South African Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was elected on Sunday to become the first female head of the African Union (AU) Commission, ending a bruising leadership battle that had threatened to divide and weaken the organisation. Cheers broke out at the AU's soaring, Chinese-built steel and glass headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa as supporters of President Jacob Zuma's ex-wife celebrated her victory over incumbent Jean Ping of Gabon.

Over 500 foreign nationals have been displaced in xenophobic attacks in Botshabelo in the Free State, the SA Red Cross Society (Sarcs) said. The Red Cross said it was currently supporting 584 displaced foreigners at the community hall, providing food, blankets and other aid. 'Sarcs is pleading with the public, businesses and corporates to assist with clothes, school uniforms, toiletries and food to help the victims.'

SA's former ambassador to Iran will remain on full-paid suspension until the foreign ministry's investigation into allegations that he accepted bribe money from MTN is completed. Clayson Monyela, spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, confirmed that Yusuf Saloojee, currently SA's ambassador to Oman, has been suspended by the department, on full pay.

In this article about the state of South Africa's public health system, a doctor relates her experience of working on a trauma ward. 'We shouldn’t, however, allow our feelings about how perfect we expect nurses and doctors to be to blind us to the real problem, which is the shambles in which the Department of Health has left our healthcare system,' she writes. 'It is not clinicians on the ground who decide how many hospitals there should be, how many beds those hospitals should contain, what services those hospitals should offer, and how well those hospitals should be staffed. Those things are decided by administrators, as they should be. Those administrators are appointed by the Department of Health, also as it should be. And the Department of Health is run by a bunch of politicians, who are doing the most terrible job of representing the interests of the people who put them there.'

In this article from Doron Isaacs writes about the murder of Mnoneleli Ngubo, a friend and a fellow leader in Equal Education and the fifth member of Equal Education to be killed in the past three years. 'What Mylord fought for was something a little different, a decent society based on solidarity. The level of investment and reform that will be needed to achieve this is not even under discussion. The work now to be done will surely be harder without him.'

Cartoonist Zapiro had social networks abuzz with his latest cartoon which depicts President Jacob Zuma as a large phallus. Most Twitter users felt that the cartoon was distasteful and undermined Jonathan Shapiro's often accurate social commentary. Mail & Guardian editor, Nic Dawes, defended the publication’s decision to publish the cartoon. The ANC as well as its Women’s League condemned the cartoon in strong terms.

South Africa's education system is spiralling out of control and failing millions of pupils. From failure to deliver textbooks to unpaid bills and corrupt education officials, not much has been achieved since 1994. Former health minister Barbara Hogan has added her voice to the growing list of critics lambasting the failures of the country's education system. Speaking at non-governmental organisation Equal Education's national conference, Hogan urged young people to mobilise and 'start holding government accountable', adding the 1976 Soweto uprising showed pupils' strength.

Apartheid will not end and black people will not have real freedom until free and high quality education becomes a reality, says Zwelinzima Vavi. 'Education is certainly not free and equal for all, we have huge inequalities in our education provision,' Cosatu's general secretary said on Sunday. Vavi was speaking at the opening of the Equal Education national summit.

United Nations ambassadors for South Africa and Brazil have demanded more action and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity as part as universal human rights standards, and to combat hate crimes. The Ambassador of South Africa to the United Nations, on behalf of his country and Brazil, delivered a statement on 2 July to the United Nations Humans Rights Council, saying that LGBT rights are part of the Universal standard of Human Rights, and demanding action against discrimination and hate crimes.

HIV care and treatment has come a long way in the past decade, write Brian Honermann and Mark Heywood in this opinion piece marking 10 years since South Africa's Constitutional Court upheld the constitutional right of all HIV positive pregnant women to access health care services to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT). 'In 2002, an HIV positive mother would pass on HIV to her baby about 30% of the time. With access to Nevirapine the transmission rate was cut in half. Now, with better drug regimens being used, transmission of HIV from mothers to babies happens in only about 4% of cases during or shortly after birth.'

South Africa needs to urgently look to countries such as Rwanda, Thailand and Brazil, where they have employed community health workers (CHWs) to deliver a range of primary health care services that dramatically reduced mortality, public health expert Professor David Sanders told the National Health Assembly (NHA). Speaking during a plenary session, Sanders said by extending the scope of what CHWs could do and by supporting properly selected and trained individuals, the country could make a very real impact on maternal and child mortality.

Call for applications for masters, doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2013: The Programme on the Study of the Humanities in Africa (PSHA) at the University of the Western Cape invites suitably qualified candidates to apply for masters, doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships for the 2013 academic year. The PSHA is an exciting research platform based in the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) dedicated to redefining Humanities research in and about the postcolonial world and making sense of the driving forces of globalization and nationalism. It is backed by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Ben Cousins, co-author of 'Land, Power & Custom: Controversies generated by South Africa’s Communal Land Rights Act' and Research Chair at the Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at UWC, recently talked with Talk Radio 702 about the difficulties surrounding land distribution. He stated that the fair distribution of land was an enormously complex issue, but that there was no need to change the Constitution in order to distribute land. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link provided.

The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) has welcomed the news that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) will work closely with Section27 to resolve the text book crisis in Limpopo and that they have indicated that they intend meeting with civil society. This was revealed in a joint statement by Section27 and the DBE on Thursday 28 June 2012. Sarah Sephton, the LRC’s director in Grahamstown said the LRC has not had any response from the Minister of Basic Education’s office on the non-delivery of workbooks in the Eastern Cape and urged the Minister to adopt a similar approach to this issue as she has taken to the text books.

South African newspaper City Press reports that the ANC policy conference recommended the boycott of Israeli products as one of its planks to support the Palestinian freedom struggle. 'This is a significant policy shift in its relationship with Israel. At the policy conference the ANC delegates cheered the action by Minister Rob Davies to ensure that products from illegal Israeli settlements are re-labelled,' comments the blog Writing Rights.

Namibia Dairies, a subsidiary of the Ohlthaver and List Group, loses up to N$20 million a year due to South African predatory pricing practices, while the production of Namibian cheese has already been halted, because the market has been killed by South African products. This was revealed by the Managing Director of Namibia Dairies, Hubertus Hamm, during a visit by Botswana President Lieutenant-General Seretse Khama Ian Khama to the dairy Super Farm at Mariental.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has vowed to mobilise more communities to fight for quality health should the Gauteng Health Department not deliver on their demands. Angry TAC members marched to the office of the Gauteng Health MEC, Ntombi Mekgwe, this week, demanding an end to the drug shortage in health facilities. Health services in Gauteng have been dealt a severe blow due to drug stock outs which have been ongoing for months.

South Africa is getting two-thirds fewer applications for asylum than a few years ago, but researchers say officials make such bad decisions that the whole system is now meaningless. Department of Home Affairs (DHA) officials are so biased and administratively unfair that asylum-seekers are systematically rejected, resulting in an asylum system which 'functions solely as an instrument of immigration control', according to a report by researcher Dr Roni Amit, of the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University.

South Africa has agreed to contribute around R16,6-billion to an International Monetary Fund 'firewall' meant to prevent future financial crises. President Jacob Zuma committed some of South Africa’s reserves at the G20 summit, a meeting of the world’s greatest economies, in Los Cabos, Mexico, spokesperson Jabulani Sikhakhane said.

The government is insensitive to the needs of the poor and does not understand the economic plight faced by many state employees. This is the sentiment of many public sector workers as the state and unions wrangle through wage negotiations, and while unions haven’t explicitly threatened to strike, their members are already preparing themselves for industrial action. The government suspended talks with unions last week, claiming they had no more money to put on the table.