‘A failed municipality wants to give the freedom of Grahamstown to a failed president,’ writes South Africa’s Unemployed People’s Movement, as Makana Muncipality awards Jacob Zuma the freedom of the city on 14 July.

'The profiteering of SA’s businesses (enabled by lax compliance with labour law and weak regulation of trade and capital flows) stand in the way of creating decent jobs that can offer the majority of South Africa’s the dignity prescribed in our Constitution. In this context the Alternative Information Development Centre (AIDC) supports the struggle of NUMSA and other unions for a living wage. A victory for them will set a better standard for the whole labour market.'

Having been illegally evicted from a building in Johannesburg’s CBD, several hundred people were able to return to their homes after an urgent hearing at the Johannesburg High Court. The residents had been evicted from their homes without a court order by the City of Johannesburg’s Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) and Fire Brigade officials. Hundreds of women and children, including 50 blind people, were locked out of their home by JMPD officers. The officers readily conceded that they had no court order but said that they were 'only following orders'.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela anticipates she will have some tough questions for the government once her probe into missing apartheid billions gets under way. This week Madonsela announced she had reversed her initial decision not to investigate allegations that upwards of R26 billion was looted from state coffers via various schemes under apartheid. The allegations originate from a report compiled by a UK-based investigation and asset recovery firm, Ciex, which alleges it was contracted by the government to track billions which were siphoned from the government in the dying years of apartheid.

ANC eThekwini regional secretary Sbu Sibiya was shot dead at his home in Inanda, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Tuesday, 12 July. Brigadier Phindile Radebe said Sibiya (40) was shot in his driveway at 10pm on Monday. He had just returned from his office in Durban.

It's early morning in Zandspruit and police are barricading one end of the road. At the other end, behind a blockade of trees, rocks and burning tyres, a mob of young and old emerge, singing struggle songs. The protest started at 3am and will not stop until their councillor addresses them. It's been two months since South African local government elections, and the community is fuming that no one has come to address them since. As they march they carry posters that are calling for councillor Maureen Schneeman to step down.

Four Numsa members were injured when police shot them with rubber bullets during an engineering sector strike in Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, the metalworkers' union claimed on Thursday, 7 July. The union's spokesman Castro Ngobese said the four men were in hospital and a case had been opened at a local police station. He condemned the alleged shooting, during protests for higher wages. On Wednesday Numsa claimed police intimidated, harassed, shot at and arrested strikers in Bellville, Cape Town and Germiston, Johannesburg.

Shell South Africa has been ordered to withdraw 'unsubstantiated' and 'misleading' claims it made in full-page advertisements in newspapers about its use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for shale gas exploration in the Karoo. The ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was welcomed by Jonathan Deal, chairman of the Treasure the Karoo Action Group (TKAG), who laid the complaint. 'It is critical that with an issue so important to South Africa as fracking that the public is not misled, as Shell clearly intended in its advertising.'

KPFA 94.1FM recently interviewed Desmond D'sa, chairperson of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance in South Africa, who was on a visit to the United States ahead of the COP17 meeting scheduled for Durban in late 2011. D'sa described the key themes of his visit as exposing the greed of corporates and the destruction that they cause, emphasising the message that corporates can be challenged and tackled, and the importance of linking up local issues with national issues in South Africa.

In light of the increasing homophobia perpetuated against marginalised gay asylum-seekers and immigrants, a Cape Town based community organisation, PASSOP (People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty) has launched a Gay Refugee Programme, aimed at supporting and building a network for this group. In a statement, David von Burgsdorff, Programme Coordinator for PASSOP said, 'recognizing the vulnerability, the programme will provide support and advocacy for this social group and will include a solidarity network to unite Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) refugees, asylum-seekers and immigrants by providing them with outlets for emotional support and counseling.'

Two deaths recently marked the South African political landscape - one of a well-known former government minister, the other of a community organiser. When it came to water, the two were on opposite sides of the political battle lines: Kader Asmal implemented a commericalised water policy while Thulisile Christina Manqele fought against that policy. Both leave a legacy, writes Patrick Bond.

The temperature climbed a few degrees in the arms deal kitchen this week as the Swedish prosecutorial authority directed a seemingly low-key missive to South African counterparts inquiring whether investigations into the defence procurement scandal had been reopened. The letter, under the signature of Gunnar Stetler, the director of the Swedish National Anti-Corruption Unit, notes that details have come to light of what he describes as an alleged 'bribery scheme towards South Africa', and asks whether in response to the new information, the South African judicial authorities have seen fit to open preliminary investigations.

Amid growing factional conflict and infighting in the province, which was solidly united behind Jacob Zuma at the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference, disgruntled members in the Moses Mabhida region continued their six-week-long sit-in protest against corruption and internal dysfunction at the party's regional branch headquarters in Pietermaritzburg. Tellingly, the protesters have strong support from the South African Communist Party and its youth league, as well as Cosatu.

In a week that saw two Somali traders shot dead in Cape Town and two more in Port Elizabeth, the South African government's handling of xenophobia received the lowest possible rating in a report by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Monitoring Project. Three years after widespread violence against foreigners broke out across the country, evaluators from the Monitoring Project noted that the government had failed to prioritize the issue, and that 'there is even an element of denialism on the part of some officials'. Tara Polzer Ngwato, of the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, agreed with the assessment. 'Government responses have been fragmented, poorly resourced and with limited political commitment,' despite a significant rise in attacks on foreign-owned shops in several provinces since the beginning of 2011.

The battle for Cosatu is balanced on a knife edge. This week its central committee postponed key debates as various lobby groups pulled it in different directions. The Blade Nzimande-led South African Communist Party (SACP) tugged it to take a moderate and less critical stance towards government policies and ANC president Jacob Zuma's leadership. Pulling on the other side, Cosatu's general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, stood accused of agitating for 'regime change' as he went for broke, criticising the government's new growth path and the planning commission's diagnostic report. The debates and divisions on the government's economic policies were also a proxy war between those who want Cosatu to support the present top six ANC leaders and those who, in tandem with the ANC Youth League, propose to replace ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe and Zuma with new leaders.

Opposition MPs and Parliament guests were shocked as the chairwoman of the parliamentary oversight committee on home affairs, Maggie Maunye, implied that foreigners flocking to the country were soaking up resources and preventing South Africans from enjoying their freedom. Maunye made the remarks on Wednesday at the conclusion of a briefing of her committee by Home Affairs officials. The delegation included deputy home affairs minister Fatima Chohan, and had dealt with the issue of refugee reception centres.

Governance gaps were considered in Midrand, South Africa on 28 June, when the APRM Monitoring Project (AMP) - run jointly by SAIIA, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) and the Africa Governance, Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) - launced its independent assessment of governance in South Africa entitled 'Implementing the APRM: Views from Civil Society'.

Is microfinance is helping families out of poverty or merely plunging them into debt? Khadija Sharife speaks with one recipient about her experience.

The infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate are globally regarded as among the best indicators of the health of a community, argue three University of Cape Town professors in this article about informal settlements. 'In Khayelitsha about 60 children among every 1,000 born alive die of diarrhoea-related illness before their fifth birthday - 10 times more than in our southern suburbs. That under the prevailing conditions this number is not appreciably higher could be ascribed to households doing their utmost to maintain as high a standard of hygiene as possible.'

The countrywide shortage of neurologists is preventing people with epilepsy from getting proper care in the public sector. Epilepsy is supposed to be diagnosed by a neurologist, but in Gauteng there are only three hospitals with neurology departments. This means that everyone in the province who has epilepsy has to visit either Johannesburg General, Chris Hani Baragwanath or Pretoria Academic hospitals. Epilepsy can, for the most part, be controlled by daily medication but people normally only receive a six-months prescription.