On Friday 12 October, the Democratic Governance & Rights Unit (DGRU) of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Sonke Gender Justice Network, lodged a formal complaint with the office of the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) calling on the CGE to investigate the lack of gender transformation in the judiciary. Research conducted by the DGRU reveals that at the Constitutional Court only two of eleven justices are women and at the Supreme Court of Appeal only seven of 24 judges are women.

Heavy rains that lashed South Africa's southeast left eight people dead over the weekend and caused extensive damage to property, an official said. Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown were the hardest hit, with a road linking the two towns closed to traffic after a large part of it collapsed. 'Most of the flood victims drowned, other people died in a road accidents,' said John Fobian, a spokesman for regional disaster management.

The Makause Creative Youth Brigade (MCYB) and the Makause Community Development Forum (Macodefo) are organising a march on Friday, 19 October 2012 against police brutality at Primrose Police Station (near Germiston in Ekurhuleni). The march forms part of the ‘One Makause, One Community Police Brutality Campaign’ under the Asihambi Land, Housing & Zero Evictions Campaign.

Date: Friday, 19th October 2012
Time: 12h30 pm
Venue: People will congregate at the Makause Sports Ground at the Makause Informal Settlement in Primrose and proceed to the Primrose Police Station to hand over a Memorandum to the Primrose SAPS.

The Makause community is uniting for a better, safer and crime-free kasi and demands:

· an end to police brutality
· an end to forced bribery/corruption
· proper investigation of un-attended to cases of crime
· an end to police politics and support of mob groups
· arrest of the mob group that attacked the Macodefo leadership and
destroyed the community office
· an urgent response to reported crimes.

This march to Primrose Police Station is to say:

* Enough is Enough!
* Never and Never Again!
* An Injury to One is an Injury to All!
* Makause Cannot Be Divided by the Police!
* We Have a Right to Survive/Life!
* We Have the Right to Organize, Gather, Assemble, Picket & Demonstrate!

For more information contact:

General Moyo: 073 430 7006 / [email][email protected]
Michael Dzai: 083 5023863

South African children have equal rights under the Constitution, but the worlds into which they are born and their opportunities in life are very unequal. This was the message Katharine Hall, senior researcher at the Children’s Institute (CI) at the University of Cape Town shared at the launched the South African Child Gauge 2012, an annual review on the state of South Africa's children.

Another bombshell is about to be dropped onto South Africa’s raging political and legal battlefield and it involves one of the most contentious and emotive issues in our country - land.

Love Mathobela was born in South Africa and has lived most of her life here, but she is not yet recognised as a citizen. 'I had a birth certificate and South African passport which my father had obtained for me using his forged South African identity documents he acquired when he came to South Africa 22 years ago. During the 2010 Special Dispensation for Zimbabwean Nationals, my father gave away his forged identity documents including mine as requested by the law.'

The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), which represents 20 families whose relatives were killed by the police on 16 August 2012 at Marikana, have engaged the services of Professor John Dugard SC, one of the world’s leading international lawyers, to consider whether police action in Marikana on 16 August 2012 met international legal standards. Osmond Mngomezulu, attorney for the families of 20 people who were killed by police fire on 16 August, said 'The evidence emerging from the Inquiry is consistent with a picture of sustained police brutality on 16 August. Professor Dugard’s wealth of experience – both in international and human rights law – will assist us in subjecting police conduct to the most searching examination.'

South African police have arrested 90 people after a protest at a mine turned violen, officials say. The miners were from the Gold Fields KDC Kloof mine in Westonaria, about 45km west of Johannesburg. More than 5,000 workers reportedly staged a sit-in there to demand better pay.

A Sunday Times report has said that government planned to pump partially treated acid mine drainage (AMD) into the Vaal River. Earlier, the weekly reported that underground pumps would be used to pipe water from the central basin - underneath Johannesburg - into a treatment plant where it would be partially cleaned, or neutralised. This water would then be released into the Vaal, diluted with clean water from the Lesotho Highlands Project to minimise the harmful impact.

The correctional services department owes about R1.3-billion in damages to prisoners and former inmates for bodily injury and rape while in prison. A recent report by the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (Jics) – the government-appointed oversight body – identified R71-million in wasteful expenditure and R215-million in irregular expenditure. There also appears to be confusion over how many prisons exist in South Africa. According to the department's annual report, there are 243 correctional centres, but according to the report there are 236. The department has not explained the discrepancy.

In the absence of any credible, scientific evidence that the long-term consumption of GM foods is indeed safe for humans, we need to call on key actors in the food industry to stop using GM products.

It is estimated that in South Africa around 2,500 children develop cancer every year, but less than a third (700 children) are actually diagnosed and treated. 'We suspect some cases are treated, but just not reported [to the Paediatric Cancer Registry], but many go untreated because they are just never diagnosed,' says Professor Christina Stefan, head of Paediatric Oncology at Tygerberg Hospital.

Julius Malema and friends - and a number of state employees - now face prosecution, disciplinary action, and their property being seized. During the release of the 'On the Point of Tenders' report, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela stopped short of actually declaring that corruption had been at the root of a highly irregular tender worth around R50-million, originally being awarded to a company from which Malema had benefitted – but only because the Hawks are currently investigating exactly that.

The South African Democratic Teachers Union has given Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga seven days to act on the Limpopo textbooks report. The union said a thorough investigation was necessary into those named in the presidential task team report on the Limpopo textbook crisis. 'Sadtu calls for the investigation to take place as a matter of urgency and no stone to be left unturned because we don't want to see a repeat of [the] Limpopo saga in 2013,' said general secretary Mugwena Maluleke.

Thirty-five years after the death in police custody of Steve Biko, an online archive about the South African anti-apartheid activist has been published. It features documents never seen before in public, including his 1973 banning order restricting his activities. Curated by the Steve Biko Foundation, the archive is part of 42 historical exhibitions published by Google.

Distrust of foreigners has increased in South Africa in the four years since a wave of xenophobic violence swept the country. Some 67 percent of South Africans say they do not trust foreigners at all, compared to 60 percent in 2008, survey findings released this week revealed. The survey, by independent research project Afrobarometer and the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, found that nearly a third of the 2,400 respondents would take action to prevent migrants from moving into their neighbourhood and 36 percent would try to stop them from operating businesses.

South African Human Rights Commission has decided to go ahead with its own investigation into human rights abuses at Marikana, despite the strong misgivings expressed by Parliament’s portfolio committee on justice. The commission, which met the committee to discuss the matter a month ago, has decided it 'will continue with our investigation into allegations of human rights abuses'. It said it had received two complaints to trigger this action: one from a nongovernmental organisation ; and another referred by the public protector. The complainants cannot be named unless they choose to reveal their identity.

Relations between the European Union (EU) and SA have soured since the government indicated last month that it was cancelling bilateral investment treaties with the bloc's member states. The government argues that the treaties restrict its ability to transform SA's economy. But its largest trade and investment partner says cancelling them will raise the cost of investment in SA. The EU fears it is a victim of political bias, and feels shunned by SA's growing relationship with China and other Brics nations.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has opened an investigation into publicly funded construction at the private residence of President Jacob Zuma, City Press reported. Reports have estimated the cost of the work to be between R203 million and R238 million.

A moment of silence turned to violence during a gay parade in celebration of Joburg Pride Day. Joburg Pride board members arrived to the sight of One in Nine Campaign members holding a banner saying: 'Dying for Justice'. The latter evidently disrupted the parade to demand a moment of silence for LGBTI community members murdered due to their sexual preference.