The University of East London's School of Law is seeking to appoint an international scholar with an outstanding research record to lead our research in the area of international and comparative human rights and to become Director of the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict

While they may appeal at a rhetorical level, South African ideas around pan-Africanism and greater regional integration tend to be ambivalent and even antagonistic, writes Ella Philda Scheepers.

The acid mine drainage problem was being closely monitored and was not an 'imminent horror show', the Department of Mineral Resources' chief director of mining and mineral policy, Ntokozo Ngcwabe, told MPs yesterday. Concern over the threatened decanting of acid mine drainage into the water table in the Witwatersrand basin has caused mounting concern. Options for dealing with the problem included the construction of canals, controlled points for decanting, and water treatment using various technologies. The department would soon decide on the preferred solutions, which would be implemented in phases over the next 10 years, with the initial focus on the high - risk areas.

The ANC's discussion document on a national health insurance (NHI), unveiled at the party's national general council last week, contains few details on how to fix the embattled public health system and little in the way of innovation, experts complained last week. To ensure that an NHI brought better access to healthcare, there would need to be a concurrent improvement in the reach and quality of healthcare services and an increase in the number of facilities and staff in the sector.

Reports of corruption and confusion have already started surfacing in South Africa, as the process to legalise undocumented Zimbabweans in the country gets underway. The exercise began on Monday, a few weeks after South Africa announced it was ending its moratorium on Zimbabwean deportations at the end of the year. But by Wednesday there were already indications that the December 31st deadline for Zimbabweans to regularise their stay in South Africa will be hard to meet

Cheating, mistresses and having more than one partner might sound very sexy and intriguing. But beneath the surface lies a dangerous web of sexual partners which is leading to the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS. This documentary which was aired on e-tv's 3rd Degree in South Africa, engages with a group of HIV+ individuals who all contracted the disease by having sexual relations with more than one person at a time, examines why they did so, and how they hope to educate others to not follow in their footsteps.

In an interview with the Inter Press Service (IPS), Patrick Bond discusses the failings of South Africa’s drive towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the extent to which the country’s government continues to operate against the interests of its poor majority.

With five years left till the Millennium Development Goals' 2015 deadline, civil society groups say South Africa has made progress on some goals but regressed on others. Pal Mfunzana’s sole source of income is a couple of corrugated tin shacks, indistinguishable from many others in Diepsloot, a deeply impoverished slum on the northern edge of Johannesburg.

For the last year and a half two creative Zimbabweans, Juma and Willard, have hustled their way from the traffic lights on Roeland Street to a studio in Woodstock, Cape Town, crafting everything from bags made out of old t-shirts to recycled crate-chairs for corporate clients. Not content to just be small time capitalists, from Mondays to Fridays they run art and craft workshops for 100 kids in Khayelitsha and on Saturday mornings they teach conversational English with a group called Chatterbox (made up of primary school kids). This is their story.

Attempts to measure the tangible and intangible benefits left by the World Cup suggest that while expenditure on infrastructure and stadiums significantly boosted the economy and had some impact on job creation, overall gains were skewed in favour of the economic and political elite. Justin Sylvester and Daniel Harju of the Political Information & Monitoring Service (PIMS) at Idasa also argue that the disproportionate influence exerted by external actors such as FIFA and the international community reflect the ongoing poor levels of accountability and transparency enjoyed by our own citizens.

The visit by South African President Jacob Zuma to Beijing from August 24 to 26, heading a delegation of 400 business representatives and 11 government ministers, was another indication of intensifying international rivalry within the African continent.

The September National Imbizo (SNI) is a historic meeting sixteen years after Democracy in South Africa. Ours leaders are fighting amongst themselves whilst the people suffer. We can no longer leave things in the hands of the politicians. It is for this reason that have we called for the SNI which is a gathering of ordinary South Africans who want to see change in the lives of our people.

Poets from around South Africa, Africa and the world will descend on Durban for an exhilarating rollercoaster of words, rhythms and ideas at the 14th Poetry Africa international poetry festival, which takes place from 4 to 9 October. Organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal), and with principal support from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, Poetry Africa’s exciting week-long programme is preceded by a three-stop Poetry Africa tour to Cape Town, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

The South African Parliament has just released a report that investigates the service delivery protests that have rocked the country over the last decade. But, argues Patrick Bond, the report is ‘utterly inadequate’ and fails to identify the root cause of the protests.

IkamvaYouth has been working on IkamvaYouth-in-a-box which aims to translate the experiences that many Ikamvanites have collected over the years into an information pack. This super high tech system will enable information to be stored in a central database that will make all the information accessible to those who need it.

UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation have agreed to hold two further clinical trials on a vaginal gel, which shows promise in reducing the risk of HIV. Experts attending a meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa last week decided new trials should be conducted as quickly as possible to confirm preliminary hopeful results.

South Africa has failed to increase its research and development spending to one per cent of GDP by 2008–09, according to data published by the Department of Science and Technology this morning (9 September). The news, which appears in the country's annual research and development (R&D) survey that tracks public and private R&D expenditure, has disappointed the country's scientists and could set a bad precedent for other African countries.

This report suggests that the racist attacks that occurred in South Africa in 2008 were rooted in the micro-politics of townships and informal settlements. The author argues that violence was used as a means to drive foreigners out of South Africa and thereby decrease competition for jobs and other scarce resources.

Many cases of tuberculosis (TB) in patients starting HIV therapy will be missed if screening for the disease relies on 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, investigators from South Africa report in the October 1st edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Almost a million South Africans are already on lifelong antiretroviral treatment and this number is supposed to triple in the next decade if government keeps to its implementation plan. But the prospect of the South African government being able to meet its target of treating 80 percent of those who need it by 2011 is being threatened by a lack of funds.