The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Pretoria has welcomed the sentencing of human trafficker Adina dos Santos (28) to life imprisonment. Dos Santos was also given a one-year sentence in the Pretoria Regional Court for living off the money the young women had made. She was found guilty in May of trafficking three girls from Mozambique to Pretoria in February 2008.

The conditions agreed to by Walmart and Massmart as part of the Competition Tribunal’s conditional approval of their merger could be abandoned if the case has to be reheard by the tribunal. This is just one of the possible outcomes of what is increasingly being seen as a high-risk attempt by three government departments to extract additional concessions from Walmart and Massmart. Not only might the country lose the commitments that have been made by the merging parties but it is possible that Walmart could approach the US government and in turn the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if it is put under unacceptable levels of pressure to agree to additional commitments.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Sunday called for an investigation into the financial affairs of African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malema. 'We call for an investigation by the ANC's committee on ethics and members' interests, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) and the Special Investigations Unit into the allegations,' spokesperson Patrick Craven said in a statement. This came after AfriForum laid a corruption case against Malema on Sunday, after it was reported that he had a trust fund for deposits from business people.

Residents of a Philippi informal settlement and police have clashed again as protests over electricity supply entered their third day. Three police Nyalas cordoned off the corner of New Eisleben and Sheffield roads on 21 July when protests flared up again in Siyahlala. Residents set containers on fire and used them to block off sections of Sheffield Road, while teenagers and children lined the road, armed with rocks, watching for police.

There’s little sign that the Western Cape Human Settlement MEC intends to deliver on its promises to prioritise housing for the Mandela Park Backyarders in the 2011/12 financial year, the group has said in an open letter to mayor Patrica de Lille.

Following the acquittal on all charges of 12 young men arrested after performing a dance at an Abahlali baseMjondolo Heritage Day, the Unemployed People’s Movement has issued a statement saluting the ‘witnesses for the prosecution that had the courage to tell the truth in the court’ and celebrating a victory for ‘the struggle of the working class and the poor in South Africa.’

South Africa would not be able to escape an escalated European crisis unscathed, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday, adding its direct economic exposure to the countries affected was reasonably low. 'South Africa's direct economic exposure to those countries affected by current market turmoil is reasonably low,' Gordhan said in an opinion piece published in Business Day. 'The greater risk for South Africa is the potential for contagion that results in a prolonged and expanding crisis in Europe and undermines global growth significantly.'

South Africa’s LGBT community now has a financial service provider, Gaysure, catering exclusively for its needs. 'The gay community is a much lower risk when it comes to insurance needs and thus it is long overdue for not just another company targeting the LBGT market, but a company catering specifically for their needs with a niche product,' say Gaysure on their website. Products and services provided by Gaysure include, car and household insurance, business insurance, life insurance, retirement planning and stock broking.

Nomonde Vumazonke is one of about 100 learners from schools across the Cape Peninsula who have spent two nights camping outside Parliament in an attempt to pressure the Minister of Education to adopt Norms and Standards for all public schools in the country. Vumazonke, who is in grade 12 at Sangweni Senior Secondory in Khayelitsha, said she and her fellow learners needed the education department to set regulations that will list all the physical infrastructure schools require to function properly. This would ensure there is a basic infrastructure level that every school must meet, she said.

The failure of post-apartheid South Africa to address the pressing challenges facing both land reform and the rural economy more generally may be due to inadequate policies and implementation, but essentially it indicates an intense political struggle, writes Obiozo Ukpabi on the blog Another Countryside. 'That the reality is much more complicated than finding compelling ways to get the land may be obvious. But how does South Africa move beyond the stuckness of the land reform process by confronting the key issues head on? A reframing of the issues for a truly progressive public debate requires an understanding of the powerful interests that are vested into the current deadlock.'

The blog features a selection of photographs from South African photographer Lizane Louw, who has spent three years chronicling the lives of the people of Blikkiesdorp (translation: Tin Town), a temporary relocation camp in Delft, located about 30 km from Cape Town's city centre. 'I don’t think it is ethically and morally acceptable that people that are poor must live in such challenging and substandard living conditions. Something needs to be done and we need to seriously reflect on ourselves as a society, when these things happen in your backyard without us attempting to do anything about it,' she is quoted as saying.

'For too long the people of the Amajuba District have been raising their concerns with the office of Land Reform and Rural Development at many levels and at many times, but in vain. It is in our view that such an audience with both senior officials and politicians will ensure accountability which has been lacking thus far within the department.'

Police have been asked to investigate a second complaint of corruption against Willie Hofmeyr, the head of both the Asset Forfeiture Unit and the Special Investigating Unit, the National Prosecuting Authority confirmed on Sunday. NPA spokesman Mthunzi Mahaga said the national director of public prosecutions (Menzi Simelane) called in the police after billionaire Dave King levelled the allegations against Hofmeyr. The Sunday Times portrayed the two charges as part of a campaign by Simelane to undermine Hofmeyr and the AFU. The newspaper said an investigation against the KwaZulu-Natal head of the AFU, Knorx Molelle, was linked to the fight for control of the unit.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and President Jacob Zuma have agreed that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi must go. Cameron, who is on a working visit to South Africa, told reporters in Pretoria on Monday that he and Zuma believed Gaddafi needed to step down from power. However, Zuma said: 'What happens to Gaddafi must be decided by the Libyan people. You need to negotiate how, why and where he must go.'

South Africa's fuel workers' union has rejected a minimum eight per cent wage increase and is holding out for a double-digit hike, the union's chief negotiator said on Tuesday (19 July).The strike has left petrol stations dry across South Africa for more than a week and will probably cost the continent's top economy billions of rand in lost output.

The refusal of the minister of public works to answer questions on her role in clinching dodgy police lease deals amounts to a criminal offence. This is one of several damning findings in public protector Thuli Madonsela's final report on the police lease saga, which concludes Madonsela's investigation into dodgy police leases, worth R1.8-billion, in Pretoria and Durban with businessman Roux Shabangu, which was exposed by the Sunday Times last year. Shabangu is an associate of President Jacob Zuma's.

SA's top prosecutors are in a fight to the death over the future of corruption-buster Willie Hofmeyr, who heads the Asset Forfeiture Unit and the Special Investigating Unit. The Sunday Times reports that new corruption claims have been levelled at Hofmeyr and top NPA officials thought to be close to him. NPA officials in various provinces claim the charges were stage-managed by NPA boss Menzi Simelane.

The violent two-week metalworkers strike has ended, with some workers gaining a 10 per cent wage increase. Eight of the nine National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa) regions accepted the offer, bringing an end to a strike that brought a near-total halt to the second-biggest contributor to GDP.

South Africa has set the stage for the mass deportation of more than one million Zimbabwean immigrants later this month in a move that could alter its status as the world's largest country of refuge. South Africa has been a beacon for asylum seekers due to liberal immigration laws, proximity to African trouble spots and massive economy compared to the rest of the continent that has attracted millions seeking wealth they cannot find at home. About one in five of the 845 800 asylum seekers globally in 2010 sought refuge in South Africa, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The website is dedicated to the declaration launched on 1 November 2010 by South African Artists Against Apartheid. You can follow the campaigns and events initiated by South African Artists Against Apartheid on this website, as well as recent news relating to international cultural boycott activities.