Deadline: 1 February 2005 at 16h00

Mveledzandivho is a School Development Project that is being implemented in six provinces and is funded by BHP Billiton through its Development Trust. The aim of the Project is to improve management practices and teaching and learning in 29 schools spread across six provinces as well as to provide support to the Early Childhood Development (ECD) sites that feed the primary schools participating in the project.The project calls for proposals from interested service providers in ECD training and support.

Deadline: 11 February 2005

The Wits University Journalism and Media Studies Programme, together with the Ruth First Trust has established a Fellowship. The Fellowship is established to commemorate Ruth First as a journalist/intellectual/activist and her contribution to critical, independent socially-engaged writing.

Fellows will receive a grant of R35 000 and expected to present their work at a public event within six months and to submit it for publication/broadcast through an appropriate outlet.

Applications are invited from suitable qualified persons for the position of DIRECTOR. This individual is principally required to:
- Provide dynamic and strategic leadership to AFRA in terms of its vision, policy and approach to land and agrarian reform in South Africa.
- Represent AFRA’s position in various local and national forums, platforms and media.
- Be accountable to AFRA Board of Directors and responsible for fundraising.
- Oversee, support and direct all programme strategies, human resources, financial resources, administrative and reporting functions.

Eisa's Elections & Political Processes Unit (EPP) has a vacancy for a Programme Assistant. Responsibilities required include:
- Attend to the Departmental general administration;
- Set up and participate in workshops, roundtables and conferences;
- Prepare reports.

A statement by South Africa’s ruling party concerning judicial reform has sparked heated debate in the country. The war of words erupted after the African National Congress (ANC) said in a statement to mark its 93rd anniversary celebrations Saturday, that the judiciary did not share the aspirations of those who fought to end apartheid. This was the system of institutionalized racial segregation that prevailed in South Africa for over 50 years until 1994.

As new controversy flares over the Auditor General's report on the multi-billion rand arms deal, the Democratic Alliance has called for a judicial commission of inquiry. "It appears that, despite the AG's repeated denials, he was indeed forced to bow to political pressure from the executive and in particular from President (Thabo) Mbeki," DA defence spokesperson Eddie Trent said on Friday. "The controversy surrounding the arms deal will not go away until it is properly investigated by a judicial commission."

South Africa, once the continent's pariah because of racial oppression, has become the favored destination for educated, ambitious refugees from other parts of Africa with political and economic problems. Many refugees eventually start their own businesses or find skilled jobs, though often not in the same line of work as in their home countries, and they are rarely a drain on public services. Two out of three asylum seekers here in 2003 had arrived since 2000, according to a U.N. survey. Most have come from Angola, Somalia, Ethiopia, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Congo, as well as its smaller neighbor, the Republic of Congo.

Nelson Mandela broke one of South Africa's great taboos last week by admitting his oldest and only surviving son had died of Aids. Makgatho Mandela, 54, died in a Johannesburg clinic after lengthy treatment for what had been an undisclosed illness. Hours later his father, looking frail but resolute, assembled journalists to the garden of his home to confirm what everyone had suspected.

AIDS activists in South Africa have called for the revision of "outdated" HIV/AIDS messages which have been circulating for years but have failed to achieve behaviour change. People require more than awareness and basic education - they need advice on how to apply their knowledge of AIDS to their daily lives. Laura Washington, facilitator of the Durban-based training organisation Project Empower, told IRIN that her group realised that tackling high-risk behaviour was "not about the condom" but about people's "social fabric", such as communication within relationships, gender imbalances and societal perceptions of sexuality.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) has welcomed the media statement released by the police watchdog body, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), announcing that investigations into the fatal shooting of Harrismith student Tebogo Mkhonza on 30 August 2004 have been completed and that three police officers should be prosecuted for his murder, alternatively culpable homicide and attempted murder. The killing followed public protests in the town against lack of service delivery.

The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) said it had not ruled out the possibility of action should its current pay dispute with government not be resolved timeously. Sadtu was one of four teachers' unions to declare a dispute over salaries. Sadtu spokesperson Thulas Nxesi said the outcome of the mediation process in the Education Labour Relations Council was expected "sometime this week".

Human growth is a sensitive measure of social change. In a recent study conducted by Loughborough University, UK, that looked at data from more than 3000 children born in Soweto and Johannesburg in 1990, nearly one in five of the children in the study were found to be stunted – a sign of persistent poor health and nutrition during infancy.

A hunting boom driven by wealthy tourists is pushing black South Africans off the land to make way for game, generating anger that, a decade after apartheid, whites still own most of the countryside. Hundreds of commercial farms have evicted their labourers and converted into game parks, turning swaths of arable land into fenced wilderness for trophy animals such as lions and antelopes.

In South Africa, as in many developing and newly-industrialised countries, legislation on air pollution has failed to keep pace with mushrooming industries. So local residents, like many in poor communities around the globe, have faced the problem of investigating their claim that industries on their doorsteps are making them sick. The small yet tenacious South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) has become the first African grassroots group to take the science into their own hands by taking their own air samples.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) lobby group was awarded costs in its failed Pretoria High Court application for access to the health department's documents on an Aids treatment plan. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister, cited as the respondent in the matter, was ordered to pay the applicant's costs.

One of the biggest land invasions ever seen in South Africa has sparked a court battle between the government and a white farmer who says he is being effectively expropriated. The Supreme Court of Appeals in May ordered the state to compensate Braam Duvenage and resettle around 40 000 people who moved onto his farm in Benoni outside Johannesburg after their nearby township ran out of living space. But state attorneys refused, saying Duvenage should deal with the matter and they took the case to the Constitutional Court.

International Anti-Corruption Day, held last Thursday, may well have struck a particular chord with South Africans this year. The country is currently witnessing a high-profile corruption case, which is being held in the eastern port city of Durban. The trial involves flamboyant businessman Schabir Shaikh, who is accused of paying over 180,000 dollars to Vice-President Jacob Zuma in return for having the latter promote his business interests. Although Zuma himself is not in the dock, media interest in the proceedings has been intense, (the trial began in October).

South Africa's system of social grants has reduced poverty and is playing a developmental role in uplifting poor households, according to a new study. The research was commissioned by the Department for Social Development and focused on the social and economic impact of the government's main social transfers, such as the State Old Age Pensions (SOAP), Disability Grants (DG) and Child Support Grants (CSG), among others.

A top adviser for the New Partnership for Africa's Development has been implicated in a multimillion-rand bribery scandal. It is alleged that Reatile Mochebelele, the Midrand-based adviser to Nepad on water affairs and sanitation, was paid to secure contracts for the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. He has been named by the government of Lesotho as the recipient of more than DM1 million (about R3.9 million) in bribes during his tenure as the chief delegate of the government of Lesotho on the Highlands Water Commission from 1996 to 1999.

Since the end of apartheid a decade ago, growing numbers of refugees from across Africa have been heading towards the continent's richest and most industrialised country. No one knows how many African immigrants have settled illegally in South Africa. Estimates vary from 2 to 10 million people, or between 5 and 25 % of South Africa's population.