The "bribes" allegedly paid to Deputy President Jacob Zuma, which are at the centre of the corruption case against Schabir Shaik, have been explained away as mere donations to a charitable trust. The claim came as part of an all-out assault on the pillars of the state's case in the Durban High Court this week. Correspondence and meetings between Zuma, Shaik and Thomson-CSF officials were nothing more than attempts by Shaik to facilitate a donation by the arms company to the Jacob Zuma RDP Education Trust, Shaik's defence lawyer, Francois van Zyl, said.

"We, the landless people of South Africa, declare our needs for our government and the world to know. We are the people who have borne the brunt of colonialism and neo-colonialism, of the invasion of our land by the wealthy countries of the world, of the theft of our natural resources, and of the forced extraction of our labour by the colonists. We are the people who have borne the brunt of apartheid, of forced removals from our fields and homes, of poverty in the rural areas, of oppression on the farms and of starvation, neglect and disease in the Bantustans."

Along with millions of others, health workers celebrated South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994 as the first step in rolling back the devastating inequity of an apartheid era health system. At last the health needs of the whole population would be addressed with the advent of representative government and the anticipated “peoples” health system.

An impressive array of health policies and plans were designed to reduce inequities and improve the health of all South Africans. Health activists and struggle veterans were in consensus that a single, unified National Health Service based on a comprehensive Primary Health Care approach would be the key to this transformation.

Despite one of the most progressive constitutions on the planet and a strong rhetorical commitment to addressing the health needs of the poor, implementation has been slow. The huge effort put into reshaping the “architecture” of the health system has not translated into real health gain for all South Africans. Many of the poorest still find themselves marginalized and neglected, just as they were in pre-democratic South Africa.

With an increasing number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS seeking foster care, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is placing enormous pressure on South Africa's child welfare system. An estimated 18 percent of the country's children are orphans. According to the Medical Research Council (MRC), at least 5.7 million children could lose one or both parents to AIDS by 2015.

Rudolph Jansen, a director of Lawyers for Human Rights, said the authorities needed to be more sensitive to the needs of those claiming to be refugees. "Police stations are ill-equipped to detain foreign nationals," he said. "For those who are fleeing persecution, it's absolutely crucial that they are given access to services; that their status is determined; and that they're given documentation to prove that status as soon as possible."

The conference, in the spirit of the World Social Forum and its methodology of openness, plurality and respect for a diversity of views within popular movements of civil society, will create a space where activists, progressive social theorists and academics can discuss the successes, failures, strengths and weaknesses of the transition from apartheid.

The European Programme for Reconstruction and Development (EPRD) and Themba Lesizwe, the South African Network of Trauma and Service Providers (SANTSEP), invites proposals from the NPO sector under the project "Consolidating the Trauma Sector in South Africa." This initiative is aimed at South African activities in under resourced areas with an amount of R4mn made available for the project to run for the duration of seven months only.

South Africa's judiciary is behind in the transformation process, says the country's Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Bridgette Mabandla. She was responding to a question in the National Assembly from former deputy justice minister and now Democratic Alliance shadow justice minister Sheila Camerer who noted that not a single white candidate had been considered by the Judicial Services Commission last week for posts of judges.

Blade Nzimande, General Secretary for the South African Communist Party, writes in the latest edition of Umsebenzi Online: "A central pillar of the SACP's Red October Campaign is the mobilisation of farm-workers and the rural poor in support of our ANC-led alliance's election manifesto commitment to "speed up land reform, with 30% of agricultural land redistributed by 2014". This coming Saturday, 6 November 2004 is our National Day of Action, under the slogan: "Mawubuye Umhlaba". We are calling upon the millions of workers and the landless poor to join us on this day, as we table our demands to white commercial agriculture for accelerated land reform and a national land summit."

Job-creation was a leading goal of government policy during the first decade of democracy in South Africa. However, little success has been achieved in the struggle to create sufficient jobs in the economy. Using the expanded definition of unemployment (which includes people who have given up looking for work), the unemployment rate was estimated to be 28.6% at the time of the transition to democracy. The most recent estimates (March 2004) find the unemployment rate to be 41.2% using the expanded definition, translating into 8.4 million unemployed people. This is according to a report from the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa).

The feminisation of the labour market in South Africa has not changed the traditional overrepresentation of women in low-income, less secure employment. The study by the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape Town also found that while women's increased labour force participation had afforded women some increased opportunities and power, white women seem to have been the main beneficiaries. This paper examines the dramatic increase in the labour force participation of women in South Africa since the mid-1990s.

Deadline: 11h00 on 25 November 2004

The Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (COH WHS) Management Authority invites tenders for the appointment of consultants to develop and implement a destination marketing, investment promotion and fundraising strategy for the COH WHS. The Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (Blue IQ) is a government project of the Department of Finance and Economics and the Department of Agriculture and Conservation.

Date of LPGas Conference: 8 November 2004

Venue: Elangeni Hotel, Durban

The LP Gas Safety Association of South Africa, together with the major LP Gas suppliers is initiating a project to make LPGas available to 250 000 households by March 2005, then to a further 2.75mn households by 2008. This initiative presents an opportunity for potential grant funding bodies to subsidise low income home owners with an appliance cost to enable them to switch to LPGas.

South Africa-Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD) is a collaborative research programme that has been financed by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1997. SANPAD is calling for research proposals from South African researchers/academics for the value of R414 000 for a period of 2 or 3 years.

Despite reports that the South African HIV/AIDS advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign had dropped its legal action against the South African government to force it to make its antiretroviral treatment program rollout plan publicly available, the group has not dropped its suit and is asking the government to "urgently" develop and publish an implementation plan, the SAPA/SABC News reports.

Abandoned and orphaned children are languishing in South African institutions while bureaucrats take up to two years to decide whether they can be adopted. Around a quarter of a million South African children are orphaned but large numbers are falling through bureaucratic cracks. By mid-2004, according to the Actuarial Association of South Africa (ASSA) 2002 model, 250 000 children in South African had lost both parents but government departments tasked with the welfare of these vulnerable children are unable to confirm actual numbers who are being cared for in children’s homes.

Attention should be focused on what the ANC government plans to do about the deepening socio-economic crisis that grips SA, says this analysis on the University of Natal's Centre for Civil Society website. President Mbeki placed poverty eradication and the creation of jobs at the centre of his recent State of the nation Address. The question being asked is this home-grown structural adjustment programme thankfully now being abandoned? Not likely, says the article. "In essence we have a sophistication of the GEAR strategy not its abandonment. Macro-economic strategies are being complimented by a series of micro-economic reforms that government hopes will lead to increased economic growth."

Questions posed by the opposition Democratic Alliance to President Thabo Mbeki in the national parliament over the HIV/AIDS issue have led to a heated debate over racism in the country. In his reply to the Democratic Alliance’s Ryan Coetzee, Mbeki said: “I pray that one day the Honourable Coetzee, and others like him, will discover within themselves the intellect, the courage and the humanity to hear and understand what Frank Meintjies, Franz Auerbach, Edward Rhymes, Cynthia Kaufman, as well as millions of people in our country and elsewhere on our globe, are saying about the hurt, anger and aspirations of those who know the meaning of race oppression, which the Honourable Coetzee clearly does not.” Coetzee hit back in an open letter to Mbeki published on Tuesday: “Millions of people in our country are HIV-positive and hundreds of thousands are dying each year, according to all the best estimates. What I pray, therefore, is that one day you will discover inside yourself the intellect, courage and humanity to hear and understand the meaning of HIV/AIDS in South Africa today, which clearly you do not.” You can read Mbeki’s full reply at http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2004/text/at42.txt and Coetzee’s response at http://www.da.org.za/DA/Site/Eng/News/Article.asp?ID=4475

The British Council South Africa invites applicants to join 'InterAction,' an exciting Pan African programme focusing on leadership development, transformation and empowerment. Successful participants will be part of a community from 19 African countries, attending a one-week training and networking event in another African country, before joining a wider Pan African Conference network.

The National Network on Violence Against Women (NNVAW) is a non-profit-organisation (NPO) consisting of member organisations, individuals and government departments around the country. The NNVAW is a leading collaborative organisation in South Africa whose sole aim is to bring together organisations into a collective, to fight and end Violence Against Women (VAW). The NNVAW is inviting a mature, dynamic and experienced person, with sound knowledge and technical skills in fund raising and solid understanding of South African and international NGO environment.