More than 20% of South African domestic workers earn less than the government’s stipulated minimum wage, with a fifth of the 1 100 respondents in a survey earning less than R500 a month, a new report reveals. According to Migration and Domestic Workers: Worlds of Work, Health and Mobility in Johannesburg, about 55,7% of respondents earned between R501 and R1 000 a month.

The Cape Town council has started transferring deeds to the first group of 24 land claimants almost two years after they returned to District Six. But the city’s move has come too late for one of the District Six elders who signed the agreement for the return of the land before President Thabo Mbeki at the emotional ”Homecoming” ceremony in November 2000.

This weekend’s final list meeting in Cape Town’s largest township, Khayelitsha, will test provincial African National Congress leaders’ claim that tensions in the party are caused by a ”small number” of disgruntled members who lost out during the nomination process. Khayelitsha has been at the centre of the upheavals.

The future existence of Orania as an Afrikaner volkstaat is being challenged by a land claim. Gazetted in August, the restitution claim on the Northern Cape town has surprised the 600-strong community, which is already embroiled in a battle with the government to win the right to self-determination.

”The loudspeaker at Johannesburg’s Park Station announces the arrival of train 9426 for Soweto, and commuters trample each another to catch what might be the last train for a long time. I am forced through a narrow door with at least 15 other people. We’re all tired, sweaty and squashed as the train moves off,” writes the Mail&Guardian‘s Monako Dibetle.