Latest news:

August gig guide

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Boo! is back, and some of the best shows from Makhanda (Grahamstown) Fringe are coming for a visit.

Music

Boo! Were the antidote to the Springbok Nude Girls in the 90s. As hard and loud as the Nudies rocked, Arno couldn’t help getting a bit adult contemporary at times.… Read more

​Shelters in Cape Town fill up as winter bites

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​The Haven’s shelters are already 85% full

Ashraf Hendricks/GroundUp

Shelters for homeless people across Cape Town are filling up as winter bites. The Haven, which has 14 shelters and 1,300 beds, says the shelters are already 85% full.

While the weather is good, says Haven CEO Shaddie Valayadum, it is possible to make money on the streets.… Read more

​City fines PRASA for contravening zoning laws

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​Temporary relocation of families occupying central line contravened municipal by-laws

By Sandiso Phaliso/GroundUp

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) has been fined R25,000 for contravening the City of Cape Town zoning laws when it relocated hundreds of families who had erected shacks on the central railway line tracks to a site in Philippi East.… Read more

Diesel on down the road

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A diesel is dirty, smelly, powerful, and leaks oil when it puts a few hundered k’s on the clock. But the thing is they do put a few hundred k’s on the clock, and just keep clocking on.

While there’s undeniably a thrill to the acceleration and speed of the petrol racehorses that can weave in and out of traffic, a journey in an old diesel allows you to check out our incredible landscape, take a sho’t left off the beaten track, and get into the flow of the road.… Read more

New policy for street people

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The City is developing a new strategy to reduce homelessness, and help people living on the street, but lack of data is a drawback

In its new policy on homelessness currently being developed, the City of Cape Town acknowledges a lack of accurate data on the number of homeless people in the city.… Read more

Strandfontein development could push butterfly into extinction

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The only colony of one of the world’s most endangered butterflies is within sight of an ambitious new urban coastal node

A large, multi-storey development proposed at Strandfontein could put one of the rarest butterflies in the world at even greater risk of extinction, and decrease endangered biodiversity for which Cape Town is famous.… Read more

President orders task team for housing on public land

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The State Land Disposal Act allows the President to fast track the use of public land

By Matthew Hirsch/GroundUp

President Cyril Ramaphosa has instructed the ministers of Human Settlements and Public Works to investigate demands by housing activists for land to be redistributed to communities, says Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.… Read more

Khayelitsha Music Academy hopes to change lives

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Two township musicians have dedicated themselves to teaching children to play and read music

By Ashraf Hendricks/GroundUp

The Khayelitsha Music Academy started in 2006 in a shack near the beach, with just one student receiving guitar lessons. Today the school has 19 students and teaches several instruments and music theory.… Read more

Foot’s Othello reroutes the question of barbarity

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Othello is in essence a soap opera. It lacks the regicide, fratricide, witchery, and mysticism of many of his other works. What we do have, though, is uxoricide, horrifyingly common in South Africa. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice,is also arguably racist in its stereotype of the black man easily manipulated by the Machivellian European, Iago, although there are counter-arguments.… Read more