The rise of independent candidates emerging from the structures of the ANC and its alliance partners was the biggest challenge the ruling party faced in the run-up to the May 18 general elections, Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi warned. 'These people basically showed the middle finger to everyone. It’s the biggest crisis we are facing and if we don’t stop it we are all doomed,' Vavi told the Pretoria News.

Equal Education is calling on the people of South Africa to write to Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga. 'Let’s flood her with letters,' says the blog Writing Rights. 'We are asking all teachers to write letters and to organise time in your classes for learners to write these letters. Spread this e-mail appeal far and wide. Tell the Minister about the need for libraries, laboratories, clean and safe toilets, adequate classrooms, sports fields, and staff rooms.'

More than 265 participants from ten Southern African countries will converge in Johannesburg, South Africa from 28-30 March 2011 for the second Gender Justice and Local Government Summit. The event showcases examples of local efforts to end gender violence and empower women across Southern Africa. Convened by Gender Links under the banner 365 Days of local action to end gender violence, the summit is being attended by journalists, local government authorities, municipalities, NGOs and representatives of ministries of gender and local government.

Parliament this week, has been labelled inhumane, ill-conceived and draconian by lawyers and human rights activists, who say that asylum-seekers and refugees will be hard hit by it. 'The Bill favours the rich at the expense of the vulnerable,' said Fatima Khan, the director of the University of Cape Town's refugee rights project. Khan said the Bill allowed for asylum-seekers to be pre-screened at South Africa's border, in spite of the fact that immigration officials were not qualified to do this.

The Commission for Gender Equality says the Employment Equity Act needs to be reviewed. The call came after it emerged that black women had not significantly progressed in occupying positions of executive management in the corporate sector. The latest Women in Leadership Census 2011, which the Businesswomen’s Association (BWA) presented on Thursday (24 March), showed the percentage of female executive managers had increased, but the number of black women appointed had decreased. The census focuses on JSE-listed companies, state-owned enterprises and government departments.

Over a thousand claimant families who are claiming in excess of 18,000 hectares of land in the Weenen, Mooi River and Estcourt areas have waited since 1998 for the claim to be settled, according to the Association for Rural Advancement. 'In 1998 three communities (the AmaThembu, the AmaChunu and the Motane) submitted claims for restoration of land in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act (Act 22 of 1994) to the Provincial Commissioner in KwaZulu-Natal. Despite it being in the interests of all parties to resolve this matter speedily, the Commission took three years merely to confirm and gazette two of these claims and a staggering seven years to do so in respect of the third claim. This was the start of a pattern of inaction and delay on the part of the Commission that has persisted until the present.'

The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a leading non-profit that uses international law to defend the right to a healthy planet, has announced the release of a new report, 'Fossilized Thinking: The World Bank, Eskom, and the Real Cost of Coal'. The report examines the economics underlying the Bank’s $3 billion loan to support a massive new coal-fired plant in South Africa. Specifically, the report evaluates whether the Bank adequately considered the impacts the 4,800 MW Eskom Project will have on human health and the environment and the likely economic costs of these impacts. The Bank’s operational policies require that these ‘externalities’ be taken into account to determine whether a project’s long-term economic benefits outweigh its costs. CIEL’s analysis reveals that, at least in this case, the Bank failed to adequately address and quantify important negative environmental effects, such as water scarcity and quality, air quality, and transboundary impacts.

Free Gender is a black lesbian organisation based in the Khayelitsha township of Cape Town. Their blog contains news about LGBTI issues and events.

Several organisations used Human Rights Day to voice their dissatisfaction with the eThekwini municipality, accusing it of violating human rights by failing to deliver services to needy communities. Hundreds marched to the Durban city hall, with some threatening to boycott the local government election on May 18. Representatives and supporters of Right2Know, shack dwellers’ organisation Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA, the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, ratepayers’ associations, the Durban Social Forum and KZN Subsistence Fishermen were among the marchers.

Nobody seems to like the Land Tenure Security Bill, writes PLAAS Senior Researcher Ruth Hall. 'It has raised the ire of both of the constituencies whose interests it sets out to address: those who own commercial farms and those who live and work on them. Contrary to its name, the Land Tenure Security Bill appears to deal largely not with how to secure people’s land tenure, but rather how to manage their resettlement off farms.'

About 20,000 pupils from various schools across Cape Town marched on Parliament on 21 March, appealing to the Department of Education to build libraries and to adopt 'norms and standards' for all schools in the country. The huge turnout at the Equal Education event rivalled the government's rally featuring President Jacob Zuma, which took place just 10km away at Athlone Stadium. The march was part of Equal Education's campaign to put pressure on the national education Ministry to build infrastructure, including libraries, at schools.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has said that South African workers, together with workers representatives from around the globe, will demand that the Competition Tribunal protects the local economy and reject Wal-Mart's unconditional entry into the country. Wal-Mart in November made a R16.5 billion cash offer to acquire 51 per cent of Massmart at R148 per Massmart share - a smaller stake than the initial 100 per cent offer in September.

Forty per cent of South Africa’s 48 million people are poor, and more than half of poor people are female. Around 2.5 million households are still without any access to electricity while four million households do not use electricity for cooking. This could easily mean that 20 million people still rely on dirty, polluting fuels – most of whom are women. This is the background to an Earthlife Africa Jhb report entitled 'Second Class Citizens: Gender, energy and climate change in South Africa'.

Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) has questioned the media's priority in dealing with issues facing women, especially gender-based violence and representation of women in media. It pointed out that the epidemic of rhino poaching has been very present in media headlines and coverage - showing an increase in deaths from 133 in 2009 to 333 in 2010 - but that in the same period, 197,000 cases of crimes against women were reported to police, including murder, attempted murder, common assault, sexual offences and assault to cause grievous bodily harm.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights has presented its third annual Human Rights Report Card on South Africa. 'During the past year South Africans have continued to enjoy most of the constitutional rights to which they are entitled. However, proposed legislation and government initiatives raise very serious concerns with regard to some core rights such as freedom of expression; property rights; important aspects of the right to equality; and freedom of trade, occupation and profession; labour relations; and the right to freedom and security of the person,' the report says.

The highest court of the land has ruled invalid the law enacted to disband the former elite crime-fighting unit, the Directorate of Special Operations (or 'the Scorpions'). The Court’s two main findings are that: first, the state is constitutionally bound to 'establish and maintain an independent body to combat corruption and organised crime'; and second, that the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation ('the Hawks') established after the disbanding of the Scorpions 'does not meet the constitutional requirement of adequate independence' and is 'insufficiently insulated from political influence in its structure and functioning'.

South African police are becoming more brutal by the day, with civil cases against them pushing the contingent liability budget to a whopping R7.5 billion in the last financial year. The Sunday Tribune has revealed that the sharp spike in brutal action by the police has prompted the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) to investigate three times more severe assault cases last year than in 2001.

As the nuclear crisis unfolds in Japan, Democracy Now! reports from South Africa on the government’s plan to triple the country’s nuclear fleet in order to meet rising energy demand. Democracy Now! speaks with South African nuclear expert David Fig, who says, 'We need to really assess as a country whether we want to go down the nuclear road for further energy purposes.' Democracy Now! also speaks to Makoma Lekalakala of Earthlife Africa, who says that the country’s significant potential for solar and wind energy should be developed.

Despite formal recognition of domestic workers' rights in South Africa, they still face a struggle for fair treatment. In June this year, the second and final reading of an International Labour Organisation Convention on the rights of domestic workers will take place. If it is adopted, it would strengthen legal protection for millions of the most vulnerable workers worldwide.

This report from the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa examines the impact of attempts to formalise street trading in the City of Durban since 2000 on the livelihood of traders, particularly female and migrant traders. 'Durban has been at the forefront of developing policies to manage and control informal economy activities; however, as the report notes, the effect of the push for formalisation is exclusionary and mimics the influx control regimes of the apartheid administration, which prevented black communities from pursuing business opportunities in central business districts,' says the abstract of the report.