Former South African MP Tony Yengeni has lost his final appeal against a four-year jail sentence imposed for defrauding parliament. Mr Yengeni formerly headed parliament's defence committee and was chief whip of the governing ANC party. He was convicted in 2003 after it was found he had received a large discount on the purchase of a luxury car, from a firm bidding for an arms contract.

A new school curriculum aiming to overhaul the legacy of inferior apartheid schooling and bring South Africa's education system more in line with the demands of a global economy has stumbled at the first hurdle.

Beetroot, lemon, garlic and African potato were at the heart of a bitter conflict between Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and AIDS activists over government’s AIDS programme at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto over the past week (August 15-19).

Each year, more than 500 delegates from across the globe attend the Highway Africa conference, the biggest gathering of African journalists in the world, to discuss issues relating to the impact of technology (internet, mobile technology, convergence) on journalism, media and society. This year’s 10th edition of this prestigious conference will see a gathering of media practitioners, private companies and NGOs meet from 11 to 13 September. The meeting will be a reflection on and celebration of the past ten years of the conference and a springboard for the future of the conference.

Victims of censorship in South Africa, especially the poor, will now have better access to legal justice, thanks to a new legal aid clinic opened by the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI). FXI has recently been registered as a law clinic, which enables it to provide free legal services to members of the public whose rights to freedom of expression have been violated.

A study from KwaZulu-Natal has revealed shocking details of a super-tuberculosis strain – XDR TB – that is resistant to all first and second line TB drugs and has an extraordinary high death rate. South Africa does not yet have any drugs to treat people with XDR TB.

This organisation is looking for applicants with a strong interest in the education transformation process in South Africa and in providing sustained related in-service teacher development and support at primary school level. S/he must have sound knowledge of the National Curriculum for Foundation Phase and a tertiary teaching/education or relevant field qualification.

ALUTA.ORG is an NGO for the youth by the youth. We are a goup of dynamic conscious youth determined to struggle for change. We want unity in diversity. We want the voices of youth to be heard. We call upon the youth of the world to rise up, unite and agitate for social change.

The Cape Town World Cinema Festival (CTWCF) will once again showcase the latest international, African and South African films in its programme this year. The focus is on world cinema and more specifically, films from the south. The programme consists of features, documentaries and short films.

A new bursary programme, funded by the Goethe-Institut, Germany's Cultural Institutes abroad, will help budding film professionals from all over Africa enter the Sithengi Market mix this year. The Goethe-Institut with its branches in Sub-Saharan Africa, will offer fifteen bursaries of 1000 euros each to students across the continent wanting to attend the 2006 Sithengi Talent Campus.

SACCAWU (South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union) members employed by Shoprite have been engaged in lunch hour pickets effective from 18 July 2006. The pickets, which are but just a component of a protected industrial action, were in response to Shoprite's unreasonable refusal to grant workers an increase of a mere R300.00 or 10%, whichever is greater and also improve their other conditions of work.

Various papers were presented at a recent workshop on the World Social Forum held in Durban. The papers include:
- Ahmed Allahwala & Keil Roger (2006) Introduction to a Debate on the World Social Forum.
- Conway, Jane (2006) Social Forums, Social Movements and Social Change.
- Bond Patrick (2006) Gramsci, Polanyi and Impressions from Africa on the Social Forum Phenomenon.
Visit the website provided for full details.

This week an application was launched in the Johannesburg High Court asking the Court to declare that the decisions of Johannesburg Water to limit free basic water supply to 6 kilolitres per household per month and to unilaterally install prepayment meters are unconstitutional and unlawful. The Court is being asked to order Johannesburg Water (Pty) Ltd. to provide a free basic water supply of 50 litres per person per day, and the option of a credit-metered supply installed at the cost of the City of Johannesburg, to the residents of Phiri, Soweto.

Pregnant women aged between 25 and 29, living in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng are worst affected by HIV. But the biggest increases in HIV are among pregnant women aged 35 to 39, and those living in North West. This is according to the annual HIV and syphilis prevalence survey for 2005.

Farms don't just grow food - they grow communities. You don't have to go far to be part of these communities, either. In South Durban, urban farmers have long been supporting the local economy, and the surrounding neighbourhoods. And they're under threat.

Who will be elected President of the African National Congress (ANC) in 2007? Who will become President of the Republic of South Africa in 2009? These questions, and the speculation cast in their drift, have come increasingly to dominate newspaper headlines and the South African political imagination, says the latest edtion of ePoliticsSA, which tackles the issue.

EnviroMedia 2006 is the third event of its kind bringing journalists, media practitioners and development experts together to deepen understandings and share expertise about reporting on environment, sustainability and development in Africa.

Using data collected in 2001 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, this paper examines the factors associated with schoolgirl pregnancy, as well as the likelihood of school dropout and subsequent re-enrollment among pregnant schoolgirls. This analysis triangulates data collected from birth histories, education histories, and data concerning pregnancy to strengthen the identification of young women who became pregnant while enrolled in school and to define discrete periods of school interruption prior to first pregnancy.

Putting into practice the public broadcaster’s lofty ideals and the policies encapsulated in its editorial code of practice have been identified as weaknesses of SABC news and current affairs structures, writes Ron Derby in Business Day. Panelists at an Open Society Foundation for SA colloquium yesterday (July 20) dissected the conundrum that is the SABC, raising concerns over recent allegations of censorship and blacklisting of analysts, which they argued has tainted its image, reports Journalism.co.za.

South Africa has blocked trials of genetically modified sorghum that leaders of a multi-million-dollar project hope can boost nutrition in Africa. Kenyan scientist Florence Wambugu, who heads the Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International, has secured US$18.6 million over five years from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop new sorghum varieties with elevated levels of iron, zinc and vitamins. But last week (12 July) South Africa rejected the application to set up a laboratory and greenhouse on its soil, reports SciDev.