1. The ANC's leadership race is too tight to call -- and will remain that way until day three of the governing party's elective conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg. The conference starts on Saturday, 16 December. Voting for the party leadership will take place the following day with the results expected on Monday, 18 December. Read more.
2. South African activist and founder of the Treatment Action Campaign, Zackie Achmat, believes it's the private sector and not the state that is hampering access to new medicines. "The courts have made it clear that social justice is a part of property; that property is not only to maximize profit, but also to enable people to live with social dignity; and that positive duties can be placed on private actors." Read more.
3. Why oh why is it so hard to budge that awful winter bulge? It doesn't matter if you put in hours at the gym, here's seven reasons why your stomach may still be an eyesore. Read more.
4. A scandal at Selborne College in East London, when a 2017 matric invitation used a photo of a dying Hector Pieterson during the 1976 Soweto uprising and replaced it with the school blazer, has caused widespead outrage. It has raised questions about just how the young people involved could not have realised the implications of using and desecrating such a famous anti-apartheid image. Is such ignorance common among born-frees?
5. South Africans celebrated the inspiring story of Dr Sinenhlanhla Ziqubu's graduation this week, after she managed to raise the outstanding R30,000 blocking her from graduating from medical school -- all via social media crowdsourcing. Ziqubu is one of many potential graduates facing the crippling reality of unaffordable student fees in the country. Read more.
6. More than 90,000 South African girls between the ages of 12 and 17 were either married, divorced, separated, widowed or living with a partner as husband and wife in 2016. This is according to the Community Survey results recently released by Statistics SA. "Although the South African stats are lower compared to the rest of Africa, the fact that child brides are a reality in South Africa, a country with one of the world's best constitutions, is frightening," said Professor Deirdre Byrne, chairperson of the Unisa-Africa Girl Development Programme. Read more.
7. The ANC will lodge a complaint with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) over the colours and logo of former ANC MP Makhosi Khoza's new party, the African Democratic Change (ADeC). Khoza launched her new political party on Friday in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, during the party's founding congress. Read more.