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A new report by leading health experts on behalf of the Municipal Services Project, The Problem of Handwashing and Paying for Water, found that pre-paid water metres have a negative effect on household hygiene, with insufficient handwashing increasing the risk of water-borne diseases and other health problems in poor communities. The report argued: “In a country where poverty is rife, where there is soaring unemployment, where there is a massive housing backlog, and where hunger is a daily reality, it is unrealistic to expect poor people to purchase, in advance, a basic good such as water.” The findings give weight to the legal challenge launched in the High Court in July 2006 by a coalition collection of community organisations and NGOs opposing current water policies — and Soweto residents, which is demanding that Johannesburg Water’s unilateral decision to impose the pre-paid meters be declared unconstitutional and illegal.

In 1974 hundreds of people crowded into a room in the Carlton Pram Factory and hatched a plan to build a media outlet that would tell the stories of those neglected, marginalised and ignored by the mainstream media of the day. Two years later 3CR began transmitting the voices of trade unions, the working class, the Indigenous community, youth and students, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, peace and social justice activists, greenies, socialists, anarchists, lovers of jazz and nostalgia music, feminists, queers and people with disabilities.

As 91������̳ Weekly goes to print David Hicks is on his way back to Australia — to Yalata prison in South Australia. But Lady Justice is sailing off in the other direction.

Carora’s streets are much like other Latin American cities — bustling commerce on every corner, traffic, noise, people going about their daily routine. But there is something that distinguishes Carora and the Municipality of Pedro Leon Torres from any other municipality I’ve visited in Latin America, and in particular, any other in Venezuela. The city is on a path to democratise and transform its entire governance system, from the bottom up — led by the current Mayor Julio Chavez (no relation to President Hugo Chavez).

On May 7, the Melbourne Magistrates Court denied bail to two men arrested under “anti-terror” laws for raising funds for tsunami relief in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka.