Pretoria judge Eben Jordaan expressed frustration on Tuesday at repeated delays in the Boeremag treason trial, which has still not gotten underway nearly four months after its scheduled starting date. The 22 men stand accused of plotting to overthrow the government as members of the rightwing Boeremag organisation, with the aim of declaring a "Boer" republic.

Business Day reports that Minister of Social Development, Dr Zola Skweyiya, has ordered an investigation into allegations of irregular financial management and recruitment practices at the National Development Agency (NDA). The allegations surfaced after former Pan-Africanist Congress general secretary, Thami ka Plaatjie, was appointed to the agency.

Communities in the ecologically sensitive Wild Coast region have declared that a proposed multi-billion rand toll road will not benefit established communities. "The motive for this road is not for the development of the local people and communities but profits for big business, notably engineering, trucking, mining and finance corporations," declared a resolution against the road.

When Josephine Vika asked Mzimkhulu Jam, a former Umkhonto we Sizwe sergeant major who brutally raped and murdered her 21-year-old daughter, Nosipho Vika, why he had done it, she did not expect his response. “Ag Voetsek,” he said. “I don't have to answer to women”. After Jam was jailed for 26 years in February Josephine told a reporter that in that moment, she had seen that he believed women were no better than animals. Gender inequality contributes to South Africa's high levels of violence, hampers economic development, places strain on our health care system and is fuelling the AIDS crisis.

There are grounds for deep concern about the controversial multi-billion rand South African arms deal transaction and especially about the part of the United Kingdom in it, says this report from the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). The report says South Africa urgently needs to spend money on the development of civil industry, water supplies, education, housing and health - and above all on the mitigation of the catastrophe that is AIDS. On the other hand, it faces no military threat, and peace-keeping in Africa needs troops and light equipment, not warships, fighter planes and tanks. "The deal supports the mutual interests of the European and South African politico-military-industrial complexes. The real needs of the South African people do not figure."

Some welfare organisations in the Northern Cape have received an injection of funds and vehicles from the provincial government. The Truly Blessed Day Care Centre, the only facility for children with multiple disabilities in the Frances Baard Region and Gopalanang Service Centre for the elderly in Warrenton each received a 23-seater minibus.

Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF), established in January 2001, with a mandate to create a platform for job creation, skills development and transfer for the South African youth, has committed approximately R470-million to 61 projects over the past 24 months.

The Limpopo Department of Finance and Economic Development has launched the South African Women Entrepreneurs Network project. The project is an initiative by the Department of Trade and Industry to organise women entrepreneurs into a national network of individuals and organisations committed to the promotion and advancement of women entrepreneurs.

The government has rejected as "blatant lies" questions raised this week about President Thabo Mbeki's role in South Africa's multibillion-rand arms deal. It said on Thursday the claims made by Independent Democratic Party leader Patricia de Lille had no substance. "She is regurgitating baseless allegations," the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) said in a statement.

"Curious" events in the bidding for South Africa's arms deal that might have involved President Thabo Mbeki still need to be probed, politician Patricia de Lille said on Wednesday. This related to an about-turn in the short-listing of bidders for four navy corvettes and three submarines, she told the National Press Club in Pretoria.

The Nigel Caring Community Child Care Committee, shoes for orphans project leader, Juksy Kganyago, was delighted to be one of only two projects in South Africa approved for funding in 2003 by Alliance for Youth Achievement, an American based donor organisation making a difference in the lives of orphans or children living on the streets around the world. The Dollars arrived and Mr Rob Cattell, the owner of Cattell’s Shoe Centre in Springs, supplied the shoes. It was therefore with great excitement when the day came to hand out shoes to the AIDS orphans from Duduza and surrounding areas.

A recent conference on reparations expressed support for the litigation in the United States against Apartheid-supporting foreign companies and demanded that the South African government withdraws an affidavit to the US court discouraging the litigation. The civil society reparations conference, "Opening Civil Society Dialogue on Reparations", was held in Randburg on 27 and 28 August 2003. It was attended by some 50 organisations, including those of a national and more localised character and ranging from organisations interested in reparations to others actively bringing together people around reparations-related issues.

The National Directorate of Public Prosecutions asked the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday to postpone the hearing of an urgent application by Deputy President Jacob Zuma to get access to a letter allegedly implicating him in trying to solicit a bribe.

The South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) has decided to approach "an eminent person" to conduct an independent investigation into racism in the sport after allegations by Springbok media coordinator Mark Keohane, who resigned on Tuesday.

South Africa's Human Rights Commission has published a two-year study into the country's farms, revealing grim conditions for black labourers as well as an increase in murders of white farmers. The report condemns a culture of violence against black workers, compounded by high levels of alcoholism and poor education.

South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) station managers have been ordered in a secret memo to avoid broadcasting programmes involving "political discourse", citing the arms deal row, in the run-up to next year's election. The memo said the decision had been taken against a background of discussion of corruption allegations against Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) is taking Johannesburg Water (JW) to court in a bid to gain access to information about a plan to install pre-paid water meters in Soweto and Johannesburg. It requires users to buy coupons or vouchers to put in meters, which then allow them the requisite amount of water. The action follows violent protests last weekend in Phiri, where the first phase of the project has begun. JW is the water-provision company owned by the Johannesburg City Council. Researcher Ebrahim Harvey is conducting the litigation through the FXI.

Apocalyptic predictions about South Africa's aids orphans problem are "unfounded and ill-considered", according to a study by the Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) at the University of Cape Town. "By misrepresenting the problems faced by children and their families, attention is distracted from the multiple layers of social, economic and psychological disadvantage that affect individual children, families and communities," said the study.

'Avoid Aids, come inside' says the sign outside the sex shop near the Durban beachfront. Just 100 meters away 500 Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) activists, from 110 branches across South Africa, were meeting at the second TAC National Congress to plan how to carry on their fight for the roll out of a comprehensive treatment plan for the 5 million people living with HIV-AIDS. With the highest national HIV prevalence in the world, AIDS is estimated to have caused 40% of all adult deaths in 2001, as many as 1,000 people a day according to UNAIDS (a figure not challenged by the ANC government). Addressing the Congress on the final day, the historic nature of this campaign was underscored by the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS, Stephen Lewis, who compared TAC with some of the greatest social movements of the twentieth century and the "anti-globalisation" movement of the twenty-first.

In a week of fire and fury at the allegations of corruption levelled against Deputy President Jacob Zuma, national attention has focused inward - will he go, or won't he, did he do it or didn't he? But a crucial part of the debate has received only scant attention: the share of guilt of those who pay the bribe, as opposed to those who receive it. In Zuma's case, French multinational arms company Thales was the alleged corrupter. In the Tony Yengeni case, it was allegedly DaimlerChrysler sister company Eads. In South Africa, the focus has not been there, but tiny Lesotho may show the way.