Thabo Mbeki's neo-liberal state of the nation address, while re-committing South Africa to market-friendly economic policies, failed to outline specific programmes to meaningfully deal with the country's worsening poverty and underdevelopment. The 'have-nots', who have suffered severely in the last ten years as a result of conservative economic policies, should therefore brace themselves for more hardship.

It is very hypocritical for parliament to have chosen the theme "All shall have equal rights"- derived from the Freedom Charter - given the sad reality that the annual opening of parliament and parliament itself are a very good reflection of growing inequalities between the rich and the poor.

The annual event has become a Hollywood-style fashion extravaganza. The SABC's fashion commentator skilfully scrutinized numerous trendy outfits worn by the elite.

Despite SA's worsening levels of poverty and inequalities, Mbeki, as a result of recent surveys, is very optimistic and hopeful that the economic policies are taking the country in the right direction. Unfortunately, reality on the ground paints a very gloomy picture.

As widely expected, economic growth and government's 'Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative' (ASGISA), featured prominently. This, and other government's neo-liberal initiatives, have seen South Africa's ruling politicians, 'prostituting' themselves to the financially well endowed corporations and the markets that they control in an attempt to attract the much craved foreign investment, with dire consequences for the masses.

ASGISA sees increased exports as fundamental for economic growth and the projected six percent annual growth rate in the next few years. However, in recent years, the country has managed to drastically increase its exports, but this has come at a heavy price for the working class. While output growth has increased, employment growth has declined in major sectors, such as manufacturing, business services, agriculture and mining.

As the Cape Town based Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) points out, export oriented growth also means increased competition which, in many instances, has meant cost reduction which leads to unsafe working conditions, retrenchments and cutting of working hours and wages.

At the expense of the poor, the ANC government has put too much reliance on the private sector. The problem with this however, is that the private sector's primary aim is to increase profitability. Private companies are not accountable to anyone but shareholders. South Africa, with its heavy apartheid induced services backlog, cannot afford this situation.

Upcoming celebrations on June 16 and August 09 marking the 30th anniversary of the Soweto youth uprising and the 50th anniversary of the women's march to the Union buildings, respectively, mean very little for the majority of women and youth who, as a result of government's policies, are confronted with extreme poverty on a daily basis.

It is estimated that 70% of the unemployed are young people. Most have never worked in their life. Only about 14% of those graduating from tertiary institutions, each year find secure employment in the formal economy. Yet, none of our so-called 'experts' see the connection between this hopeless situation and youth involvement in crime, survival sex, substance abuse, etc.

Instead, in true South African-style, the government plans to deal with the symptoms and not the causes. Mbeki mentioned a plan to improve resource allocation within the justice systerm to ensure that "crime does not pay". The fact that a large majority of those overcrowding our prisons are arrested for what most sociologists view as "poverty related" crimes is immaterial.

Because of government's strict fiscal discipline, and Mbeki and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's AIDS denial, the life saving anti retroviral drugs are only available to a fraction of infected persons - mostly women and youth - at government hospitals. Only about a hundred thousand of about six million HIV/AIDS patients are on anti retroviral medicine at public institutions.

Is it therefore not an insult and insensitive for Mbeki to suggest that we should be proud of this horrific situation?

Opposition parties, who have, in the backdrop of electioneering for the March 01 local government elections, portrayed themselves as an 'alternative' to the ANC, whilst having raised a few minor misgivings about Mbeki's speech, are in full agreement with the overall anti-poor capitalist agenda.

The failure to acknowledge that it is the top down capitalist policies of the ruling party that breed corruption and poverty, give the lie to their claims.

Certainly, there is an urgent need to conduct an intensive nationwide debate of government's economic policies that have rendered freedom and democracy enigmatic for many South Africans.

Is it not the right time then to demand an end to privatisation and outsourcing? Was the struggle against apartheid also not about decent and secure jobs? With more than eight million of the economically active population unemployed, should we not be demanding urgent steps to curb the unemployment virus?

Students, workers, shack dwellers and academics at South Africa's largest teaching university, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), are now in their 5th day of a militant strike against corporatisation. Thousands have marched under the banners of education for all, decent working conditions and academic freedom. One of the university's five campuses is under heavily armed police occupation and serious clashes between police and strikers look increasingly likely.

Fourteen year old Lindiwe – not her real name – became very withdrawn. Initially her teacher suspected that she had had a squabble with her friend but when she sank deeper into a depression, the teacher became very concerned. A home visit by a parent, who serves on the Care and Support committee of her school revealed that not only had Lindiwe lost both parents within one year but she had been abused by her caregiver, who seemed to be more interested in her child care grant than caring for Lindiwe. As a result of this information the committee could intervene and they placed the teenager with another family, while they also reporting the caregiver to the police, who are now investigating her.

Too often when we talk about gender-based violence there is a deafening silence about attacks on lesbian, gay and transgender people. This is because of what their sexual orientation and/or gender identity may represent. For many, living out one’s sexual orientation if it is not heterosexual, is still not viewed as a right. Argued under the pretext of culture, religion or morality, the ill-treatment of lesbian and gay people is tacitly accepted in South African society. Hetero-sexism ensures the continued exclusion of those whose very existence challenges dominant forms of gender relations in a patriarchal context.

In cooperation with partners, the Centre for Civil Society at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal will be opening thematic research projects on 'Economic Justice' in 2006. We will launch this theme by reviewing some of the finest traditions of South African, regional and international political-economic theory and contemporary analysis, and invite you to join us. We are mainly concerned with market-nonmarket interactions and new forms of 'primitive accumulation'.

Taking a break from spraying his neat, one-hectare plot of young cotton plants with herbicide, Moses Mabika surveys the land that has been supporting his family for 45 years. He may not realise it, but he is standing at the epicenter of a heated debate about growing genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa. Mabika is among more than 2,000 smallholder farmers in this semi-arid area of northeastern KwaZulu-Natal province known as Makhathini Flats, who began growing GM cotton in 1999.

Just days after Johannesburg mayor and ANC candidate - Amos Masondo - arrived in Pimville, Soweto, to ask residents for their votes, ESKOM, the state's corporatised electricity provider, returned to show the community exactly what they would be voting for. This time it was Trevor Ngwane's turn. Trevor, a well know campaigner against ANC neoliberal policies, lives in Pimville where, thanks to an illegal connection, he has enjoyed decommodified electricity for the last five years. In Trevor's words "when they cut us off we just reconnect ourselves". With less than a month to go before the election, ESKOM officials, accompanied by police visited Trevor. Prepped to cut his electricity, they began digging up the earth in front of his house, searching for the offending cable. The community would however have their say as well, and twice the ESKOM brigades were forced to flee and return with reinforcements.

“In most countries, university communities can be viewed as social barometers: academics and students can respond more freely and idealistically to external events than can people in the outside world whose lives are more constrained. Thus, during the apartheid years, universities were in the vanguard of change, being centres of political protest and seeking ways of throwing off the yoke of oppression,” says this commentary about the current staff crisis at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. “The fact is,” the commentary goes on to say, “that at the University of KwaZulu-Natal at least, academic freedom appears to be shrinking rather than growing, and oppression is believed to have returned with a vengeance - the grim irony being that this now appears to be coming, not from outside, but from within the institution itself.”

Independent Newspapers has offered to publish an apology for any offence a weekend article might have caused to Muslims, already in an uproar about a Danish-penned cartoon lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, according to a report on news24.com and as reported on www.journalism.co.za Chris Whitfield, editor of the Cape Times and a member of an Independent Group newspaper delegation, said: "(The) decision to apologise by Cape Argus was an acknowledgement of an error in judgement." The delegation met the Muslim Judicial Council on Tuesday.

A South African policy that was in effect from 1999 to 2005 that used race as a donor-selection factor for donated blood significantly reduced levels of HIV-tainted blood in the national supply, according to a study published Feb. 1 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the AP/Washington Post reports.

South Africa is to press ahead with the compulsory purchase of land from white farmers, a senior official has said. The move is intended to speed up the restoration of ancestral property to those who lost it under apartheid. The government previously bought land at market rates for redistribution, but has been criticised for being too slow in its efforts to redistribute land. Compulsory purchase will now come into effect in cases where the government and the seller cannot agree on a price.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has ruled out staying in his post beyond the end of his second term in 2009. He said the governing ANC would not use its two-thirds parliamentary majority to change the constitution to allow a third presidential term. Formerly deputy president, Mr Mbeki succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in 1999 and was re-elected in 2004. Some ANC supporters have called for a debate on a constitutional change, promoting speculation over a third term. But in an interview with South African television, Mr Mbeki moved to crush such speculation.

South African Women in Dialogue is taking the initiative of "bringing the ideas of African presidents" to the people as part of the African Union's Peer Review Mechanism, a self assessment process now underway in South Africa. The president of the Pan African Parliament, Gertrude Mongella, has asked First Lady, Zanele Mbeki, if she would assist in launching a formation similar to SAWID in other African countries.

South African families say school fees often are unaffordable and are robbing their children of an education, even though national laws there expressly guarantee free schooling for impoverished youths. UNICEF, the World Bank and other rights groups are encouraging officials there and in other African countries to provide universal free education, denied most frequently to girls.

Different arms of the government are at one another's throats over a proposed 21-storey dam on a major river that passes through the Kruger National Park and feeds Mozambique. South African National Parks (SANParks) has threatened legal action against its principal, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, according to the Mail and Guardian.

The Cape Town based ISS Corruption and Governance Programme seeks to appoint a Researcher who will assist in implementing an eighteen-month project that proposes to monitor the impact of corruption on service delivery in South Africa and asses the effectiveness of public sector anti-corruption strategies. Although with a strong focus on corruption the project is likely to cover diverse areas of service delivery such as local government, housing, healthcare, social welfare and education.

The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased to announce the Africa/Asia/Latin America scholarly collaborative initiative encompassing joint research, training, publishing and dissemination activities by researchers drawn from across the global South, and to call for applications for participation in the South-South comparative research seminars they are organising within the framework of the initiative.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) has announced the fourth session of its Annual Social Science Campus, and invites applications from African scholars for participation in the programme which was initially scheduled to hold in October 2005 but was subsequently been postponed with a view to convening it at the beginning of May 2006. The Campus is conceived as an advanced research dialogue which is both multidisciplinary and intergenerational in nature. It is organised around a specific theme and up to 15 scholars, drawn from different disciplines and reflecting the different generations of African social researchers, are elected to participate in the Campus.

Rhodes University has offered Dr Ashwin Desai -- controversially barred from seeking employment at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) -- both a short-term lecturing post in sociology and a venue for his research project on transformation in South African sport. At the same time, the heat is intensifying on UKZN vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba over his role in barring Desai. In further letters to Makgoba this week, the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (Cafa) and the university's Combined Staff Association (Comsa) renewed their assaults on his reasons for his actions, reports the Mail and Guardian.

The Treatment Action Campaign's newsletter (Equal Treatment) is now available to all organisations and individuals in South Africa working in the areas of HIV/AIDS, health, law and human rights. Parts of the newsletter are available online at www.tac.org.za. If you would like to be added to the mailing list for the full hardcopy please email Claire at [email protected]. Please include your organisation's name and postal address, and the name and title of the person the letter should be addressed to.