The change is in your pocket

Yulia’s I Am A Ukrainian video has been seen by millions on YouTube. “We are normal people, not extremists,” she tells The Big Issue

The creator of a viral YouTube video urging international support for Ukrainian protesters has told The Big Issue that president Yanukovych’s mansion was more opulent than that of former Libyan dictator Gaddafi’s. (read more…)

Donning a blue vendor bib in place of a pageant sash, Miss South Africa finalist Jade Hubner sold a record number of Big Issue magazines in an effort to give one lucky vendor the day off.

That lucky vendor was Thelma Jack — who typically sells eight to ten magazines a day, but instead spent Tuesday doing household chores and visiting her grandchildren.

Both women were in tears on Wednesday, as 21-year-old Hubner presented Thelma with R2 360 in sales. (read more…)

Three high-profile journalists for Al Jazeera – including veteran correspondent Peter Greste – were arrested along with a string of other journalists in Egypt in December 2013 in what many critics say was an attack on press freedom. The military government in power has accused the reporters of conspiring with terrorists and broadcasting false information due to their coverage of the Muslim Brotherhood – branded a terrorist organisation after being ousted from power in 2013. Despite growing international pressure to release the journalists, the trial is set to go ahead in March. (read more…)

Fifteen minutes — perhaps the amount of time spent commuting to the office this morning. Hardly enough time to watch the evening news. Yet that’s the time frame between the deaths of elephants in Africa – one is killed every 15 minutes. (read more…)

On the surface, Eshowe, a former colonial military garrison cradled in the embrace of the thick Dlinza coastal scarp forest, does not appear to be the usual tourist honey trap. This small KwaZulu-Natal town of weathered low-rises and utility shopping centres is about a 45-minute drive (25 minutes if you have blue lights) from President Zuma’s home at Nxamalala. It has no malls with high-end shops and restaurants, no beaches, no movie houses. Yet business at almost all of the town’s mostly white-owned 17-odd bed and breakfasts is booming thanks to President Zuma, his family, his extended family, their friends, visits by various officials and the president’s rather large security entourage. Oh, you thought they stayed over at the R66 million complex specially built for his guards and that we all paid for at his private home? Well, they don’t. By MARIANNE THAMM. (read more…)

At almost 80, Jane Goodall looks great. Her white hair pulled back in a trademark ponytail, dressed simply in an emerald green polo neck and black trousers with a pashmina thrown over her shoulders, her slight figure exudes an air of serenity and quiet determination. (read more…)

Brigadier Zithulele Moses Dladla dealt with only three murders the last year he was stationed at Wynberg Police Station. When he was subsequently transferred to Khayelitsha Police Station, he saw four murders in his first weekend.
The Brigadier gave testimony at the Khayelitsha inquiry into policing yesterday. (read more…)

In a recent column, the editor of South Africa’s Business Day newspaper, Peter Bruce, claimed that sugar kills more South Africans than HIV/AIDS has ever done. He was wrong.

Two weeks ago, the Mail & Guardian broke the story of a plan by international pharmaceutical companies to campaign against South Africa’s draft intellectual property policy which deals with, among other things, patents on life-saving drugs.

(read more…)

The Big Issue has launched a Thundafund campaign to finance the costs of publishing its first three issues of 2014. A non-profit organisation, The Big Issue publishes a quality general-interest magazine, which is sold through a vendor force of unemployed, homeless and socially excluded adults. The organisation’s operating budget is already behind for the year, hence the campaign. Here’s why. (read more…)

The Big Issue magazine brought out the extra-special Collector’s Issue in December last year, without our usual sponsor, because we knew the vendors needed something special to sell over the festive season.
That’s the most important part of the exercise – to provide much-needed income for people going through hard times.

The Collector’s Edition is an annual event with extra quality – more pages, better paper and great pieces by South Africa’s top writers, the best illustrators and top photographers.
But we are running short as a result and need more funding for the year.

If you’re interested in donating, please go to www.thundafund.com/bigissue and have a look at the options available, which range from R250 donations to corporate levels. You’ll be part of our “Champions of Change” Roll of Honour.