The conditions in Nurma Sulaiman’s tiny room in one of Nusa’s six barracks have just become a little more cramped. But neither she nor her husband and four children are complaining, because the cause of their discomfort is the arrival of a sewing machine. ”Twenty-eight of us have been given these,” she said.
Music pounds from a ghetto blaster underneath the makeshift stall where Mozambican national Simiao Chichava earns his living fixing radios and selling music cassettes. The setting for all this activity is Ivory Park — a low-income settlement north-east of Johannesburg.
As a cheese-eating, toyi-toying teenage ”activist”, I remember chanting ”Nonsexism! Nonracism!” And a third chant of ”Nonhomophobia”, which was a lot harder to get my tongue around, and even harder to argue to my sometimes socially conservative comrades.
Under the African Charter and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, patients are entitled to a reasonable standard of health care, safe practice, dignity and respect. Where is the evidence that these currently exist in South African government hospitals?
How does our press cover homosexual issues? Sandra Gordon delves into the archives and finds that despite our rainbow constitution old prejudices remain prevalent.
Australia’s media was accused of being ”ruthless” on Wednesday after a disgraced politician apparently tried to commit suicide over allegations of racism and sexism. But the publisher of one of the newspapers under fire hit back by revealing that the devastating stories about the politician came from within his own Liberal Party.
”Rena Singer’s article (‘Is loveLife making them love life?’) is unbalanced and factually flawed, but the most unfortunate part about it is that it promotes cynicism about the efficacy of South Africa’s largest HIV- prevention effort”, writes loveLife’s CEO David Harrison.
The role of South Africa as a mediator in the lead-up to the planned October 30 elections in the Côte d’Ivoire has been successful so far, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday. Pahad said Defence Minister Mosioua Lekota would report to the United Nations on Wednesday on the current state of mediation.
Click on image for full-size view.
Refugees attending a Parliamentary session on Wednesday urged the government to recognise their talents and use them to develop the country. ”Give these people a chance to use their skills to help build this country and teach South Africa how to walk,” said Ami Bomoka, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo.