The City says it will revise its budget to cater especially for Covid-19 repercussions before the end of the month as the number of ratepayers and residents paying their municipal bills continues to drop.

Members of the #TotalShutdownAlex movement said they wouldn’t allow City of Joburg to relocate families Stjwetla informal settlement the majority of them are not South Africans.

A growing number of people in Germany are resisting lockdown measures imposed to contain the coronavirus. The rift between those who support the measures and those who are critical of them is growing.

The volume of welfare budget set aside by local governments has surpassed the 50-trillion-won level for the first time in history to 53 trillion won (US$46.9 billion). This is 59 percent higher than what it was five years ago. According to the 2017 Statistical Yearbook published by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on September 4, the aggregate welfare budget of local government for the first six months of the year was 52,601.4 billion won, up 6.2 percent (3,081.7 billion won) from the ...

Dream Global Partners (Dream Chain) announced on Sep 4th that it will launch a highly  reliable real estate blockchain platform for developers and final users. The blockchain  technology minimizes the possibility of malicious frauds or forged documents, because the ledger is store in a decentralized way and not concentrated in the availability of the parties involved. When this technology is applied to real estate transactions, sources of conflicts for pos...

As New Zealand approaches the end of its strictest lockdown period, a debate has begun about whether it was legal in the first place. This is important because people are being prosecuted for breaching the lockdown. Naturally, lawyers...

Police are warning Kiwis not to flout the law after hordes took to the beach today despite the country still being at alert level 3. The day started with a "mass" of surfers converging on Wellington's Lyall Bay, and as the weather...

Luanda -Avec l'annonce de sept nouveaux cas, la transmission locale atteint un stade compliqu�, a admis vendredi � Luanda, le secr�taire d'�tat � la Sant� publique, Franco Mufinda. ......

Members of the Eu Sou Eu group are giving a hand to residents of Rio de Janeiro's favelas, supplying the needy with food and face masks

Employment law considerations Whilst considering the health and safety recommendations implemented by the Government, the Occupational Safety and Health Act 2005 (OSHA), also establishes legal principles guiding employers and employees in dealing wi...

The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated "lockdown" poses completely new challenges for Swiss societies. This concerns, among other things, the numerous upcoming annual general meetings, which are usually held between April and June. According to th...

On Thursday, 9 April 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the extension of the nationwide lockdown for an additional 2 weeks, until 30 April 2020. The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) advised that all companies providing es...

Expert evidence in procurement claims – no general admission On 28 September 2012 the High Court rejected an application under...

Fair Deal: the latest developments On 19 November 2012 HM Treasury published its response to the March 2011 consultation on the future of the Fair Deal for Staff Pensions guidance. The Fair Deal review is part of the Government’s broader revi...

Registered Providers to face longer, more complicated and more expensive claims? The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 ("LAPSO") LAPSO received Royal Assent on 1 May 2012 and will come into force on 1 April 2013. It will hav...

The Charities Act 2006 (now the Charities Act 2011) introduced a new form of incorporated charitable entity, the CIO.  There has been a long delay in making CIOs available but their imminent arrival has been heralded by a recent government anno...

Many in local government will already be familiar with the CRC Scheme. This is the UK’s mandatory emissions trading scheme aimed at improving energy efficiency and cutting carbon dioxide emissions in large public and privat...

The European Commission has announced proposals to amend the Enabling Regulation adopted in 1998. This forms part of the EC’s State Aid Modernisation Initiative. It will allow the EC to focus on larger more...

? The European Commission has announced proposals to amend the Procedural Regulation adopted in 1999. This forms part of the EC’s State Aid Modernisation Initiative and will support quicker decision making and ensure a focus...

? Recently, the Equality and Human Rights Commission EHRC published detailed technical guidance for those public sector bodies seeking to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). There is separate guidance for Scotland, England and Wales....

The European Commission (the "EC") presented two proposals on 5 December 2012, as part of its State Aid Modernisation initiative. The proposals will include amendments to two key State aid instruments, the Enabling Regulation and...

? The Solicitors Regulation Authority has undertaken consultation on proposed changes to the rules for solicitors employed by local authorities.  The SRA is proposing to amend rule 4.15(e) of the Practice Framework Rules, to ...

The court has recently considered the extent of disclosure required to satisfy the obligation of fairness in a consultation exercise in the case of R (on the application of Save our Surgery Limited) v Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts  (&l...

Today’s employment law changes; and what else to expect this year Various changes to employment legislation take effect today, including amendments to whistleblowing laws.  Other changes will follow over coming months. In this briefing we...

Local Government Pension Scheme liabilities on academy conversionsBackground The treatment of Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) liabilities on academy conversions has been presenting significant difficulties for some time, with pension liabilit...

Code of Conduct for Operational PFI/PPPs HM Treasury recently published a brand new PFI/PPP code of conduct (the ‘Code’) which is aimed at delivering savings in operational PPP contracts. What has been introduced? ...

On 1 July 2013, following its consultation Judicial Review: proposals for reform, the Government introduced significant changes to the judicial review process.  The stated aim was to balance the need to ensure lawful public administration with ...

A report from the Auditor General for Wales has recommended that Welsh local authorities should implement scrutiny improvement action plans. The recommendation is one of nine recommendations contained in Good Scrutiny? Good Question!, a report of an...

Another year, another budget. So what have we learnt from the contents of the infamous red brief case? Here are some of the highlights for the local government community.             George...

On 4 February 2015, the government launched a consultation on draft regulations implementing the cap on care costs contained in the Care Act 2014. The consultation also sought views on the need for new appeals system in relation to local authorities...

Background The Government’s latest proposal in reforming the English schooling system was laid before Parliament last week in the form of the Education and Adoption Bill 2015-16 (“the Bill”). The Bill sets out provisions to conver...

Introduction The Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill 2015 (“the Bill”) is currently before Parliament. The Bill is relatively short and deals with two areas in particular: i) the powers of charities to make social investmen...

On the 5th October the Chancellor George Osborne, set out the Government's plans to devolve powers from Whitehall to local areas in a bid to stimulate economic growth. The initiative was heralded as the “biggest transfer of power to local gove...

On 31 March 2015, the German Federal Cartel Office (“Bundeskartellamt”, BKartA) announced that it has blocked the proposed takeover of approximately 450 Kaiser’s Tengelmann supermarket branches by EDEKA, the leading German food ret...

On 11 May 2016 the Commission blocked an acquisition of Teléfonica UK’s O2 by Hutchison 3G UK’s Three, casting doubt on the acceptability of ‘four to three’ mergers in the mobile sector. The Commission expressed concer...

The Covid-19 Block Exemption for the Retail Property Sector (the “Regulations”) were published on 24 March 2020 in response to the declaration of the National State of Disaster. The Regulations exempt certain agreements or practices with...

It has always been imperative that a claimant keeps at the forefront of its mind that time is ticking and that any claim it wishes to make must be brought in time. The respective time limit may be set out in statute, such as the Limitation Acts or o...

One of the most pondered questions following the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA”) has been - how will the EU Blocking Regulation fair in protecting the interests of EU businesses trading with ...

Several hundred demonstrators have gathered in the Swiss capital, Bern, St Gallen and Zurich to protest against a government-imposed coronavirus...

Boris Johnson will seek to persuade Britain's top bosses on Sunday that his strategy for easing the coronavirus lockdown will pave the way for a swift economic fightback. ......

New Delhi (Sputnik): As many as 12 people lost their lives and several others were hospitalised due to a hazardous styrene gas leak at a South Korean factory in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday. ......

Seven people were killed when protesters angry over what they see as unfair food aid distribution during the coronavirus pandemic clashed with police in Afghanistan's western Ghor province on Saturday, according to a local member of parliament. Fourteen more were wounded during the protest - sparked by growing unhappiness at the distribution...

On May 9, a plea was submitted in India's Delhi High Court, for legal probe and arrest of those accused in the #BoisLockerRoom controversy that started earlier this week in the country. On May 3, leaked images from a private Instagram chat group went viral in India, drawing criticism for sharing nude images of underage girls. The petition says that members of the private Instagram group chat, 'Bois Locker Room', who belong to affluent families, have threatened to leak explicit photos and hack the accounts of the women who exposed the group chat, stirring up a social media storm across the country. The leaked screenshots had revealed that a group of teenage boys from...

Milan's mayor has condemned "shameful" crowds heading to a popular area of the city during Italy’s relaxed lockdown. Images...

Growing up in Ramallah in Palestine, Maher Nasser, Director of Outreach Division at the United Nations Department of Global Communications, never really liked running. “I only ran when I needed to: to catch a bus or to run from soldiers,” he tells IPS. But now with three marathons under his belt — which raised thousands for scholarships […]

The post Q&A: How to #BeActive during COVID-19 Lockdown appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Soon schools in Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Kosovo, where some 6.5 million children are currently at home, will hopefully start teaching their children once again — albeit online.  A learning platform, originally designed to assist refugee and displaced children, was launched this week to address the current global crisis affecting children who are out of school […]

The post Children under Lockdown get a ‘Learning Passport’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

While one-fourth of the world’s population is under home-quarantine to contain the spread of the novel Covid-19 pandemic, another crisis is brewing behind closed doors—domestic violence. Research shows that in emergencies be it conflicts, economic crisis or during disease outbreaks, there has been a repeat pattern of increase in domestic abuse, therefore abusers and their […]

The post Addressing the rise in domestic violence during lockdown appeared first on Inter Press Service.

As coronavirus lockdowns around the world are easing, the resort town of Kalkan on the Mediterranean coast is drawing the attention of tourists who want to holiday in isolation.

A master locksmith continues his artistic work in a Turkish UNESCO World Heritage city during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In the first article of our blockchain series, we explained how the use of blockchain technology had the potential to offer s...