COSATU and SAMWU provide labour news daily by e-mail. This free service focuses on labour news stories and features, primarily from South Africa, but also from the rest of Africa. It includes news briefs and daily labour news summaries as well as a weekly digest of key news stories. To subscribe, visit the web site provided.

Nestle have recently settled a claim against the Ethiopian government, reducing the claim from $6 million to $1.5 million and agreeing to immediately donate the money back to be spent on famine relief. Visit Oxfam's campaign web site and find out more about their campaign against the coffee giants and how you can help make trade fair.

The South African Communist Party and the Aids Consortium have called for a meeting with the Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, Jody Kollapen, to inform the body of its campaign against HIV/Aids discrimination in the financial sector.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has expressed concern at a report, commissioned by the Department of Labour, that reveals that 36% of children in South Africa are involved in child labour, as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Whereas the Government's move to implement free and compulsory universal primary education has been lauded as a sure way of ridding society of child labour and street children, experts are still sceptical. They argue that free and compulsory education alone is unlikely to stem the problem if it is addressed in the way in which it is being done at the moment.

Vote No to War! Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have marched to protest against a planned US-led war on Iraq. Make your voice heard by signing up against war.

The Whittlesea Anti-Aids Youth Campaigners (WAAYC) are still waiting to receive an NDA grant allocated to them in 2001, reports the Daily Dispatch. The NGO is working with people affected and infected with Aids and it also helps with home-based care to those living with the virus. The organisation was supposed to have received the allocated grant in April last year.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) requests you to write to the Sudanese authorities requesting the release of Mr. Abdallah Fadl Alla Abdalla, who was arrested on January 18 and, according to the OMCT, is at risk of torture.

The AIDS Therapeutic Treatment Now (ATTN) International Coalition asks you to sign-on in support of the campaign to urge major investors to divest GSK stock. Help stop corporate greed at the expense of human lives! Because of GSK's excessive HIV drug pricing, which set the standard for all HIV drugs, millions have died due to lack of accessibility to affordable drugs.

An international coalition of HIV/AIDS organisations and individual advocates are sponsoring a four-day global summit on "treatment preparedness" in March 2003 in Cape Town, South Africa. "Treatment preparedness" is a term used to describe HIV/AIDS treatment education and advocacy efforts that are designed to increase access to and demand for HIV/AIDS treatment and prepare communities for safe and effective use of HIV therapies.

The African Women's Media Center has announced that its parent organisation, the International Women's Media Foundation, has received a $1.5 million, three-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a campaign to enhance the quality of healthcare coverage in the African media with responsible, accurate and relevant media messages.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) is urging activists to write to the authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo urging them to repeal the sentences of those found guilty and sentenced to death for taking part in the assassination of former President Laurent-Désirée Kabila. OMCT is also advocating an amnesty for political crimes and a guarantee that human rights will be respected in the country.

A 15-month project initiated by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and other bodies to help hundreds of child labourers in fishing communities in Ghana has received a "fantastic response" from fishermen, according to an IOM official.

Despite agreeing a settlement in December 2001 of £21 million for 7,500 claimants exposed to asbestos by its mining operations in South Africa, Cape Plc has still not yet paid a penny. The delays have in large part been due to a lack of co-operation by Cape’s bankers, including Barclays Bank. Please find time to write to the Chairman of Barclays to urge him to ensure that the bank faces up to its social responsibilities at

Five million adults are carrying the AIDS virus in South Africa, making it the most infected country on earth. However only a fraction of these people can access essential treatment because the multinational pharmaceutical companies are keeping the prices of their drugs artificially high. Please sign our petition demanding that GlaxoSmithKline puts lives before profits at We need your help to get as many signatures for our petition as possible. If you can, we would be very grateful if you could include the message below as part of your email signature or send it on to family and friends: 'Every day, 1000 people in South Africa die of HIV/AIDS because they cannot afford treatment. Sign ACTSA’s petition now (http://www.actsa.org/action.htm) to stop GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, from putting profits before lives.'

Take action now to stop Nestlé, the world's largest coffee company, demanding $6 million from a country where 11 million people are facing famine. What are Nestlé doing to help fight hunger in Ethiopia? They are demanding the Ethiopian Government pay $6m in compensation for a company that was nationalised 27 years ago, a company that they didn't even own at the time.

The commercialisation and concession process recently embarked on by the SANP should be a matter of disquiet for all environmentalists and conservationists and South African citizens who are all shareholders in the National Parks of South Africa, says this petitions web page. The link to the web site below presents a synopsis of the matter and includes some of the many concerns raised by various parties involved in the issue.

A ground breaking South African Democratic Teachers' Union website (www.sadtu.org.za) has been nominated as a finalist for Labour Start's Site of the Year 2002. It is the official web portal of the South African Democratic Teachers Union. The web site, which incorporates the electronic Educators Voice newspaper, shot to fame when it broke the story of massive Aids fatalities among teachers in South Africa.

Vote for one of two nominees from Africa for Labour Web Site of the Year 2002. The two web sites are:
* South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU);
* The Worker, Zimbabwe.
To cast your vote for either of these web sites, developed by SANGONeT, visit http://www.labourstart.org/lwsoty/ballot.shtml
and vote for either entry no 28 (SADTU) or entry no 54 (The Worker). Voting closes 15 January.

Hundreds of people from throughout the state of Maine are expected to protest a January 11 rally that has been scheduled in Lewiston, the state’s second largest city, by a white supremacist group calling itself the World Church of the Creator. The racist group, which is based in East Peoria, Illinois and claims to be the fastest-growing white supremacist organisation in the US, is calling for the expulsion of all Somalis from the Lewiston area. More than 1,000 Somali refugees have settled in the city over the last two years.