The students’ body says the unsanitary conditions of school toilets in poor urban neighboruhoods and in rural areas have remained unchanged 21 years after the end of apartheid.

The proposed food policy shies away from confronting capital interests within the food value-chain. Apart from acknowledging that the emerging agricultural sector is in need of assistance, the policy is silent on the influence of big-business in the food system.

Despite the fact that apartheid officially ended in 1994 in South Africa, new forms of racism and elitism continue to linger on, grounded in enduring asymmetries of power. Such power relations continue to serve the interests of elites whilst marginalising millions of indigent people.

China has huge interests in the three Southern Africa countries – Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania – that South Africa now seems to target as the source of natural gas. These interests count for multi-million investments encompassing bilateral agreements.

After an explosive start to his State of the Nation Address last week, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma turned to nuclear, coal, fracking and offshore drilling projects – but what about the country’s free sunshine, wind and tides?

South Africa is losing its power, literally: it’s a process called “load shedding” that will last for the foreseeable future. The state energy utility Eskom is careening out of control, begging for an emergency $4.5 billion bailout within the $120 billion national

The Congress of South African Students (COSAS), representing learners in South African Pre-Tertiary level, welcomes the planned visit in February of one of our own, Palestine Freedom Fighter against the racist regime of Israel, Comrade Leila Khaled to South Africa.

The Israeli lobby in South Africa, including the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, have – not unexpectedly - been trying to discredit Leila Khaled’s forthcoming 6-16 February tour.

Phumlani Ndlovu never saw much of 2015. When he was invited to visit friends on Friday 16 January he never expected he could be lured to his death. His lifeless body was found early the next morning near Block 40. He had been gunned down during the night, shot over ten times in the chest and head by faceless killers. He was only in his early thirties when he died.

Muslims are almost always expected to apologise for any terror attacks in the name of their religion. How can this be justified? On the other hand, there is no global outrage whenever people are killed and maimed in senseless wars waged by Western powers. Why?

Protection of transnational corporate property rights, including the objectionable constitutional treatment of the corporations as “juristic persons” with the same rights as us humans, is one reason SA corporations have become the world’s fraud champs. But there are grounds for hope in fighting them.

A World Bank report makes the incredible claim that the South African Treasury has been exceedingly generous in social spending. With that, neoliberals can now justify social spending caps or even cuts. In reality, though, South Africa has the fourth lowest public social spending amongst the world’s largest 40 countries.

In order to assess the state of open democracy in Africa, one first needs to look at the very definition of democracy. The same countries which brought slavery and colonialism to Africa are now the aggressive champions of ‘democracy’ around the world. We need to acknowledge our own pre-colonial democratic processes and focus on the issue of economic capture of party politics.

Last week SA's leading alternative to state broadcasting saw its integrity self-destruct. Personality battles are getting most attention but problems caused by structural conflicts of interests must be raised, investigated and resolved, as a leading example of malevolent state-corporate cronyism.

This Friday, a new civil society campaign, 'WorldVsBank', featuring protests and teach-ins, will take place at the Bank’s Annual Meeting in Washington and ten other countries, including South Africa’s three largest cities. The campaign arises from widespread recognition all over the world that the Bank has made the world a worse place socially, politically, economically and environmentally.

Are assassinations, manipulation of the criminal justice system and intimidation used regularly to protect greedy officials plundering the KwaZulu-Natal public purse? It would seem so when reviewing incidents of violence relating to housing and tender allocations over the last six years in poor communities across Durban.

Murder as a tool for political containment is back in South Africa, as the country is gripped by a largely unacknowledged paroxysm of popular ferment. A new authoritarianism is in the making, organised in the name of tradition and patriotism, and mediated through a shift in power to the police, intelligence and traditional authority.

Thuli Ndlovu knew that she could be murdered. But she continued with her movement work regardless. The mother and militant of the shack dwellers movement was assassinated this week in an attack that left her teenage daughter with serious gunshot wounds. When will this brutality against the poor end in ‘free’ South Africa?

Thuli Ndlovu had been threatened for being in the forefront of fighting for the rights of shack dwellers and leading spirited opposition to a controversial housing project. Now her blood has been spilled by a gunman.

BDS South Africa mourns the passing of Palestinian solidarity and student activist, Comrade Yusuf Talia. We also celebrate Cde. Talia’s inspiring life!