President Zuma is 'not a saint', writes Alfred Muleka, but as a proud Zulu man, a traditonalist and a nationalist, he deserves 'protection and respect under the constitution'. Polygamy is not illegal in South Africa, says Muleka, so let's respect this right rather than judging it by Western stanadards.

Less than a year after the formal establishment of BRIC, South Africa has started to flex its muscle in its bid for inclusion in this group of global emerging powers, writes Hayley Herman.

New national treatment guidelines are set to make the world's largest antiretroviral (ARV) programme even bigger as South Africa extends treatment to more HIV-positive infants, pregnant women and people battling HIV-tuberculosis (TB) co-infection.

New research could bolster arguments for a controversial approach that could eradicate HIV transmission in South Africa within five years, said Dr Brian Williams of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA).

South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal ordered the Department of Home Affairs on 24 February 2010 to immediately release an Ethiopian asylum seeker from "unlawful" detention after he had languished in repatriation centres for over nine months.

South Africa’s children, the country’s most vulnerable population group, will benefit through the increase in social grants recently outlined in the national budget. South Africa’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan’s national budget speech on Feb. 17 has largely been met with approval by development experts for the social grant increases.

South African trade unions are threatening strikes after the country's government allowed state-owned power firm Eskom to raise prices by 24.8%. Both consumers and businesses will struggle with significantly higher electricity bills, unions argue. The Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry said firms were already struggling to cope with the fallout of recession and slow economic recovery.

Four white students accused of making a racist video in South Africa will face trial, after attempts failed to resolve the matter out of court. The video, which caused a racial storm in 2008 allegedly shows the four forcing five black cleaners to eat meat soaked in urine

South Africa's land reform minister said on Friday it would be impossible for the government to meet its own target of acquiring farm land to restore to blacks after it was taken from them during apartheid.

A three-day seminar to discuss ways to strength en cross-border co-operation for the protection of children at risk and to better regulate inter-country adoption has opened in Pretoria, South Africa. South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation and the Hag ue Conference on Private International Law based in the Netherlands are co-hosting the seminar, which opened Tuesday.

A new land deal allowing South African farmers to produce livestock, milk and fruit in Libya has been put on hold pending the finalisation of an investment protection agreement between the two countries. Theo de Jager, Deputy President of South Africa’s largest farmers’ union Agri SA said a protection agreement between the two countries had been drafted.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/471/israel_palestine_apartheid… iniquitous treatment of Palestinian people has clear parallels with the discrimination suffered by 'non-white' people under apartheid South Africa, argues the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights. The Israeli state has continued to flout international law in its efforts to annex further territory and marginalise Palestinian people, the coalition argues, calling for the maintenance of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) until Israel ends its occupation.

A number of South African Methodists are angry and upset about the ruling that a well-liked minister must be "defrocked" because of her gay marriage. Reverend Ecclesia de Lange of Cape Town married her life partner in December and was suspended by the church in January.

Almost a quarter of patients eligible for HIV treatment in South Africa’s Free State province died before getting it, a further 13% disappeared from the healthcare system and 5% were still on a waiting list, according to a review of three years of progress in the province’s public sector antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme.

The national health department has signed off new HIV treatment guidelines, bringing South Africa in line with international best practice and removing a drug responsible for a wide range of side effects. The new guidelines were finally signed off last week after a meeting last November with the provinces, donors, HIV clinicians and other HIV experts.

The health department is redesigning the new ARV tender in the hope of procuring cheaper antiretroviral medicine amid claims that South Africa is paying around 30% more than the global rate for the drugs.

South Africa's largest labour federation COSATU has threatened to call a general strike in October if the government does not take steps to improve workers' rights. The union said the use of employment agencies, mostly by foreign companies to source temporary labour, denies workers the the rights they are entitled to under South Africa's labour laws.

Communities, environmental groups, academics and NGOs are calling on the World Bank to cease and desist from a proposed loan of R29 billion ($3.75 bn) to Eskom. If this loan – which may come up for a Board vote in March or April – goes through, poor South Africans will have to bear the burden of Eskom’s debt and the World Bank’s cost recovery programme, and climate change will intensify.

For the sake of the ANC, Jacob Zuma should come clean, apologise, ask for forgiveness - and resign from the national presidency, writes Peter Townshend.

Vrije University (VU) Amsterdam has established the Desmond Tutu Programme in honour of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond M. Tutu. This Programme focuses on the theme Youth, Sports and Reconciliation and aims to strengthen the co-operation between VU Amsterdam and South African Higher Education Institutions.