HIV-related stigma and discrimination remain a key concern in South Africa, despite the multitude of HIV awareness campaigns that have been launched by government and civil society organisations throughout the years, health experts say.

Starting treatment earlier, at a higher CD4 count, and being in care six months or longer before starting ART, is associated with lower treatment costs during the first months of antiretroviral tretament, according to an analysis of the direct health care costs of treating over 10,000 HIV-infected adults in a private HIV care programme in southern Africa, published in the December 1 edition of PLoS Medicine.

South Africa has expressed frustration over the slow pace of talks aimed at ensuring a definitive solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe. Lindiwe Zulu, the international relations advisor to President Jacob Zuma, told Talk Radio 702 in Johannesburg they were not happy with the slow pace of the talks.

Gender Links, a Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg specialising in gender, media, women’s rights and governance, seeks the services of an experienced individual to serve as a field officer for its gender justice and local government programme in South Africa. The main task of the incumbent, who will be based in Johannesburg, will be to work with local councils, partners and stakeholders to develop gender and gender violence (GBV) action plans for local councils as well as providing backstopping and support to these councils.

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg that promotes gender equality in and through the media, seeks to fill the post of Gender and Media Programme Manager on an initial two year contract basis. All applications must be received by close of business on Friday 15 January 2009. Late applications will not be considered. Candidates from within the SADC region are welcome to apply. GL is an equal opportunity employer.

With tens of millions of hectares of land across Africa auctioned off to corporations and governments in secretive deals, in this week’s Pambazuka News Khadija Sharife takes a closer look at a set of agreements between the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) and a group of white South African farmers. Will this partnership come at the expense of local people, Sharife asks, or could it generate models for freeing the continent from food insecurity through the sharing of resources and humanity?

‘What constitutes an intellectual in the South African context?’ asks Leslie Dikeni in this week’s Pambazuka News, ‘Who is an intellectual and who isn’t?’ In an extract from a new book of essays, ‘The Poverty of Ideas’, Dikeni separates the ‘real intellectuals’ from a new breed of ‘pseudo-intellectuals’ that have emerged in recent years: The ‘celebrity intellectual’, the ‘commercial intellectual’, the ‘policy analyst’ and the ‘new gender activist’.

As the 2010 Soccer World Cup approaches, expected to bring an influx of gay tourists to South Africa, Health4Men, a health centre for men who have sex with men (MSM) in Soweto has urged entertainment venues in all cities to promote responsible sex among gay men. Themed Responsible Sex Promotion by Gay Venues, this initiative is targeting night clubs, bars, taverns, guest houses and sex venues, making available free condoms, lubricant sachets, fact sheets, posters and public health notices.

The more people in a meeting, the more difficult it is to achieve consensus. Accordingly the UN negotiating system, built on consensus processes and inordinately influenced by the wealthy G8 nations, makes agreement difficult, writes Glenn Ashton.

South African ex-Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, criticised for questioning whether HIV causes Aids, has died aged 69 from liver disease. Her critics dubbed her "Dr Beetroot" for her advocacy of healthy eating rather than drugs to fight HIV.

Amnesty International deplores the continuing failure of the South African authorities to investigate impartially and fully human rights abuses which occurred during and after armed violence at the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement (Kennedy Road) in Durban last September. This despite repeated calls since October for an independent and impartial commission of inquiry into the surrounding circumstances and extent of the violence and its aftermath.

A ‘revolutionary’ new volume of essays published by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press seeks to revive the tradition of intellectual argument in post-apartheid South Africa.

The percentage of HIV-positive mothers who pass the virus to their newborn babies in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province has dropped by nearly two-thirds since dual antiretroviral (ARV) therapy was introduced for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).

If the South African state is a democracy, Michael Neocosmos asks in Pambazuka News, how has it condoned the deployment of violence and murder on the shackdwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, an organisation of the poor that has ‘engaged in peaceful protests’ and ‘advocated peaceful alternatives to the dominant politics’? At the root of the problem of the state reaction to Abahlali, Neocosmos argues, is ‘not simply a failure of democracy, but a systematic failure of citizenship and of the nation.’

HIV-exposed but uninfected children grew as well as children of HIV-uninfected mothers, no matter how they were fed in the first two years of life in a non-randomised cohort study in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa from 2001-2004, Deven Patel and colleagues reported in a study published in advance online by the journal AIDS.

Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), a shack dwellers’ movement in Durban has contributed tremendously to the protection of the right to adequate housing by mobilising shack dwellers to resist and challenge forced evictions and insist on in-situ upgrading of their areas as the only acceptable solution.

South African health care professionals are endangering the health of the country's large foreign population by routinely denying health care and treatment to thousands of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants, Human Rights Watch has said in a report.

It has been ten years since the South African government held its first annual '16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women' (and children) campaign. While the campaign has, no doubt, achieved a degree of success in relation to raising awareness, this has clearly not translated into much positive, practical impact.

President Jacob Zuma has announced the most significant government-led interventions to stem the AIDS epidemic since its emergence more than 20 years ago, stating that extraordinary measures are needed.

South Africa’s top scientists and researchers have come out in support of health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi after the furore over Home Affairs supplied AIDS death statistics he quoted recently - which may have been incorrect.