Task-shifting is the key to helping to reach South Africa’s goal of treating at least 80% of those in need of antiretroviral therapy (ART) by 2011, according to a joint statement by Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Reproductive Health and Research Unit (RHRU) of University of the Witwatersrand, the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), released at the Fourth South African AIDS Conference in Durban earlier this month.

A Libode community rejoiced when land, from a settlement claim worth R93 million, was handed over to it by South Africa's minister of Land Affairs. The claimant community is made up of five villages – Magcakini, Tyarha, Mamfengwini, Mdlankomo and Moyeni – which, when the claim was made, had a total of 907 households, the members of which are the direct descendants of the originally dispossessed individuals.

cc In this special edition of Pambazuka News, Sanusha Naidu sets out the background to the upcoming South African election and introduces the wide array of perspectives informing this week's articles. While some commentators have chosen to emphasise the changing nature of the ANC's (African National Congress) political dominance and the party's current difficulties, others have focused on the ultimate absence of genuine liberation for South Africa's poor majority some 15 years after the historic 1994 election. With some calling for the 2009 election to be boycotted entirely, the contributors to this issue share a common desire to offer piercing analysis and powerful insights into South Africa's political landscape as the country approaches voting day on 22 April.

cc With South Africa's election fast approaching, Roger Southall predicts a triumphant yet problematic victory for Jacob Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC). Southall examines the shifting electoral terrain within South Africa, indicating that younger voters are changing the political demographic. Despite the ANC’s respected economic record, increasing concern surrounds government policy, with injustice and inequality still prevalent across the country some 15 years after 1994's 'liberation' election. The author argues that regardless of the ANC’s predictable success in the April 2009 election, the party’s sanctity has been shattered as a result of its corruption and role in worsening the livelihoods of ordinary South Africans. The ANC’s dominance in the electoral arena is subsiding, Southall contends, a reality which will prove key in shaping the future development of South Africa's democracy.

cc Amid fears that Polokwane and the split in the ANC, and the uncertainty that these have generated, will unravel South Africa’s national potential for a rosier future, Adam Habib writes that ‘Economic development, service delivery, and poverty alleviation are dependent on a legitimated and capacitated state’. As the country’s national elections approach, Habib cautions that behaviour that ‘undermines the legitimacy and capacity of state institutions will compromise the new political elite’s own long-term goals’. Exploring the reasons behind former ANC leader Thabo Mbeki’s loss of support and what a Zuma presidency might mean for South Africa, Habib argues that the ‘substantive uncertainty’ introduced into South African politics by COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and the SACP’s (South African Communist Party) mobilisation against Mbeki has opened up political space and created debate on a range of policy issues, that would otherwise not have taken place. But for this ‘substantive uncertainty’ to be sustainable, it must be institutionalised within the political system as a whole.

cc Despite a sense of euphoria among significant sections of South Africa’s poor and working class that a Jacob Zuma presidency will usher in the long awaited better life for all, write John Appolis and Dale McKinley, socialists know that Zuma will not dismantle the alignment of class forces consolidated by the ANC since the early 1990s, but rather further entrench them. Since social movements are not in a position to present an alternative parliamentary option to the masses, the

The ANC is planning a post-election apology to the nation for former president Thabo Mbeki’s disastrous HIV-Aids policy, which has been blamed for the deaths of thousands of infected people, according to a report in The Times. “We owe it to the nation. We, as MPs, were there and we failed to rise up,” said an ANC MP.

Over 40 percent of men who have sex with men were HIV positive, suggesting a “hidden epidemic” among this group. This is according to results from a survey of 266 men in Johannesburg and Durban, the vast majority of whom were black, under the age of 25 and identified as gay rather than bisexual.

South Africa’s antiretroviral programme is short of R1-billion this year alone, yet the ANC wants to introduce a “wholly unrealistic” National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme within five years. So said SA National AIDS Council deputy chairperson Mark Heywood at the 4th South African AIDS conference.

Imagine you live in a cramped shack too small for you and your family. You fear eviction by the authorities at any time. You face the threat of your home being demolished. This is a reality faced by hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa - every single day.

South African prosecutors say they will announce on Monday whether they will drop corruption charges against African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma. South Africa media has been full of speculation that the charges will be dropped but a prosecution spokesman said the decision could go either way.

The advancement of the next generation of nuclear reactors has received a boost with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Beijing between the Chinese and the South African developers of pebble bed technology. Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd (PBMR) of South Africa has been developing the pebble bed technology in parallel with the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) of Tsinghua University and Chinergy Co Ltd of China, whose pebble bed concept is based on a 10 MW (thermal) research reactor that was started up in Beijing in December 2000 and achieved full power operation in January 2003.

In 2006 while we were being forced to live on the pavement – due to evictions – the Mayoral Committee of Housing promised the Gympie Street Residents that they would be given accommodation in old Woodstock Day Hospital after negotiating with Provincial Government. At the same time as this was going on Mrs Zille ignored a personal plea from the children of Gympie Street to address their educational needs, which were being denied due to the fact that they were being forced to live on the pavement and did not have access to proper meals for six weeks.

Aghast, betrayed and angry describe the reactions of many South Africans to their government's refusal of a visa to the Dalai Lama. They describe, too, widely held views on the role that South Africa has played on the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Council, and in respect of the crisis in Zimbabwe. Why, many are asking, has South Africa squandered its enormous moral capital and its commitment to human rights to side with some very questionable regimes?

In less than one month, South Africans go to the polls to elect a government for the next five years. We have already witnessed pre-election violence in KwaZulu-Natal and legal problems regarding the right of South Africans to vote abroad. While no election proceeds without hitches, the question is whether South Africa is setting a good example for the rest of the continent with the way its elections will be conducted.

Some lie awkwardly splayed on the stairs while others sleep in a neat row outside a church in Johannesburg from where Zimbabwean refugees will soon find themselves having to relocate again. The Methodist Church, in the city centre, has long been a popular destination for thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing their country's political and economic woes and more recently a devastating cholera crisis.

With its emphasis on gender equality, the South African constitution is regarded as a great example for many other developing countries. Yet, despite laws intended to protect the rights of women like the Sexual Abuse Act and the Domestic Violence Act, women in the country still suffer indignities at the hands of police and in court. Lisa Vetten, a policy analyst at the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, an organisation that protects the rights of women, has been fighting for the rights of women for most of her life.

The SA blog awards is a showcase of the very best of South African blogs. The 2009 SA Blog Awards is scheduled for its annual process of nominations and voting this year from 1st March through to 1st April, and the winners announced on 3rd April. Among those in contention is

For its Investigative Journalism Helpdesk in Johannesburg, South Africa, the (pan-African) Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR), seeks a Peer mentor/editor to assist investigative journalism projects carried out by African investigative journalists, either individually or as FAIR grantees and FAIR team projects.

In 2003, the Muslim Marriages Bill (Bill) was submitted by the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) to the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development (Minister of Justice). Since then, to our knowledge, the Minister of Justice has not done anything to move forward with the Bill in the parliamentary process (even though the SALRC undertook four years of extensive consultations from 1999 to 2003 within the Muslim communities and broader civil society when it drafted the Bill and obtained a general consensus within the Muslim communities for the Bill).