Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement of South Africa, an organisation representing thousands of people who live in informal settlements, and its President, Mr Sibusiso Zikode, approached the KwaZulu-Natal High Court, Durban, challenging the constitutionality of the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act. The High Court dismissed the challenge.

South African police have fired rubber bullets and tear gas at crowds of protesters angry at a lack of services and proper housing in their townships. Thousands of residents in two communities east of Johannesburg had barricaded roads and marched on public offices, setting one building alight.

This week’s Pambazuka News brings you a contribution by Stuart Wilson on the attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road. Wilson has worked closely with and represented Abahlali in court. He reflects on the recent attacks on the movement in Kennedy Road and the horrific reaction these attacks have received from the authorities. It is all too clear that the attacks signify the closing of political space in South Africa and the fact that constitutionally protected citizens are by no means practically protected if their actions go against the powers that be, Wilson concludes.

Three years ago, the Church of Scotland Hospital at Tugela Ferry, in the rural Umsinga area of South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province, was the focus of international media attention as the epicentre of a deadly outbreak of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). It was reported that 52 of the 53 patients initially diagnosed died within a month of contracting this strain of TB, which is resistant to both of the first-line antibiotics used to treat the disease, as well as two classes of second-line drugs.

Thandi Sihadi stands next to a dry tap. As a maize and dairy farmer in one of South Africa’s driest districts, the lack of running water is nothing new to her. In fact, she says, she is one of many new black farmers who may now be fortunate enough to have land, but who still have problems accessing water for farming. Sihadi, a beneficiary of the Hereford land reform project – a project aimed at assisting small-scale black farmers, is from Sekhukhune in Limpopo.

The rate of HIV infection among pregnant women in South Africa has remained stubbornly high at around 29 percent for the third year running, according to government figures released on 5 October. The 2008 National Antenatal HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey - based on blood samples from 34,000 pregnant women who attended antenatal clinics in 52 health districts - measured HIV prevalence at 29.3 percent, compared to 29.4 percent in 2007 and 29.0 percent in 2006.

Yesterday (8 October) I was at the bail hearing for the 'Kennedy 8'. I came to Durban from Cape Town to meet up with staff members of the Clare Estate Drop-in Centre which operated in Kennedy Road supporting orphaned and other vulnerable children until the recent attacks where the CEDIC was ransacked and forced to close. I attended the hearing to find out more about what has been happening in Kennedy Road since the 26th of September. At the hearing, about 100 or so members of the social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo packed the court room to see their fellow activists. The few hundred who could not fit inside waited patiently in the adjacent foyer.

South Africa said on Friday it had been offered 48 square miles of land for farming in Angola and Uganda but that it would not take up land offers without security of tenure. Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson said at a conference Zambia had also offered South Africa, the continent's largest economy, a 48-year lease agreement for land.

Since the birth of a democratic South Africa in 1994, there are a range of ‘isms that have had, and continue to have, varying degrees of currency and impact on our society. The favourite of the privileged classes and political-economic elites has, of course, always been capitalism while for a sizeable portion of the poor, alongside a few intellectuals and political activists (even within the South African Communist Party) socialism remains the preferred alternative. Some in our midst clearly still hanker for the repressive certainties of fascism and/or monarchism, while others endorse a more traditional communitarianism.

South Africa’s Government plans to resubmit a Bill to parliament that would allow it to seize land from farmers if negotiations to buy the land from them failed, a government official has said.The expropriation Bill was submitted to parliament last year as part of efforts to speed up the process of handing over 30 per cent of agricultural land to landless blacks by 2014.

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) has sent a letter to Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato calling on the City to reconsider the eviction of the Symphony Way community to Blikkiesdorp. We all face evictions from the City of Cape Town – for a second time. The first time was when we were evicted from the N2 Gateway houses without being given any suitable alternative place to stay. This is why we have been occupying Symphony way for 1 year and 8 months.

The assault and killings suffered by Abahlali baseMjondolo members at Kennedy Road represent a quiet 'coup' and an attack on democracy, write Nigel Gibson and Raj Patel in this week's Pambazuka News. At once a reflection of the ANC's (African National Congress) encouragement of thuggery and the disturbing entrance of an ethnic politics 'unthinkable even in apartheid’s darkest days', the incident was the result of a deliberate attack on an autonomous, grassroots movement. With S'bu Zikode – Abahlali's elected chair – now forced into hiding, the intolerance of poor people's desire for representation and the emergence of 'demons of ethnic hatred' threaten the nation's very stability, the authors conclude.

In this week's Pambazuka News, Tafadzwa Thelma Madondo writes about last year's xenophobic attacks in South Africa and their dramatic consequences for foreign women and children. Madondo argues that the government did not do enough to protect the most vulnerable to violence and that more has to be done to guarantee everyone’s safety in South Africa in the future.

South Africa’s largest farmers’ union expects to conclude a multimillion hectare farmland deal with the Republic of Congo and agree a smaller land lease with Libya next month, its deputy president said. Theo de Jager, Deputy President of farmers’ grouping AgriSA said on Wednesday the union expected to finalise its 10 million hectare deal with the Republic of Congo in mid October.

Reflecting on the recent wave of protests and strikes across South Africa, just three months after Zuma won the election with two-thirds of the vote, Peter Dwyer examines why the country’s poorest have taken to the streets to express their anger. ‘Whenever the ANC government fails to deliver, it comes up with excuses and blames it on individuals. It’s true that its councillors lack commitment and skills, but it is the national leadership that is also to blame,’ said one protestor, ‘and meanwhile people have to suffer. The only way the government notices us is when we express our anger and rage. Then they understand how we feel.’

On 30 September 2009 Kontax – an m-novel created for the Shuttleworth Foundation’s m4Lit project– launches in South Africa, making world history as the first of its kind to be offered in both English and isiXhosa. The m4Lit project, led by Steve Vosloo, 21st Century Learning Fellow for the Shuttleworth Foundation, aims to not only explore the potential for increased reading and writing for 21st century teens through mobile phones, but also to introduce a more interactive style of story writing and publishing that holds appeal to the participatory culture of youth.

Reflecting on South Africa’s recent wave of protests, Ibrahim Steyn argues in this week’s Pambazuka News that the original source of the country’s ‘social malaise’ is threefold: The difference between legal definitions and grassroots interpretations of socio-economic rights, government pursuit of neo-liberal policies, and the limitations of liberal democratic frameworks for facilitating genuine public participation in decision-making.

Multiple partnerships may not be as common in South Africa as previously thought, according to a study presented at the recent AIDS Research Symposium at the University the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. Saul Johnson, managing director of Health & Development Africa (HDA), a health consultancy which conducted the research, said findings from four sites across the country showed about 26 percent of men and 5 percent of women reported having had more than one partner in the past year.

Several health-related budget decisions taken in the past financial year violated the Constitution, the National Health Act, the Public Finance Management Act and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. This is according to a group of activists, researchers, unionists, health workers and academics who have written letters to the ministers of health and finance, expressing grave concern over budgeting practices within the public health system and the dire effect it is shaving on HIV/AIDS, including the antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes.

Gay activists in South Africa have welcomed the life sentence handed down to a man for the killing and gang rape of lesbian football star Eudy Simelane. Ms Simelane was one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in KwaThema township near Johannesburg.