This paper analyses the phenomenon of 'global apartheid', an international system of minority rule whose attributes include differential access to basic human rights, wealth and power, from an African and South African perspective, and discusses possible alternative measures to fight against it.

A bold agrarian reform pledged 10 years ago by the new dispensation in South Africa to rectify the injustices of colonialism and apartheid has progressed slowly with 80% of the land still held by the white minority, fuelling rising impatience among landless blacks. A decade after the formal end of apartheid, the land reform objectives are a long way off. Only 3% of the land has been acquired by the government under the "willing-buyer, willing-seller" scheme and given out to some 700,000 blacks, according to official estimates.

The Landless People's Movement (LPM) - a national movement of poor and landless people struggling for land and agrarian reform - has called on the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to retract its so-called hate-speech "finding" against LPM National Organiser Mangaliso Kubheka, and to provide protection to Kubheka, his family and other LPM members whose lives have been placed in jeopardy by the SAHRC pronouncements.

South Africa’s political transition was astonishing. The reversal of overall economic decline has also been remarkable. However, the social change process has been chequered, mixed, arduous, open to diverse interpretations and often contradictory. Proud moments and excitement co-exist with disappointments. This book tells South Africa’s story of change in the best way that it can be told – through multiple viewpoints and different ways of conveying it: articles, interviews, short stories, poetry, and photography. It combines intensely personal reflections with broad-sweep viewpoints and assessments.

A majority of South Africans point to the government for "doing little to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS" in the country, according to a survey conducted by the Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University, the Post reports. Researchers interviewed in person 2,961 people - including 1,715 black South Africans, 612 white South Africans, 364 South Africans of mixed race and 265 Indians living in South Africa between Sept. 29, 2003, and Nov. 7, 2003.

As expected, South Africa last Thursday began the rollout of its national antiretroviral drug distribution program at five hospitals in Gauteng province, SAPA/SABC News reports. The South African Cabinet in November 2003 approved a plan for the program, which aims to provide antiretroviral drugs to 1.2 million people - or about 25% of the country's HIV-positive population - by 2008. Gauteng is the first of the country's nine provinces to begin dispensing drugs under the government's program.

South African environmental authorities sent DNA samples from thousands of shark fins confiscated at Cape Town harbour this week for testing as part of an illegal hauling probe. Marcel Kroese, head of law enforcement at the country's Marine and Coastal Management agency, said that officials wanted to establish whether threatened species of fish were involved.

The new third series of the ever popular and controversial Yizo Yizo, which is going to embrace South Africa television screen on the 1st of April 2004, promises to blaze the country with another burning issues. In this new edutainment series, the Yizo Yizo makers attempt to show that the inner city is evolving and is becoming what you can term a "new township".

As the date of South Africa's general election grows closer, the gloves are coming off in campaigning amongst political parties - even though the outcome of the poll is expected to hold few surprises. On April 14, the country will vote to elect a new president and parliament. This will be the third democratic election held in South Africa - and one that has gained special significance from the fact that it coincides with the demise of apartheid a decade ago.

South Africa's long-delayed national rollout of AIDS drugs will begin in April when the government makes funds available to all nine provinces, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday. The country's biggest AIDS pressure group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), had threatened to take the government to court before the April 14 elections unless it began the rollout.

South Africa is among 10 hotspots of multi-drug resistant TB identified by the World Health Organisation and at Durban’s busiest TB treatment clinic, rates of MDR TB have more than doubled in the past three years. Multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB has more than doubled in the past three years at Durban's busiest TB treatment clinic, the Prince Cyril Zulu Communicable Diseases Centre in Warwick Triangle, which oversees the treatment of 5 000 TB patients every month.

Fifty-two Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) activists, arrested in Hillbrow on Sunday during what police called an illegal march to the opening of the Constitutional Court, have been released, police and APF activists said. APF spokesperson Dale McKinley said the 52 were released on R100 bail each, and four minors, aged between 11 and 15, were released without bail or charge.

Mufumbe Mateso Felix, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has set up a non – governmental organisation to help women and children in Johannesburg's Tshepisong Township. Projects range from computer, catering and sewing classes, to a centre for AIDS orphans. When Felix and Portia Manthatha, chairperson of The Power of Women and Children (PoWC), aren't writing proposals and raising funds, they are out and about in Tshepisong doing what they do best – providing support and assistance.

Visiting Research Fellowships are offered to established scholars from universities and research institutes in Africa and around the world. Visiting Fellows will normally spend six to twelve months at UCT. They will be expected to build local research and analytical capacity, conduct systematic research, analyse data and present findings. Applicants must possess a PhD and a demonstrated research record in the fields of political science or related disciplines. Interested researchers are invited to submit to the Director of DARU a curriculum vitae, together with a detailed proposal outlining the type of work to be conducted and the intended research output.

The Freedom of Expression Institute has written to the University of Pretoria protesting the planned holding of a conference 'Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Africa' to be jointly hosted by the University's Centre for International Political Studies and the Embassy of the United States of America in Pretoria, at the Sanlam Auditorium on Tuesday March 23, 2004. “It is inappropriate that a public institution like the University of Pretoria should host a conference on a matter of such profound public importance behind closed doors. It is also difficult to understand why speakers - who one would imagine would be committed to the basic tenants of academic freedom - would agree to participate under such conditions. What do they have to hide if they are really committed to open debate?”

Commercial farmers have warned that increased minimum wages for farm workers will result in further job losses in the sector and weaken South Africa's ability to maintain agricultural output to satisfy both domestic and export demands. Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana announced the increases of between 9 and 10 percent in minimum wages for farm workers on Wednesday, effective from 1 March 2004.

Research on the health hazards and environmental pollution of vanadium mining in South Africa will be presented on March 25 by a team who travelled to the small mining town of Brits, north of Johannesburg, in 2003 to study the dangers of this practice. The trip was spearheaded by Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a Barnard alumna, who was the whistle-blower on the dangers of vanadium mining while serving on the Gore Mbeki Commission, which provided U.S. assistance to the then-new South African government, headed by President Nelson Mandela.

The Human Rights Day spotlight should be turned on farmworkers, the SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said. Spokesman Patrick Craven said the brutal murder of Nelson Chisale, who was fed to lions, reminded the country of the blatant disregard of human rights by many employers in rural areas. South Africa celebrated Human Rights Day on Sunday. Craven said some farmworkers were denied a minimum wage, forced to work many hours of unpaid overtime, housed in squalid conditions and were frequently beaten.

The Shuttleworth Foundation is hosting an event for innovative projects to market themselves to potential grantmakers. To this end, the Foundation invites applications from South African initiated education projects involving subject areas such as maths, science and technology for implementation in Gauteng and/or Western Cape in 2005.

Zackie Achmat, the leader of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), spoke at the Centre for Civil Society’s first Harold Wolpe Memorial lecture for 2004. Achmat is famous for his passionate advocacy for wider access to HIV treatment in South Africa and globally. Strategic use of South Africa’s Constitutional provision for the right to access to health care has always been key to TAC’s campaigns. As South Africa moves towards celebrating ten years of a constitutional democracy, it was apt that such a high-profile civil society leader discussed the use of the constitution as a tactic to engage with the government on development issues. In this review, the authors summarise Achmat’s talk, the interesting critiques from the floor and offer their own critical analysis of the lecture and discussion which followed it.