Institute at the University of the Western Cape have successfully sequenced South Africa’s first SARS-COV-2 genome.
KELLY TURNER CORONAVIRUS MONITOR
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South Africa is at the back of the queue as far as procurement of ventilators is concerned, as manufacturers in Europe are unwilling to share their designs or technological know-how, and are producing en masse for their own markets.
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Street people claim they are not being fed and they were deceived about conditions in the Strandfontein camp where they were taken to.
LUCAS NOWICKI, JAMES STENT GROUNDUP
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Following a series of violent and illegal evictions of shack dwellers in South Africa, scholars and activists denounce the actions and stand in solidarity with the movement.
PEOPLES DISPATCH
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In a country in which the 1994 transition to a better society should have been far more decisive, given the activists’ death blow against apartheid, ambitions for socio-economic and especially health justice must be rekindled – we are overdue for a socialist transformation, everywhere on earth.
PATRICK BOND COUNTERPUNCH
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While the coronavirus does not differentiate between rich and poor, it does have a bigger burden on women, poor communities and migrants.
RURAL WOMEN’S ASSEMBLY
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COVID-19 resources that may be of use to partners, allies and all activists organising in these challenging times. These include basic health info and how-to’s, access to justice and remote campaigning and work tools, and political analysis, research and other readings.
WOMIN
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COVID-19 or empty stomachs? That’s the choice facing some of those who live hand-to-mouth.
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Minerals Council SA, some unions and the government have agreed in principle that 60% to 70% of the mine labour force will go back to work on 16/17 April, with protocols in place to contain the spread of Covid-19. That was before the lockdown was extended beyond then, but the mining industry is planning to reboot as quickly as possible.
ED STODDARD BUSINESS MAVERICK
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It is crucial that the government designate reclaimers as essential service providers without delay, and give them masks, gloves, protective gear, sanitisers and access to health care.
MELANIE SAMSON THE CONVERSATION
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Bucket toilets have not been emptied for three weeks by the Upington municipality in some of the town’s informal settlements. And the promised water tanks have been slow to arrive, leaving residents wondering how they will fight the spread of the Coronavirus.
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Many Capetonians say they have been denied the right to health as their water supply has been cut off by the municipality. More than 50 families on the Cape Flats are without water, including the elderly and children.
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Sibusiso Amos was allegedly shot by police enforcing the lockdown in Vosloorus.
CHRISTOPHER MOAGI DAILY SUN
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The Information Communication Technology Union has slammed Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko over the large number of retrenchments at the company over the past seven years.
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At first glance, it would seem that the Covid-19 crisis has won some major concessions for ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule and his Radical Economic Transformers — policy changes that just a month ago would have taken place over the Establishment’s mass grave. And yet, there has been no crowing. It appears that neither the RET crew nor Team Ramaphosa have grasped the implications: the status quo is finished, and ‘radical’ will soon become another of the ANC’s meaningless dust-covered anachronisms.
RICHARD POPLAK DAILY MAVERICK
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The Committees underlines that “COVID-19 has highlighted the critical role of adequate investments in public health systems, comprehensive social protection programmes, decent work, housing, food, water and sanitations systems, and institutions to advance gender equality.
UNCESCR
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New York Gov. Cuomo is acting out of desperation now in response to the US’ longstanding lack of preparation for a pandemic and failure to take appropriate steps early on to contain the virus.
POPULAR RESISTANCE | AP
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As the depth of the crises resulting from the coronavirus pandemic sink in, millions of the most vulnerable U.S. citizens will be facing eviction, hunger and the ravages of illness.
ROB URIE COUNTERPUNCH
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Although COVID-19 tends to be most severe in the elderly and people with underlying health conditions, farm laborers face working conditions that may elevate the risk for severe disease.
MICHAEL HAEDICKE THE CONVERSATION
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Essential workers at Instacart, Whole Foods, Amazon and General Electric are staging protests and walking off the job in droves across the U.S., demanding increased protections and pay.
CANDICE BERND TRUTHOUT
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Some of the ways the country’s most rich and powerful are hoarding their wealth at the expense of everyone else during this crisis.
GIN ARMSTONG EYES ON THE TIES
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General Electric factory workers protested on Monday in an act of solidarity to demand the company use its factories to produce ventilators for use in the fight against the coronavirus.
GRAIG GRAZIOSI INDEPENDENT
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The worker was involved in the construction of Leishenshan Hospital, one of the two temporary hospitals built by thousands of workers in just two weeks.
WSWS
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Interview with Eric Fèvre, professor of Veterinary Infectious Diseases, University of Liverpool and International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya.
ERIC FéVRE THE CONVERSATION
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Nigeria has a fragile health system. The country has 0.8 beds per thousand population. Lagos itself has only one hospital for the treatment of infectious diseases
TAIBAT LAWANSON THE CONVERSATION
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Instructing people to stay at home is to confine millions to cramped housing. Then there are the silent bombs, the invisible consequences of fighting one disease to the possible neglect of others. If economies crash, silent killers such as diarrhoea, malnutrition and infant mortality may sweep through populations.
DAVID PILLING FINANCIAL TIMES
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No April fool’s joke, the Trump administration hijacked a COVID-19 press conference to announce the deployment of U.S. Navy vessels and other military assets towards Venezuela.
LEONARDO FLORES POPULAR RESISTANCE
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Over a quarter of humanity lives under U.S. economic sanctions. That means millions of people lack untroubled access to food and medicines during a lethal pestilence.
EVE OTTENBERG COUNTERPUNCH
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The coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture.
ARUNDHATI ROY FINANCIAL TIMES
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Almost three in four essential frontline workers – from medical personnel to medical laundry workers – are women. It is one thing to bang pots and pans to celebrate these workers, and another to accept their long-standing push for unionisation, for higher wages and better working conditions, and for leadership in their sectors of work.
VIJAY PRASAD TRICONTINENTAL INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
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International trade body predicts commerce could shrink up to 32% and warns against 30s-style protectionism.
LARRY ELLIOT THE GUARDIAN
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The peasants’ revolt after the 14th-century plague saw off feudalism. After COVID-19, will it be the turn of capitalism?
PAUL MASON AL JAZEERA
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A series of video interviews with Ilan Pappé, Yanis Varoufakis, Molly Crabapple, Vijay Prasad, Roger Waters and Dr. Samah Jab on the meaning of the coronavirus crisis and its impacts on the world’s politics.
FRANK BARAT POPULAR RESISTANCE
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The Covid-19 crisis has lead to a huge drop in the demand for, and price of, oil globally. In this article, Adam Hanieh looks at what this might mean for the global economy.
ADAM HANIEH VERSO BLOG
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Some lawmakers in the U.S. have begun calling for deeper military involvement as COVID-19 spreads.
SARA SICARD MILITARY TIMES
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The coronavirus crisis, and its accompanying recession, will bring about a new political and economic order – but it remains to be seen whether the Left can rise to the historical moment.
LEE JONES TRIBUNE
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Looking at the history of what is called international relations, Harry Targ makes no mention of plagues, historical or present, that have shaped human history. His concern in this blog post is international solidarity, particularly with respect to Venezuela.
HARRY TARG DIARY OF A HEARTLAND RADICAL
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Illegal Jewish settlers today flooded sewage into Palestinian-owned farms planted with grapes near the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron in the southern West Bank.
PALESTINE CHRONICLE
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From Facebook posts to Twitter hashtags, Gazans reacted to the irony of being advised by the Palestinian Authority not to travel, whilst living under siege and prohibited from doing so for more than a decade.
OMAR SHABAN COUNTERPUNCH
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Tel Aviv is able to obtain top dollar for its bloody technology. In 2017, Israel’s arms exports reached a record high of $9 billion following the signing of a $2 billion deal with India..
RAMZY BAROUD GULF NEWS
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AND IN OTHER NEWS: INTERNATIONAL
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Miner and commodities trader Glencore plans to suspend operations in Zambia for three months, but mines minister Richard Musukwa says not so.
CECILIA JAMASMIE MINING.COM
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The company has seen a 535% rise in daily traffic in the past month, but security researchers say the app is a ‘privacy disaster’.
KARI PAUL THE GUARDIAN
Zoom Video Communications was accused by a shareholder of hiding flaws in its video-conferencing app, part of a growing backlash against security loopholes that were laid bare after an explosion in worldwide usage.
BLOOMBERG
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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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