It took them a while to wake up and stop arguing about whose fault it was, but almost three weeks after xenophobic attacks against foreign nationals began, authorities in the worst-affected provinces have moved into action. Reintegration is the new game plan of the national government, Gauteng and the Western Cape.
While South Africa reeled in shock this week and the cumbersome machinery of international organisations creaked to life, the most effective responses to the xenophobic attacks came from municipalities, ordinary citizens and faith groups.
Artists exhibiting at Johannesburg's Kaross gallery have expressed what the new South African phenomenon of load-shedding means to them. And in some cases, it's darkly (or electrifyingly) personal. Close your eyes as you pass Damien Grivas's interpretation of the shedding of a load. The subject of the photograph is literally him taking the power crisis into his own hands.
In the same week that the Johannesburg High Court declared prepaid water meters to be ''unconstitutional and unlawful'', the City of Cape Town indicated it intends to roll out more than 20Â 000 water meters within the next year. Last week Judge Moroa Tsoka found the City of Johannesburg's imposition of meters that cut off residents' water supplies once they reach the free basic monthly limit to be ''unlawful and unreasonable''.