Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya together with the National Development Agency (NDA) has donated R500 000 to the Msinga Peace and Development Committee (MPDC) to be used for poverty alleviation and job creation programmes.

SABCnews reports that five organisations in Gauteng, all working with people affected by Aids, have received R950 500 from Gauteng Premier, Mbhazima Shilowa. The money is the proceeds from the Premier's Golf Pro-Am hosted by Shilowa last year. The beneficiary organisations are: The Karabo Day Care Centre, Tsabotsogo Community Development Project, Uncedo Women Development Group, Zimbanati Project and Zimisele Economic Social Growth and Development.

The European Union (EU) has set aside R500 000 for building sports facilities for seven different towns in the Eastern Cape, reports the Daily Dispatch.

Business Day reports that Gallo recording company has handed out a grant totalling R100 000 to the Topsy Foundation, a charity organisation empowering people affected by Aids. The money was raised during the inaugural Gallo Golf Day at the Johannesburg Country Club. The Topsy Foundation is unique because of its holistic approach in combating Aids: the foundation has factories, skills training facilities and a health care centre.

The Community Media Policy Research Unit has lobbied the communications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), to allow low power radio broadcasting to broaden access to the airwaves. The Policy Research Unit is a joint initiative of the National Community Radio Forum and the Freedom of Expression Institute, and represented the views of both organisations at an Icasa public hearing on the matter.

In an unprecedented legal manoeuvre, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has approached the judge president of the Cape High Court and offered to mediate in an eviction dispute involving about 3000 families. "The case relates to a number of important issues that include the implementation of socio-economic rights, in particular the rights to dignity and housing," said SAHRC Western Cape co-ordinator Ashraf Mahomed.

The cheetah's deep, resonant purr always captivates visitors to a South African wildlife centre devoted to the world's fastest mammal. But some South Africans are less enthusiastic about the animals, which can beat a Ferrari in a 60-yard sprint. The De Wildt Trust says the rise of private game farming has intensified a long conflict between farmers and the endangered carnivore that has seen at least 200 wild cheetahs — from a wild population that may now be as low as 250 — killed or removed from their wild habitat in South Africa over the last two years.

Apartheid, it seems, works. Nearly 10 years since racial segregation was abolished in South Africa, identity is still rooted in race. Or so it would appear from the case of Happy Sindane, the blond Ndebele-speaking boy who walked into a police station last month saying he had been abducted from his white family by their black cleaner at the age of six and brought up among blacks.

The arms procurement deal investigation was fundamentally flawed from the outset, and President Thabo Mbeki's advisors stunted the process when they influenced the course of justice, former judge Willem Heath said on Saturday.

The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has taken an interest in the Nigeria-South Africa oil saga and has visited some of those involved, including the wife of Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile. The Mail & Guardian revealed a month ago how a lucrative crude oil contract — awarded by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to the "Republic of South Africa" after lobbying by President Thabo Mbeki — was diverted to an offshore company. There was no benefit to South Africa. The government has offered no comprehensive explanation since then.

The Inkatha Freedom Party's powerful national council will next week sit to discuss the party's possible exit from the national government -- a move that senior party members say is the most serious debate yet on this option. The debate, which has been raging in the party over the past months, coincides with frantic behind the scenes attempts by the African National Congress to seize control of KwaZulu-Natal.

The Centre for Conflict Resolution is an independent, non-governmental organisation. Based in Cape Town, it works nationally and in other African countries to promote constructive, creative and co-operative approaches to the resolution of conflict and the reduction of violence. It invites applications from suitable candidates for the following positions: Senior Manager for Research and Programme Manager for Academic Teaching. For more details please click on the URL provided.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions on Wednesday said that while the SABC's draft editorial policy was "full of excellent intentions and worthy ideals" there remained a huge gap between the course of action the public broadcaster had prescribed and what it was doing in its day-to-day broadcasts.

They believe God created an elect group of whites to rule the peoples of the world. They also believe the Bible forbids racial "interbreeding". Yet Jaco van der Merwe, spiritual leader of the Lewende Hoop (Living Hope) congregation in Kroonstad, denies their message is political. Police and intelligence officers do not seem to agree that the teachings of the Lewende Hoop church are a-political.

Nearly a month after it was to have started, the treason trial of 22 alleged Boeremag members was postponed for the fourth time because of unresolved legal aid issues on Tuesday.

South Africa's health system will soon offer drugs blocking the Aids virus, the body that advises the government on HIV/Aids has said. The South African National Aids Council (Sanac) made the announcement following a meeting with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) - a group that has been urging the government to supply the drugs.

Just over R1 million has been raised at an auction of former president Nelson Mandela's memorabilia. The auction was held to raise money for the Nelson Mandela Trust, which supports certain charities.

This national symposium will look at the implications of important drivers of global change for national and regional sustainability of human and ecological systems in South Africa. It will build on the 1995 southern African IGBP meeting and the South African Country Study on Climate Change completed in 1999.

The South African Human Rights Commission (HURISA), in a statement to the 33RD session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights held in late May, urged the commission to consider the impact that privatisation was having on the implementation of socio-economic rights enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights not only in South Africa but in countries throughout the continent.

A declaration handed to the World Economic Forum (WEF) regional meeting held in Durban last week declared the WEF "an anti-democratic institution", saying that any decisions taken by the WEF "cannot be considered to be binding on the people of Africa and the world". The declaration said: "We are committed to an autonomous, unified Africa and demand that we the people of Africa, and not the corporate and political elites, shape our own destiny. We reject neo-liberal economic policies, as embodied in NEPAD and GEAR, including privatisation and unregulated "free trade" instead of fair trade."