All news items
12 September 2013
Special Assignment investigates the rising tensions between communities within the platinum belt and the mining corporations - over the use and availability of water.
We visit the platinum mines from Marikana to the north western side of the Pilanesberg in Motlhabe village, with their rapidly urbanising communities, and examine the consequences of wall-to-wall mining applications on the supply...
10 September 2013
The Baphiring community in North West could yet have land that they were dispossessed of restored to them after a ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal on Friday.
The court set aside the Land Claims Court judgment of 2010 that the restoration of the land to the community was "not feasible".
It also held that the state was obliged to lead evidence regarding the cost of restoration...
8 September 2013
People who were relocated from the village of Ga-Pila in Mokopane, formerly Potgietersrus, are accusing mining giant Anglo Platinum (Amplats) of a litany of broken promises.
Amplats asked the villagers to make way for a mining dump. They were shifted to the nearby Sterkwater.
Now they say Amplats short-changed them on the relocation fee and failed to provide them with services they promised...
30 August 2013
Organisations Advocates for Transformation and Lawyers for Human Rights have stressed the importance of the new National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head being scandal free.
Chairperson Dumisa Ntsebeza said it would be an error of judgment for someone with an outstanding complaint against them to be appointed.
“It is important that a person is not only independent, but is seen to be...
30 August 2013
Prospecting for one of the world's largest platinum mines has already taken farming land from a Limpopo community.
Their future is uncertain and people are getting angrier about living in limbo
In 1994, most South Africans opened the gates to freedom. In that year, Frank Mofokeng* lost his ancestral plot and his only source of income.
One morning he woke up and walked the few kilometres to...
30 August 2013
Prospecting for one of the world's largest platinum mines has already taken farming land from a Limpopo community.
Their future is uncertain and people are getting angrier about living in limbo
In 1994, most South Africans opened the gates to freedom. In that year, Frank Mofokeng* lost his ancestral plot and his only source of income.
One morning he woke up and walked the few kilometres to...
30 August 2013
South Africa's legal fraternity and victims of crime are waiting to see whether President Jacob Zuma will appoint a new head to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) by his own deadline of Friday.
Last month, Zuma promised the Constitutional Court he would make an appointment by the end of August, after leaving the post vacant for almost a year.
It’s been claimed Zuma wants to...
19 August 2013
The plight of thousands of people from across Africa, dispossessed of their land to make way for commercial activity, is to be discussed in the Pan African Parliament.
The issue first came up at a two-day hearing at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, during the continent's first ever land grab rights hearings on Thursday and Friday.
Highlighting the plight of hundreds of Limpopo people, Brand...
14 August 2013
Several legal organisations and NGOs have opposed a complaint calling for the impeachment of Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.
They described the complaint as “ill-considered” in a joint statement on Tuesday.
“The complaint does damage to the much needed project of transformation in the legal profession and threatens to chill the important dialogue about sex, race, sexual...
11 August 2013
The political backlash against Land Minister Gugile Nkwinti might reverse what had seemed a cut-and-dried deal to pay about R1 billion to a multimillionaire game rancher in a controversial land restitution deal.
Sources inside the department said while the minister was still eager to settle, paying R1 billion for one land claim might not be the best political option.
At the same time, Nkwinti was...