With 'service delivery protests' a common occurrence in South Africa, Richard Pithouse exposes some of the myths associated with the phrase.

Black smoke billowed across morning rush hour traffic as angry backyarders in Nyanga blockaded Lansdowne road with burning tyres on Tuesday, forcing commuters to find alternative routes to work.The Backyarders from Nyanga’s Mau-Mau, Old Location and White City areas were protesting over the lack of housing for them and demanding the provincial government allocate houses to backyarders in housing projects in the area.

South Africa is gearing up for its third local government election. In an attempt to break with the authoritarianism of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, President Jacob Zuma has promised a new approach to these elections, where more responsive candidates are selected that genuinely represent the will of the people. But, asks Jane Duncan, Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society at Rhodes University, will the promise of these elections be realised? And will the ANC respect the will of the people if it clashes with the will of the party?

The Black Sash has accepted a settlement offer after taking the government to court on behalf of tens of thousands of people waiting to have their social grant appeals heard. The human rights organisation and 24 disabled people from the Eastern Cape launched a legal application in June last year following persistent attempts to persuade the Department of Social Development to clear the huge appeals backlog and deal with excessive delays. According to the Department's own figures, more than 65,000 people across the country are trapped in a systemic appeals backlog in the office of its Minister and at the tribunal appointed to hear the appeals of those who've had their grant applications rejected.

South Africa is preparing to take HIV testing into the classroom as part of its national voluntary HIV testing and counselling (VCT) campaign, but testing kids is controversial and implementing the programme is fraught with challenges – just ask those already doing it. Government departments, together with the South African National AIDS Council, are holding nationwide consultative meetings with members of the education, children's rights and HIV sectors to formulate a national policy for school-based HIV testing, as well as guidelines and recommendations for the country’s nine provinces.

Around 09h30 yesterday (4 February), the MEC for Housing Bonginkosi Madikizela, came with police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit. No one consulted with anyone in the community. They came without warning, without the necessary court documents, and destroyed brick houses and shacks in section 20-21 of Mandela Park. At around 18h00, the Mandela Park community gathered at Andile Nhose community hall to discuss the illegal demolition earlier in the day. Community members decided to take to the streets in a spontaneous demonstration protesting against the actions by Madikizela and the government.

Two violent attacks by police on news photographers in Pretoria and Bloemfontein are to be taken up by the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD). The investigation comes as editor and journalist groups condemned the attacks and demanded that the policemen responsible be criminally investigated and prosecuted.

The heroic masses of Egypt have risen up against the decades-old corrupt dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. Over the next weeks, a number of activities will be held in solidarity with these struggles throughout South Africa. These activities will kick off with a demonstration outside the Egyptian embassy in Pretoria, with South Africans repeating the calls of our Egyptian comrades: “Bread! Jobs! Education! Dignity! Democracy! Freedom of Expression!

Delays in drug registration by the country's Medicines Control Council (MCC), contribute to depriving South African HIV patients of important fixed dose combination antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. But there are indications that the effects of the delays are being felt even farther afield. In December 2010, South Africa announced a new, two-year tender for ARVs which halved drug costs for the national HIV treatment programme; The tender however failed to include many fixed dose ARV combinations, which although approved by bodies like the World Health Organisation are not yet registered by the MCC for use in South Africa.

The 'deafening' silence by the South African government on issues relating to homosexuality on international platforms has been highly condemned by gay rights groups at a rally spearheaded by the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP) outside offices of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in Pretoria on 01 February 2011. Over 150 people attended the march which called for DIRCO and government as a whole to uphold and promote the South African Constitution and urge African Union member states to fight discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.

With nearly one in three South Africans expected to receive state assistance in the form of welfare benefits during the 2011/12 financial year, commentators are wondering how the country can afford to keep providing an ever expanding social safety net. According to the latest South Africa Survey, released on 1 February by independent think-tank the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), the number of social grant beneficiaries has increased by more than 300 percent in the past nine years, while the number of registered individual taxpayers has grown at a much slower rate.

In a letter to the Ad Hoc Committee for the Protection of Information Bill, Idasa, the African Democracy Centre has questioned the applicability of the controversial legislation to various organs of state. 'It appears that the ad hoc committee’s view is that it is in fact too time-consuming to do an audit of the organs of state which exist. We are of the view that it is crucial that every consideration be given to the scope/applicability of the proposed legislation. Given the extensive number of organs of state, we submit that Parliament needs to be mindful of legislating without fully considering the impact of the draft legislation.'

Noncedo Pulana lacks many things, but she is certainly not short of confidence as she prepares to stand for election as Khayelitsha ward councillor. She feels her long years as an activist in the sprawling township have prepared her to do a better job. Khayelitsha is reputed to be the largest township in South Africa. Created in 1985 to accommodate an influx of black labour to Cape Town, in 20 years its population grew beyond 400,000. Seventy percent of residents still live in shacks of wood and corrugated metal; one in three must walk 200 metres or more to the nearest public water point.

Hopes for an urgent interdict against the Department of Home Affairs’ issuing of fines to refugees and asylum seekers for the late renewal of their permits, and the confiscation thereof, were dashed in the Cape High Court last Wednesday.The application for an urgent interdict was filed by the University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s) Refugee Rights Project, which is representing eight applicants on behalf of a further 59, on 6 December last year in a bid to force Home Affairs to re-document affected refugees and asylum seekers.

A report on the management of acid mine drainage in Gauteng has been put to the cabinet but details of its recommendations will not be released until Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa approves it. The report, driven by her department but drawn up by a team of experts, apparently seeks ways to draw private sector mining companies that are still operating in Gauteng into the process of extracting the acid mine water and cleansing it. The level of the underground acid water is now 500m below the surface, 50m higher than in the middle of 2010.

Parliament threw MPs debating the contentious Protection of Information Bill a lifeline on Friday with a last-minute extension of their deadline. The mandate of the ad hoc committee set up in March last year to process the bill was due to expire on Friday. But the chairman, ANC MP Cecil Burgess, said at the last scheduled sitting that though he could not cite the rule making it possible, he had been assured that the speaker, Max Sisulu, would announce an extension before the current mandate ran out. He told reporters later the deadline had been extended to March 31.

A dramatic spike in physical science distinctions is expected to cause a flood of last-minute applications for the medical, engineering and commerce faculties when the country's universities open for the new academic year. Statistics released exclusively to the Sunday Times show there was an enormous increase in the number of physical science distinctions - from 999 in 2009 to 5962 last year - in what experts have described as 'very surprising'.

The only South African passenger on the Mavi Marmara, one of the Gaza-bound ships intercepted at sea by the Israelis in May last year, has laid a formal complaint with the national director of public prosecutions about her alleged suffering at the hands of the Israeli army. If the National Prosecuting Authority acts on the complaint of Gadija Davids, a Cape Town-based journalist, top Israeli politicians and soldiers could face arrest if they visit South Africa.

On Tuesday 1 February, the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project, the Treatment Action Campaign, Section27 and various other civil society, faith-based and community organisations will stage a protest at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO).

Social justice group SECTION27 has welcomed the release of a report on the investigation into the tragic deaths of six infants on 18 May 2010 at the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital in Johannesburg. The report raised serious concerns about the extent to which the Gauteng Department of Health and Social Development adheres to norms and standards related to human resources, and the consequent overcrowding in public health facilities in the province. The expert medical panel that conducted the investigation found that the neonatal unit at the Hospital 'ha[d] been under severe pressure for a long time'.