‘On 16 June 1976, the youth died for Freedom, yet today while we are told that we are free it is clear that we are not free,’ writes South African shackdwellers movement Abahlali base Mjondolo, as the country marks both Youth Day and the 35th anniversary of the Soweto uprising. ‘We are struggling for a freedom that everyone can experience for themselves in their every day lives. That means decent education, decent work, a decent guaranteed income for those without work and a decent place to stay for everyone. It also means the freedom to organize as we want and to say what we want in safety.’

If South Africa’s government ‘is really implementing the Freedom Charter, why are people complaining everywhere?’ asks Lindela S. Figlan. If ‘the ruling party was on the side of the poor it would encourage us to organise ourselves and to speak for ourselves…But instead it is always repressing the struggles of the poor’.

South Africa's best-known cartoonist, Zapiro, could again be facing legal action by the African National Congress (ANC) following the publication of a new cartoon of President Jacob Zuma. In Zapiro's latest cartoon in the Mail & Guardian newspaper, published on June 10, Zuma is portrayed with his belt unbuckled, while ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe holds a woman depicting press freedom. 'Lady Justice' is also drawn, and shouts: 'Fight, sister, fight!!' The cartoon is a comment on the ruling party's Protection of Information Bill and the proposed media appeals tribunal.

A gay woman was stabbed four times by men who accused her of stealing their girlfriends in Crossroads in the Western Cape, the Times reported. Noxolo Nkosana (23) was getting out of a car, returning home after work when two men, both Crossroads residents, approached her.

South Africans mourned the loss of a woman celebrated for her role in the fight against apartheid, and for her nurturing of a new generation of leaders. Crowds singing hymns and songs from the anti-apartheid era gathered hours before Albertina Sisulu's funeral on Saturday, eventually filling about a quarter of a 40,000-seat soccer stadium in Soweto. The service followed a week of national mourning during which flags were flown at half-mast across South Africa and at its foreign missions. Albertina collapsed and died at her Johannesburg home 2 June at the age of 92.

The Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) has announced the launch of a Fellowship programme that will send journalists to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban (COP17) in late 2011. The Fellowships are open predominantly to journalists from developing countries, but journalists from the US and Russia are also welcome to apply.

The theme for this year’s World Day Against Child Labour is ‘Caution! Children in Hazardous Work’.
The 12 June global event will attempt to shine a spotlight on the most exploitative and harmful forms of child labour, many which occur in South Africa. Evidence of the active movement to protect children and end child labour can be seen in the large number of International Labour Organisation (ILO) policies and other legislation enacted over the past decade.

South African President Jacob Zuma on Sunday launched Africa's biggest free trade bloc aimed at enhancing cooperation between 26 nations to boost economies in the world's poorest and underdeveloped continent. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) will now work as a joint bloc.

COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi warns in a report prepared for the federation's central committee meeting this month that South Africa could become a 'banana republic', and threatens to repudiate President Jacob Zuma's leadership. Cosatu's central committee meeting is a mid-term review since the federation's last congress in 2009. In its analysis, the report compares the ANC's attitude towards the federation to the bad treatment it received during the era of former president Thabo Mbeki. The report confirms that Cosatu believes the ANC Youth League is on a campaign to remove Mantashe and Zuma.

ProBono.Org has a one-year contract position for a qualified lawyer to build on its community advice office ('CAO') project, which aims to support CAOs and community based organisations ('CBOs') by linking them to local lawyers.

'When I was pregnant with my son I drank a lot – mostly on weekends,' says Marion Williams, a 45-year-old mother who lost two of her five children in childbirth. Williams lives in one of South Africa’s famous wine-growing areas in the Western Cape. She started drinking as a teenager and was taken out of school, she suspects, to work to buy wine for her parents. 'It is estimated that at least one million people in this country have fetal alcohol syndrome and approximately five million have partial fetal alcohol syndrome and [other] fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. It’s tragic because it’s completely preventable,' says researcher and human geneticist Denis Viljoen in Cape Town, the provincial capital of South Africa’s Western Cape.

Government has slashed the HIV transmission rate from pregnant mothers to their babies to merely 3.5 per cent, potentially sparing some 67,000 babies from HIV infection. This success is due mainly to the health department vastly improving its programme for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV infection (PMTCT) from April last year. 'We have worked very, very hard to train staff to make the changes and we are so happy with the improvement,' said Precious Robinson, deputy director of government’s PMTCT programme, at the release of the new figures at the SA AIDS conference.

The homes of 12 Tafelsig backyarder families were demolished by the city’s Anti-Land Invasion unit recently, in a fierce face-off that left several people injured, including a woman who was seven months pregnant. This came two days after the Cape High Court granted a postponement to allow backyarders sufficient time to get legal representation to appeal the city’s application for an eviction order.

'While many take having a toilet that is clean and safe for granted, it remains a luxury for a great deal of our most vulnerable communities. Approximately 10.5 million people in South Africa still do not have access to basic sanitation services. According to recent research by the Water Dialogues, approximately 500,000 people in the City of Cape Town do not have access to basic sanitation. Although this is a challenge facing every municipality, sanitation provision is a local government function. As a resident of Khayelitsha, I intend on holding my local government to account in acting in accordance with its constitutional obligations.'

African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has criticised youth league leader Julius Malema for saying senior ANC leaders were plotting to disrupt the league’s elective congress as part of a ploy to oust him. Mantashe said Mr Malema’s claim was an attempt to create a 'scapegoat' before the league congress. His response to the youth league’s claims is the latest indication of a tense relationship between the youth league and its mother body. The league seems unhappy with the current leadership of the ANC and is likely to lobby for its removal next year should Malema be re-elected.

'We wholeheartedly endorse the position of our federation COSATU in criticising the current state of the Protection of Information Bill. We are also alarmed that the ANC Parliamentary Caucus is using its majority to ensure that no significant improvements and safeguards against abuse of the bill are being taken into consideration. Many other organisations supporting the growing Right to Know Campaign have eloquently outlined what the implications will be for civil liberties and accountability if the Bill is passed, and we are grateful to them for bringing this to the attention of the South African public, but we also believe that for those of us in the municipal sector, there are particular concerns. SAMWU has been in the forefront of fighting corruption at municipal level, and long before it was politically acceptable to do so.'

'The Congress of South African Trade Unions welcomes the decision by ANC MPs to extend the 24 June deadline to complete drafting the Protection of Information Bill. COSATU hopes that the extra time will be used to re-examine the problematic clauses of the Bill which could conflict with Clause 16 of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. In particular the parliamentary ad-hoc committee needs to examine the genuine concerns from civil society that the provisions of the bill could be abused to cover up crime, corruption and misuse of funds by allowing officials to classify the evidence of this as secret.'

'Transparent governance, free expression and a free press are essential components of democracy. They are the means by which all people in South Africa, especially the vulnerable and poor, can hold our government to account. Our effectiveness at getting the state to implement HIV treatment and prevention programmes has been dependent on the Constitution being upheld, especially the Bill of Rights. We are therefore deeply concerned by reports that the ANC Parliamentary Caucus is backtracking even on its recent, inadequate concessions in relation to the Protection of Information Bill. As it stands, this bill will restrict media freedom. It will also severely limit the ability of organisations like ours to hold government accountable or to support government in working for a better life for all. The bill will drive a wedge between the state and the people it is supposed to serve.'

The state security agency is probing links between various loose-knit 'business forums' fomenting xenophobic violence across the country. The move comes as momentum builds in the number of attacks against foreign-owned businesses across the country and follows ­violence directed at Somali business people in Port Elizabeth. On Wednesday 1 June, police held back a crowd of more than 100 – including members of the Greater Gauteng Business Forum (GGBF) – in Ramaphosa informal settlement near Germiston, east of Joburg, as they attempted to forcibly close foreign-owned businesses there.

The South African government has announced the closure of the only refugee reception centre in Johannesburg, amid warnings that this will have a serious impact on the thousands of refugees flocking across the border every week. 'It is unacceptable that poor and marginalised refugees will have to travel to Pretoria, at great personal cost, to receive permit extensions and other services,' said Sicel’mpilo Shange-Buthane, the Director of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa.