The world’s media eyes will soon squarely focus on South Africa, with millions from across the globe tuning in via multimillion-dollar broadcasts. Yet, as Deborah Walter points out, even as the international media and big broadcasters move in, and journalists descend from all over the world, in South Africa, like much of Africa, community radio is still a key source of information and news for many communities, linking local activities and issues with international perspectives.

The announcement that South Africa would host the 2010 World Cup prompted a whirlwind of heavy investment in infrastructure, with high expectations for an economic boom. Obviously, the 2010 World Cup will also boost tourism, but how far will these benefit society as a whole, not just a privileged few? asks Nasser Kigwangallah.

South Africa has one of the highest rates in the world of unemployment for comparable middle-income countries. The latest official statistics show that by December 2009, around 4,2 million people, out of a total labour force of 17 million, were officially unemployed. Yet, this figure does not include almost two million individuals who have simply lost hope of ever finding a job. For women, the situation is nothing but drastic, writes Kimani Nding'u.

Three families have been living homeless, freezing weather, rain and all, at the gates of Blikkiesdorp for over 10 nights now. These families were evicted recently from backyards where they used to live in Delft. They came to Blikkiesdorp looking for a tin because they have nowhere else to go. Since the City of Cape Town will not accommodate them inside Blikkiesdorp, they have occupied some land at the entrance to the Phase 2 section of the TRA.

Michael Uredi, 37, a cabinet maker, came to South Africa from the Eastern Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) eight years ago. He is a member of the Bembe ethnic group, married to a woman from the Banyamulenge, so he is not welcome at home and his wife was raped by his "own people" before they fled. This is his story.

‘Band-aid solutions to South Africa’s deep-seated racial problems are simply foolish’, writes William Gumede, and ‘it is naive to think that given the more than 300 years of colonialism and apartheid, racist attitudes will magically evaporate in under two decades. Until we acknowledge that racism is deeply embedded in South African society, instead of living in denial, pretending racial incidents are "isolated" events, solutions will only paper over the cracks and reconciliation across racial divides will remain elusive.’

South Africa's transport system was expected to be brought to a standstill from 10 May as 50 000 Transnet workers planned to strike over a wage dispute. "This will be the biggest strike in the history of South Africa," said Chris de Vos, general secretary of the United Transport and Allied Trade Union (Utatu) at a press conference in Johannesburg on Friday.

Schoolchildren in South Africa are having less sex, and those that are, are doing it more safely, the second National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey by the Medical Research Council (MRC) has found. Over 10,000 students in their last three years of high school participated in the survey, which showed "significant reductions" in risky sexual behaviour.

Two out of three gay South African respondents to an online survey said that going online had helped them accept their sexual orientation and many admitted to coming out online before they did so offline. But the voices of transgender people rarely appear in studies and surveys.

The Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) of the University of the Western Cape, Isandla Institute and Studies on Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII) with support from the Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development (PSPPD) of the Office of the Presidency, and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) form a partnership to host a three-day national conference on structural poverty to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa on 20 - 22 September 2010.

Abahlali baseMjondolo condemns the continuation attack of our settlements by the City of Cape Town, Law Enforcement, Anti Land Invasion and it’s private agency. On April 22, a house of a member of Abahlali baseMjondolo at UT section at Site B was demolished by the City’s Law Enforcement without any reason.

South Africa should start looking for alternative solutions to control malaria-carrying mosquitoes, a study has found. Using DDT to curb the spread of malaria has been proven by researchers to pose a huge risk to human beings with those consuming chicken, fish and vegetables produced in DDT-sprayed areas at risk of developing illnesses such as cancer.

South Africa's "willing-buyer willing-seller" land reform programme is not working and the government will introduce new ways to give more land to the black majority, President Jacob Zuma has said. After the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa's government set a target of handing over 30 percent of commercial farmland to black people by 2014 as part of a plan to correct racial imbalances in land distribution caused by apartheid.

South Africa – home to the one-sixth of the world’s population living with HIV – today unveiled an ambitious campaign to prevent and treat the virus, a move hailed by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The drive seeks to test 15 million people for HIV by next year, a six-fold jump in just two years, as well as reach 1.5 million people with antiretroviral treatment by June 2011, up from 1 million last year. Nearly 6 million people – or 18 per cent of all adults – in South Africa live with HIV, the largest population of people in the world.

The event is called “Un-Freedom Day”. We call it “Un-freedom Day” because we feel like we are still oppressed by poverty, underdevelopment and injustices directed to us as marginalized communities living in the rural and farming areas. We say that apartheid used racism to exclude the majority of the South Africans, especially indigenous South Africans from accessing economic resources and from participating in the politics of the country. Today we witness class, gender, race and geographical location to exclude the majority of South Africans from participating fully in our democracy. Those of us who live in the rural areas do not have access to our own ancestors’ land, proper education, water and health facilities.

Abahlali baseMjondolo condemns the continuation attack of our settlements by the City of Cape Town, Law Enforcement, Anti Land Invasion and it’s private agency. On April 22, a house of a member of Abahlali baseMjondolo at UT section at Site B was demolished by the City’s Law Enforcement without any reason.

With the official kick-off of the 2010 FIFA World Cup just 42 days away, anticipation is steadily building on the African blogosphere, especially after the recent release of a number of World Cup songs, such as K'Naan's 'Waving flag', Kelly Rowland's 'Everywhere you go' featuring a host of African musicians, and the Shakira/FreshlyGround track, 'Zaminamina Waka Waka (Time For Africa)', which is the tournament's anthem.

As South Africa’s Freedom Day rolls around each year, it has become something of a cliché for pundits and politicians to observe that while the country has political freedom, the majority of its people have yet to attain economic freedom. But this platitude masks an extraordinarily anaemic view of political freedom, writes Richard Pithouse.

Building an inclusive South African-ness rests on recognising diversity as part of a broader commitment to a collective identity, argues William Gumede. Debates around 'African-ness' are misguided, Gumede maintains, and the country's true identity should be built on equality, the distribution of opportunities and an inclusive approach to nation-building.

The rise of an organized poor people's movement in South Africa's most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, is being met with increasing hostility by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government, which claims to be the legitimate representative of the poorest of the poor. South Africa has been rocked by increasingly frequent service delivery protests - a euphemism for communities taking to the streets to voice their frustration with the alleged slow pace of social service provision - but it is the formation of a militant non-aligned social movement, Abahlali Basemjondolo - shack-dwellers movement, in Zulu - that is causing greatest concern.