While improved access to anti-retroviral therapy in South Africa has enabled infected AIDS orphans to live well into adulthood, it has created new challenges as the generation emerges to take their place in the workforce.And a lack of forethought has resulted in certain challenges not being addressed, says a new study by Idasa’s Governance and AIDS Programme (GAP) on children living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.

This volume explores some of the key features of popular politics and resistance before and after 1994. It looks at continuities and changes in the forms of struggle and ideologies involved, as well as the significance of post-apartheid grassroots politics. Is this a new form of politics or does it stand as a direct descendent of the insurrectionary impulses of the late apartheid era?

Ratepayers could end up paying for Cape Town stadium's operating costs after Sail Stadefrance walked out on a 30-year lease to manage the property. The city will take over management of the R4,4-billion stadium. Sail Stadefrance said it had projected 'substantial losses' if it took up the project.

Gender equality and women's empowerment are essential to South Africa's attainment of the MDGs. Women assume multiple roles, as mothers, leaders, students, decision makers, farmers, workers, voters, carers and much more. In each of these roles, the ability to be educated and healthy, to have voice and influence, to enjoy opportunities and choices are critical to the attainment of the goals. Without gender equality and women's empowerment, women are less able to reach their full potential, live a life of dignity, and be productive citizens. In this report, the Commission for Gender Equality seeks to provide an African-based mechanism for measuring the status of women as compared to men's in the social, economic, and political spheres.

Although media coverage of South Africa's 9 August women's day touched on some important topics relevant to gender empowerment, the coverage overall lacked a sense of commitment, regularity, urgency and persistence in demanding answers, and would have benefitted and had greater impact from a more in-depth, urgent, analytical and demanding approach. This is according to an analyses of media output of the event by the Media Monitoring Africa.

At the end of September WalMart made a formal but conditional offer for the South African based retail giant Massmart, of R32 billion. While the South African business fraternity has lauded the possible arrival of WalMart on our shores, labour, social and environmental insiders have expressed serious disquiet about the arrival of this giant at the gateway to Africa. It is eminently clear that Wal-Mart views the acquisition of Massmart as just that - an entry point into Africa and a bridgehead to build trade into the continent.

The Centre for Internet and Society and Hivos, in collaboration with The African Commons Project, is calling out to young technology users to join a global conversation. This will be a 3-day workshop entitled 'My bubble, My space, My Voice’? and will focus on how young people use the tools and platforms at their disposal; mobile, internet and other, in order to create social change in their environments. The workshop will involve participants from around Africa, who will be guided by facilitators in an interactive and engaging dialogue. Results from the workshop will be used to establish a network of collaboration and support for digital natives.

Universal health coverage, or National Health Insurance, is affordable and would have the greatest spin off for the vast majority of South Africans who do and will increasingly rely on the state health sector, a University of Cape Town modeling initiative has revealed. The Strategies for Health Insurance for Equity in Less Developed Countries (SHIELD) project critically evaluated existing inequities in health care in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania and the extent to which changes in health care financing mechanisms could address equity challenges. The final phase was completed this week with the release of the findings.

A team of technical experts has been instructed to draft terms of reference acceptable to all five member states of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), local media reported on Wednesday. South African President Jacob Zuma said this was being done in order to resolve the contentious issue of an economic partnership agreement with the European Union. Zuma was speaking on Tuesday at Pretoria's Union Buildings, where he hosted Botswana's President Ian Khama on a two-day official visit.

'During the last week of October we want everything to stand still in Cape Town, and possibly through out the country. And we are calling upon all people who are living in informal settlements to support the call by taking to the streets and making sure that everything goes to a standstill.'

Gay rights groups and human rights activists will hold a public meeting at J Dumani Community Hall in Vosloorus on 9 October 2010 to develop a plan of action to deal with the 'growing homophobia at the hands of the police', following the arrest and verbal harassment of 12 people at a house party attended by gay people in Vooslorus after the Joburg Gay Pride event on 4 October 2010.

The South African University of Johannesburg (UJ) senate has threatened to end its relationship with the Israeli university, Ben-Gurion (BGU), unless certain conditions are met. In a statement released on Wednesday, the South African university's highest academic body said Ben-Gurion University would have to work with Palestinian universities on research projects and stop its 'direct and indirect support for the Israeli military and the occupation'.

The former leader of Nigeria's armed group has said he was arrested because he refused to tell the group to retract a statement claiming responsibility for last week's deadly attacks in the capital, Abuja. Henry Okah, currently being held in jail in South Africa, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that he received a phone call from a 'close associate' of Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian president, telling him to urge the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) to withdraw its claim for the bombings, which killed at least 10 people and left 36 others injured on the 50th anniversay of Nigeria's independence.

'We call on government to listen to the demands of the poor in Hout Bay. We call on government to immediately end all evictions of poor people in Hout Bay. We call on government to upgrade all homes of poor people in Hout Bay to proper housing. We call on government to end police violence towards poor people in Hout Bay.'

On the 8th of September 2010 the UPM in Durban sent a letter of demands to Jacob Zuma. His office acknowledge reciept of that letter (which is pasted in below this email) but he has never given us the courtesy of a response to our demands. Therefore we have no choice but to take our desperation and anger to the streets. We will be marching in Durban on 14 October 2010 in support of the demands in this letter. In addition to these demands we also demanding an end to the attacks on democracy from the ANC.

To be really effective, South Africa’s new National Planning Commission must operate like the command centre of a country in war, meticulously planning, not against invaders, but the transformation of the economy, sector by sector, as if the country’s existence depended on it – which it does, writes William Gumede.

Socio-economic problems are the major cause of xenophobia in South Africa, the United Nations refugee agency said in Johannesburg on Wednesday. 'No society is xenophobic by nature, these attacks were caused by lack of development,' UN High Commissioner for Refugees deputy regional representative Sergio Calle Norena told the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions' summit on xenophobia.

Health and Human rights activists have demanded that the next court date set for the trial of Zoliswa Nkonyana’s alleged killers be the last one. According to the activists, including the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Free Gender and the Social Justice Coalition, the trial has been delayed more than 27 times since Nkonyana’s murder four years ago. Nknonyana, who lived in Khayelitsha, was attacked and stabbed to death because she was a lesbian.

It has been 18 months at the helm of one of South Africa’s toughest cabinet portfolios and already Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has endured a disgruntled doctors’ strike, a crippling public sector work stoppage, the untimely death of his deputy minister and complex debates on a National Health Insurance initiative, which is really the critical transformation of the health system. However, Motsoaledi is proving to be a survivor and a tactician who is determined to turn the health sector around.

South Africa plans to invest in a solar power energy park in order to help meet increasing electricity demands, the department of energy has announced. The solar park will be built in the Northern Cape Province and generate 5,000 megawatts of energy, about 11 per cent of the country's current power capacity.