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disaster management actlatest news & developments
Demanding change: Women across South Africa are stepping back from work on Friday to draw attention to
the country’s rising levels of gender-based violence. This comes as heads of state, ministers and delegations
arrive in South Africa for the G20 summit. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy

National shutdown to put spotlight on gender violence on eve of G20 summit

Advocacy group Women for Change argues that South Africa ‘cannot host the world’s most powerful leaders while a woman is killed every two-and-a-half hours’

IFP leader Velenkosi Hlabisa. (@GovernmentZA/X)

Cooperative governance allocates R1.4 billion to disaster management

The money will allow municipalities to rebuild structures damaged by floods, said Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa

Shocking state: President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers his State of the Nation address at City Hall in Cape Town, where he announced the electricity crisis as a national state of disaster.  Photo: Dwayne Senior/Bloomberg

Energy crisis can hardly be categorised as a disaster, says expert

But widespread, destructive flooding does qualify as a disaster

DA leader John Steenhuisen. Photo: (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

Democratic Alliance court challenge to Eskom disaster declaration is ‘quite confusing’, says presidency

The presidency has described the decision by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to challenge the declaration of a national state of disaster over Eskom as “confusing” given that the…

Joe Phaahla. (Photo by Jaco Marais/Die Burger/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

MPs worried Health Act amendments will threaten citizens’ autonomy

More than 150 000 public comments were sent to the department of health after the government suspended the national state of disaster

Up to one in five people can get long COVID — a condition in which someone keeps on feeling ill for months after their initial symptoms have cleared up. (Paul Botes)

Covid-19 hospital admissions low but virus still a threat

Some coronavirus restrictions will remain as South Africa shifts out of the national state of disaster

Nowhere to go: Zimbabwean
special permit holders outside Home Affairs.
(Madelene Cronjé)

No extension to expiring Zimbabwean exemption permits — cabinet

Holders of expired Zimbabwe exemption permits who are not successful in applying for other permits within 12 months will have to leave South Africa or be deported

Mandatory vaccination involves, at a glance, the constitutional rights to bodily integrity, privacy, to protection against unfair discrimination and to freedom of thought, religion, conscience and opinion. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The uncertain consensus around vaccine mandates

Lawyers agree that the issue is inevitably heading for constitutional challenge, but not all accept the mainstream view that the limitation of rights is justifiable

Provincial government says it cannot deal with the magnitude of the damage to infrastructure alone.  (Photo by RAJESH JANTILAL / AFP)

State of disaster declared after bloody KwaZulu-Natal riots

Provincial government says it cannot deal with the magnitude of the damage to infrastructure alone

Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Tobacco industry argues Dlamini-Zuma’s bid to appeal adverse ruling on the ban is fatally flawed

The Western Cape high court is expected to rule soon on the minister’s bid to seek vindication from the supreme court

Studies in informal settlements show transparent communication is key to trusting the government and adhering to restrictions
(Marco Longari/AFP)

Covid-19 arrived and statism took hold

In following an international, scientific approach the state assumed extraordinary power over people

President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Reuters)
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Ramphosa extends national state of disaster

As the president extends the state of disaster for another month, other restrictions will be eased, including those on alcohol sales and international travel

A Gauteng health department official collects samples from a man during a door-to-door COVID-19 coronavirus testing drive in Yeoville, Johannesburg, on April 3, 2020. (Marco Longari/AFP)

How to explain the Covid-19 ‘weekend effect’

Reported Covid-19 cases and the number of people tested typically fall over the weekend. But this doesn’t mean that the virus is taking a break

(Graphic by John McCann)

Richard Calland: What brave new world awaits us?

Responses to terrible inequality, climate change and the Covid-19 economic crisis will decide this

Co-operative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has applied to appeal the judgment from the Pretoria high court last week that, in one fell swoop, struck down almost the entire lockdown regulatory regime — almost all of the level three and four regulations — as unconstitutional.

Dlamini-Zuma seeks to appeal the judgment that set aside lockdown regulations

Reyno de Beer had ‘raised an attack … on unidentified regulations, on undisclosed grounds and for unknown reasons’

Unconstitutional: The judge said it was irrational of Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosozana
Dlamin-Zuma to allow taxis, in which passengers were in close proximity, to operate yet hairdressers, with fewer clients, could not reopen.  (Ihsaan Haffejee/Anadolu Agency)

Judge trashes entire lockdown regime as constitutionally flawed

The high court ruling will delight gatvol South Africans but is unlikely to stand the test of time

A member of the South African Police Service (SAPS) arrest suspects after they were found in possession of alcohol, that goes against the rules of the nation wide lockdown, in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, on March 27, 2020. – South Africa came under a nationwide lockdown on March 27, 2020, joining other African countries imposing strict curfews and shutdowns in an attempt to halt the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus across the continent. (Photo by Luca Sola / AFP) (Photo by LUCA SOLA/AFP via Getty Images)

High court strikes down ‘paternalistic’ lockdown regulations

The order of unconstitutionality has been suspended for two weeks

(Mail & Guardian)

Editorial: Enforce the law lawfully

“Until the law itself makes it nigh impossible for tragedies like Tatane, Marikana and Khosa to occur without real consequence, our fractured relationship with authority will…

City of Cape Town law enforcement evicted several hundred people who had been living on the streets around Greenmarket Square for over four months. Last year hundreds of refugees gathered outside the UNHCR offices in Cape Town demanding to be relocated out of South Africa due to xenophobic violence and crime they face. (David Harrison/M&G)

South Africa needs a constitutionally compliant immigration policy

For Jewish people, ‘You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.’ South Africans should…

President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Quo vadis, South Africa?

The government has responded swiftly to the Covid-19 pandemic by declaring a state of disaster and imposing a lockdown, but now it needs to start thinking of an evolving exit…