claimants and unpaid

The industrial and mining towns on the Eastern outskirts of Johannesburg are unlovely places. They’re set on flat windswept plains amidst the dumps of sterile sand left over from old mines. In winter the wind bites, the sky is a very pale blue and it seems to be all coal braziers, starved dogs, faded strip malls, gun shops and rusting factories and mine headgear.

A familiar sight to many Parisians are the rows of people living in tents along the banks of the canal St Martin. They are homeless, mostly immigrants, mostly illegal. The tents are supplied by les enfants de Don Quichotte, an organisation that battles for the rights of homeless people.

This text has been reproduced without most of the original pictures and their captions due to space. Some captions which were thought to be useful additions to the main text have been included in boxes.
Like a Summer with a Thousand Julys …and Other Seasons…

INFANT SORROW

Agreements drawn up collectively by the unemployed workers movements of Lanus, "Dario Santillan" De Alte, Brown, San Telmo y Lugano de Capital Federal, Berriso and "Oscar Barrios" de Jose C. Paz, members of the Unemployed Workers Movement "Anibal Veron"
WHY THIS MATERIAL? WHY NOW?

Takeshi Yamashita does not look like a homeless person. From his carefully distressed jeans to his casual-cool navy striped T-shirt, he is every bit the trendy Tokyoite. Yet the 26-year-old has been sleeping in a reclining seat in an Internet cafe every night for the past month since he lost his steady office job and his apartment.

The ICEM reported that a sit-in by street vendors in the southern city of Nasiriya produced a compromise by authorities in negotiations. Street vendors are represented by the Union of Unemployed in Iraq (UUI), part of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI).

YOU MUST HELP YOURSELF:
NEO-LIBERAL GEOGRAPHIES AND WORKER INSURGENCY IN OSAKA

"I realize as the train pulls in that the station is on fire. The platform is aflame and below the streets are empty with people running past occasionally. Something is happening. I pick up some rocks and start throwing them at a police line."

-anonymous rioter at Kamagasaki

The plans involve placing Guixi under the jurisdiction of the neighbouring district, which may mean a lowering of benefits and state wages for Guixi residents. Protestors blocked two rail connections for around six hours, including the heavily traveled line that runs from Shanghai in the east, cutting through Jiangxi to the southwestern city of Kunming.

It is now more than a year since the original version of this text was written. The text drew some rather gloomy conclusions about current resistance to British welfare restructuring. Little has happened since then to contradict these conclusions.