When it comes to social media's heavy hitters, there are no bigger players than Facebook or Twitter, right? Not if you're in South Africa. Mobile network Mxit claims to have nearly 10 million users in the country, making it South Africa's most popular social media platform by far, eclipsing Facebook's six million users and Twitter's 1.1 million subscribers. Founded seven years ago by Namibian-born software developer Herman Heunis, Mxit has grown from an instant messaging application into a global mobile social network.

A woman is killed every eight hours in South Africa, the Medical Research Council (MRC) told MPs. The number of femicides identified had decreased from 3793 in 1999 to 2363 in 2009, MRC researchers told Parliament’s portfolio committees on health, and women, children and people with disabilities. It was presenting the findings of its latest study into female murders.

South Africa grants almost every patent application it receives, making its patent regime one of the world’s most lenient. While pharmaceutical companies cash in, patients face staggering healthcare costs, and medicines like cancer treatments, third-line antiretrovirals (ARVs) and treatments for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) are often priced out of reach. According to activists from Médecins Sans Frontières’s (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines and the South Africa AIDS lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), easy patents mean companies can extend their exclusive right to manufacture and sell certain drugs, a process known as evergreening.

After being banished from his homeland for opposing Shell’s mining activities in the Niger Delta, vocal Nigerian environmental activist and writer Barry Wuganaale has called on South Africans to rally against the prospects of fracking for shale gas in the Karoo. Wuganaale, who witnessed the persecution many Ogonil people in the area where Shell has been operating since 1956 said in excess of R400 billion over 35 years would be needed to rehabilitate the once fertile agriculture land in the Niger Delta damaged by excessive oil mining.

Human rights organisations are taking the Department of Home Affairs to court after 39 migrants were allegedly detained for longer than the maximum 120 days at the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp. The Legal Resources Centre is acting on behalf of the migrants, some of whom claim to have been detained at the center for 16 months. The 39 migrants, who have formed a joint application to the court, were interviewed by refugee-rights lobby group People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (Passop) who sent a monitor to investigate detentions at the center five months ago.

As Gold Fields announced its operations resumed, another operator said it was hit by a strike, suggesting labour unrest in the mines is far from over. Gold Fields said the reinstatement of 8,500 dismissed workers at its KDC East operations near Johannesburg had ended a 23-day strike and heralded a return to production. But Village Main Reef, one of South Africa's smaller gold producers, said employees at its Buffelsfontein Gold Mine had embarked on a wildcat strike.

South African police have been accused of planting weapons near the bodies of workers killed during strikes at the Marikana platinum mine. Photographs taken by police suggested large knives had been placed near the bodies after they had been shot, a lawyer told an inquest into the deaths. Thirty-four miners were killed when police opened fire on the striking workers at the mine in August.

A large number of clinics and hospitals in the Eastern Cape are experiencing critical medicine shortages and stock outs while surgery and other procedures have virtually grind to a halt due to a wildcat strike by staff at the Mthatha Health Complex (MHC). The strike is affecting over 100 rural clinics and a number of hospitals, with some using their own vehicles to drive to Mthatha in the hope of getting drugs from the medicines depot. Regional hospitals have also reported that referrals for anything from x-rays to surgery has virtually stopped.

Young South African women who engage in sex or have relationships partially motivated by economic gain are more likely to become infected with HIV, Rachel Jewkes and colleagues report in the Journal of AIDS & Clinical Research. These data add to previous findings from this cohort showing that women who had a violent partner or who were relatively powerless in a relationship were more likely subsequently to acquire HIV.

The quality of South Africa's maths and science education has been ranked last in a survey of 62 countries by the World Economic Forum. The report ranked South Africa 54th when it came to gross tertiary enrolment - behind India, but ahead of Morocco, Ghana, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya, and Tanzania. The country placed 28th overall, and was the top-ranked sub-Saharan African country.

A recent academic study has identified a range of mental health disorders suffered by shack dwellers in South Africa's Western Cape Province, from chronic insomnia to low self-esteem. The study, 'The Impact of Living in Transitional Communities; The Experiences of People in Blikkiesdorp and Happy Valley', was conducted by the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). Because of budget considerations, the study was constrained to two settlements.

South Africa’s first census in a decade shows wealth disparities between race groups that persist 18 years after the end of apartheid. While incomes for black households increased an average 169 percent over 10 years, their annual earnings are 60,613 rand ($6,987), or a sixth of that for whites, Statistics South Africa said in a report released in Cape Town. About 80 percent of South Africa’s 51.8 million population is black.

South African authorities exceeded their public powers and acted unlawfully and irrationally by granting refugee status to former Rwandan general and suspected war criminal Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa. This decision should be set aside. This is according to the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in SA, supported by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre. A decision in this case could have implications for others in the same position as Nyamwasa.

Police in South Africa say they have fired rubber bullets, teargas and stun grenades in clashes with hundreds of striking Anglo American platinum mine workers who barricaded roads outside Johannesburg. About 12,000 Amplats workers in northwestern Rustenburg who were dismissed early this month for going on an illegal strike were given an option to return to work on Tuesday morning if they want their jobs back.

South Africa has given the green light to an initial $5.4 billion worth of clean energy projects that will allow it to procure 1,400 MW of electricity and help reduce reliance on coal-fired plants, the energy minister said.

South African President Jacob Zuma has dropped a four-year-old lawsuit claiming nearly $600,000 in damages from a cartoonist who depicted him poised to rape "Lady Justice", his office said. The Sunday Times, named as a defendant in the case, also said on Sunday it had reached agreement with Zuma's lawyers for the suit and all claims to be ended.

Controversy is brewing as Parliament ignored an overwhelming number of submissions made by the public into the controversial Traditional Courts Bill. When MPs enquired as to why the other submissions were not considered, committee chairperson, Tjheta Mofokeng dropped the bombshell about irrelevance to the Bill. This is the abuse of power by department, said Independent Democrats MP John Gunda.

Although FNB is the bank of choice for refugees as it allows them to open an account, many refugee account holders are struggling to get their money out again. Three refugee rights organisations said refugees – particularly asylum seekers – who wished to withdraw more money than the limit imposed on their ATM card, were told they first needed to obtain a letter from the Department of Home Affairs verifying their asylum documents.

A 25-year-old asylum seeker lodged a complaint of bribery with the police against a Cape Town Foreshore Home Affairs official last week. Tatenda Chiguni (not his real name) also claims that his asylum document, which was processed after he laid the charges, was altered from its original state. The altered asylum document includes a condition stating that he should leave South Africa by 11 November 2012 or lodge an appeal. It is unusual for asylum documents to include this condition upon renewal.

Police authorities have admitted that they may have been at fault in the Marikana mine shooting, with some officers either overreacting or mistakenly shooting at protesters in response to 'friendly-fire'. In an opening statement to the inquiry into the deaths of 34 workers at South Africa's Marikana mine, police officials said that 'the response of some police officers may have been disproportionate to the danger they faced from the group of more than 200 armed protesters'.