I CAN predict when SA's "Tunisia Day" will arrive. Tunisia Day is when the masses rise against the powers that be, as happened recently in Tunisia. The year will be 2020, give or take a couple of years. The year 2020 is when China estimates that its current minerals-intensive industrialisation phase will be concluded.

For SA, this will mean the African National Congress (ANC) government will have to cut back on social grants, which it uses to placate the black poor and to get their votes. China's current industrialisation phase has forced up the prices of SA's minerals, which has enabled the government to finance social welfare programmes.

A search to find a pistol owned by Nelson Mandela said to be the first weapon of the African National Congress' armed resistance to apartheid rule has ended under the house of a South African pop star.

The gun was given to Mr Mandela by an Ethiopian Colonel who gave him military training while he was on the run from South Africa's white government seeking to prosecute him for his political activities.

When he returned to South Africa, just weeks before he was arrested and jailed for 27 years, he buried it in the grounds of the farm where he was staying.

"Can Richard Goldstone's tarnished reputation be rehabilitated without him acknowledging that the evidence, including new information, proves he was wrong? There is a politically motivated effort underway to rehabilitate the tarnished reputation of Richard Goldstone.

US giant Walmart is expanding its operations in Africa by bidding for a controlling stake in South Africa's Massmart, the continent's third-largest retailer with 288 stores in 14 countries.

But South Africa's trade unions are not happy. Despite Walmart's promise to create jobs and its assurances that it will honour existing labour agreements and rules, the union are threatening to boycott its operations because of its reputation as a company that engages in unfair labour practices.

The photograph is not easy to look at, and it's not clear at first glance if Millicent Gaika, the woman in the photo, is dead or alive. Huge purple bruises surround both of her swollen eyes, and her neck is crisscrossed by a number of open gashes and scars.

The world's biggest retailer already has tills ringing across the Americas, Europe and Asia. Now the sprawling Arkansas-based discount megalith Walmart is trying its luck in Africa.

South Africa's labour movement is bracing itself for its biggest campaign since its anti-apartheid heyday as it faces up to the likely arrival of Walmart – a company notorious for its anti-union tactics, with annual sales worth three times the country's budget.

"A vote last week by the United Nations General Assembly Human Rights Committee has LGBT and human rights activists outraged over the decision to remove "sexual orientation" from a resolution that protects people from arbitrary executions.

"More than one in three South African men questioned in a survey admitted to rape, the latest evidence in the country of a violent culture of patriarchy.

"South Africa on Friday accused the UN Security Council of moving faster to end conflicts in regions outside of Africa, as African nations demanded more help for peacekeeping operations."

In January 2011, South Africa will be back in the United Nations Security Council. Is it likely to do any better than the last time round?

To be fair, the South African government's prior performance in the council was underrated. After all, it was incredibly energetic. It put African issues squarely on the UN agenda. It played a central role in the push for UN reform. And in most decisions, South Africa was with the diplomatic mainstream.

Yet all it has been remembered for is its defence of "rogue powers'" and its refusal to support resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Many in the human rights community and in the US and European diplomatic communities saw these decisions as a betrayal of the spirit of South Africa's own democratic transition and the international support that had facilitated it. Their criticisms defined the general perception of South Africa's performance.

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said on Saturday the ANC is giving the media time and space to review its self-regulatory system.

During a joint indaba between the South African National Editors' Forum (Sanef) and government in Magaliesburg on Saturday, Motlanthe emphasised that if concerns about the system were addressed there may be no need for a media appeals tribunal.

A brave Cape Flats woman has spoken out about her horrific rape ordeal at the hands of her trusted doctor the day before her son's burial.

If all you ever read about gay people in Africa is in the western media (including gay media), you would be forgiven for thinking it's one endless horror story.

South African freedom fighter and Nobel Peace Prize winner, former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, announced his retirement from public life during the first week of October.."The Arch," as he is known in his country, made good on a pledge he issued in July in a televised interview with the Reuters News Service that he would retire to spend more time with his family when he turned 79 on Oct. 7.

Roland Schoeman said on Saturday that he was "flabbergasted" and "utterly disappointed" that a section of the Australian media had attempted to paint him as a racist by "twisting" a statement he had made about the crowd in the Dr SP Mukherjee Aquatic Complex at the Commonwealth Games.

Schoeman was exonerated by Sascoc management yesterday of any "malice or racist reference" after calling a spectator who had shouted out during the start of the 50m freestyle semi-final on Friday night a "monkey". The spectator's shout had distracted him and Englishman Simon Burnett, with both falling into the pool, risking a false start and possible disqualification.

A South African based professor will appear in a New Zealand court in November in connection with his mother's death.

New Zealand born Sean Davidson was arrested in September for giving his cancer-ridden mother a lethal dose of morphine in 2006.

Two members of Afriforum Youth were kicked out of Loftus stadium during a rugby game on Saturday for displaying a banner with the words 'Sies Absa, ons eis meriete', the civil rights organisation said.

"The security guards who kicked out the students said that all are prohibited from saying anything against Absa who is the main sponsor of SA Rugby," said national chairman of Afriforum youth Ernst Roets.

Thousands of people took part in Africa's biggest Gay Pride event in Johannesburg on Saturday, aimed at drawing attention to the persecution of homosexuals across the continent.

Organisers said more than 18,000 people took part in the protest in the economic capital of South Africa, the only country in the continent which allows same-sex marriages.

On September 10, 2010 a South African high court banned a Muslim activist from organizing a "Bible burning day" at the Library Gardens in Johannesburg on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The event was meant to be a response to the planned Qur'an burning in Florida by Pastor Terry Jones.

An Islamic intellectual organization, The Scholars of Truth, launched a court interdict to prevent Mohammed Vawda from organizing the event. The defense, led by Attorneys Zehir Omar and Yasmin Omar, argued that the protest would be insulting to all religions and would only serve to divide people. Zehir Omar and Yasmin Omar are a married Muslim couple.

After 11-months of international scrutiny, Caster Semenya was officially cleared last month to compete as a woman -- but it seems the South African runner's metaphorical marathon is far from over. You didn't think the debate over her sex would be settled once the I.A.A.F. issued its ruling, did you? (Yes? Aw, your naive optimism is cute. No? Wise cynic, teach me your ways.) The New York Times reports today on Semenya's Sunday win in the women's 800 meters and quotes a couple competitors who haven't exactly been put at ease by the I.A.A.F.'s verdict.

Caster Semenya's coach says the South African athlete is happy to turn her back on negative comments about her.Semenya, 19, returned to competition in July after 11 months on the sidelines following a series of gender tests.

She made it three wins from three with another 800m win in Berlin on Sunday, finishing in one minute 59.90 seconds.

The World Bank is investigating possible violations of its policies and procedures related to the awarding of its $3.75bn loan to power utility Eskom.

In a statement to the World Bank board, Inspection Panel chairperson Reberto Lenton clarified that the investigation related to "allegations of violations of World Bank operational policies and procedures".

The Phiphidi Waterfalls are a majestic site hidden between thick trees and lush green vegetation in the far north of South Africa, near the border with Zimbabwe.

The falls are surrounded by large trees with roots that reach out over the water like arms raised in worship of the area considered sacred by the local Venda community.

But the area's natural beauty means it is also a prime site to attract holiday-makers - and their money - to the impoverished region.

Minister of Justice Jeff Radebe said on Sunday government will not pass laws that are unconstitutional.

Radebe was trying to allay the fears of journalists about the proposed Protection of Information Bill.

Moses ka Moyo has lived in Hillbrow for the past 11 years - working tirelessly as a community activist trying to bring change in the lives of average people, foreign and local.

His mission, with community workers, has been to create a sense of a real life in a place where few people would have wanted to live 10 years ago.

Never before has the Zimbabwean-born Ka Moyo felt as uncertain, or so in danger of his life, as he did last week.

Forty thousand: that is how many cases of human trafficking were predicted to occur during the World Cup.Zero: that's the actual number of reported cases.

In the months leading up to the World Cup, Minister of Women, Youth, Children and People with Disabilities Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya expressed fears that human trafficking might turn out to be the "dark side" of the celebrations, but experts denounced the fears, labelling them an exaggeration.

Over the last couple of weeks there has been a massacre of ethnic Uzbeks on border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. According to the AP, "Entire Uzbek neighborhoods in southern Kyrgyzstan were reduced to scorched ruins by rampaging mobs of ethnic Kyrgyz, who forced nearly half of the region's roughly 800,000 Uzbeks to flee. Interim President Roza Otunbayeva says as many as 2,000 people may have died in the clashes." Almost all of the homes of these displace Uzbeks have been burned to the ground, their business trashed, and the police that the Kyrgyzstan government sent in to "protect" the returning Uzbeks are not to be trusted. The UN has appealed for 71 million dollars to rebuild, but nothing has been done to assist the returning Uzbeks at present, other than some food supplies, which have been stolen. Which brings up a question that has bothered me for a very long time. Why does the world champion some human rights causes, while almost totally ignoring others?

"It was in 1968 or 1969, and I was a young intern counseling a girl from one of South Africa's townships, who'd been raped. She said, 'If only I had teeth down there,'" Ehlers told AOL News. "And I thought, God, it would be great to make something that could really be useful."

South African Dr. Sonnet Ehlers was on call one night four decades ago when a devastated rape victim walked in. Her eyes were lifeless; she was like a breathing corpse.

A man has been convicted of strangling his common-law wife after finding she was cheating on him.

But Ramakgale Mokoena claimed in mitigation that he put his hands around Tebogo Brenda Ramafatse's throat to make her let go of his testicles. A row broke out on November 28, when Mokoena visited Ramafatse at the Tshikondeni mine in Venda where she lived and worked, the Pretoria High Court heard.

"Somali Islamist militants killed two people and arrested dozens of others for breaking a ban on watching the World Cup on television, residents said.

It's the iconic image that grabbed the world's attention and helped change the course of South African history.

Thirty-four years ago Wednesday, on June 16, 1976, thousands of black school children in Soweto, South Africa, took to the streets to protest the apartheid education system that obliged them to be taught in Afrikaans.

The SA government summoned the Israeli ambassador to demand the release of a South African journalist held after a raid on a ship in Israel on Monday.South Africa's deputy minister of international relations, Sue van der Merwe, summoned Israeli ambassador Dov Segev-Steinberg to register the government's "strongest possible protest" to the Israeli government, after an attack on the ship, the Mavi Marmara on Monday morning.

A sex worker who was dismissed from a brothel for not performing her duties properly has won an important case in the Labour Appeal Court.

Judge President Raymond Zondo, Judge Dennis Davis and Judge Achmat Jappie ruled that just because someone worked in an illegal profession, this did not mean they had no rights under the Labour Relations Act.

For nearly three weeks now, a strange sensation, something like limbo or maybe the silence after battle, has descended on South Africa. Julius Malema has shut up. The man who has filled newspaper front pages for over a year with an almost daily stream of prejudice and rage is suddenly silent. Even a five-day late-April visit to Venezuela to study the petronationalism of Hugo Chávez produced neither a racial tirade nor a press conference. In his absence, South Africa is finding time for more everyday worries, like crime or AIDS or whether it will be ready to host all humanity at the soccer World Cup in a month's time. No one expects the peace to last.

The teenage AWB youth leader who threatened the life of his ANC counterpart Julius Malema has gone to ground. Leon Geldenhuys, a 17-year-old Grade 10 pupil, who was forced to resign from the far-right-wing movement after telling Malema to meet him down the barrel of a gun, is in hiding.

Last week, the Sunday tabloid Sondag reported that Geldenhuys had been exiled to Australia. But this week the family denied this.

President Jacob Zuma has lashed top civil servants as he described administrative systems in the government as the worst in the world.

He said that apartheid could no longer be blamed for service delivery ills, and that directors-general - and not junior officials - should personally handle public queries. He said lack of accountability, and not money, was responsible for most of the country's service delivery problems.

If the man UAE police believe murdered Kerry Winter is given the death sentence, her family will bargain with his life - to finally get her body back.

This week, her family told the Saturday Star, they hoped her ex-boyfriend, 42-year-old Briton Mark Arnold, would finally reveal what he had done with her body.

Judgment will be given in Arnold's case next month. He stands accused of bludgeoning the 36-year-old South African with a baseball bat and dropping her body into the ocean.

Police in this small town in eastern South Africa thought they had a problem with prostitutes they could solve in the usual way — arrest the women and get them off the streets.

More than three years after he was barred from entering the United States, South African political science professor Adam Habib finally got to speak to audiences around Boston this week.

One in four men in South Africa have admitted to rape and many confess to attacking more than one victim, according to a study that exposes the country's endemic culture of sexual violence.

Dumisani Rebombo wasn't circumcised, did chores considered girls' work and was sick of being taunted for not being a man. So at age 15, he took the only course considered "manly" in his rural South African village: He raped a girl.