They are young and gorgeous, dressed scantily, if at all, and with sex on the brain. When not unbuckling belts, rolling in bed, entwining legs and sliding hands towards nether regions, they are talking about sex. And they are everywhere. On billboards and television, in newspapers and magazines, suffusing South Africa with what resembles a racy advertising campaign for Coca-Cola or Levis. In fact this is an HIV/Aids prevention campaign, one of the most audacious and controversial to be attempted in Africa, and the use of branding techniques is intentional. If it works, safe-sex will become as hip and ubiquitous as Coke.

The government's final report on the R60-billion arms procurement deal was heavily edited and it left out findings on gifts received by key players in the controversial deal, Business Day reported on Wednesday. The final report, handed over to Parliament last year, also omitted "inaccuracies" in a defence department presentation to Parliament's select committee on public accounts (Scopa), the newspaper said.

The Greater Johannesburg Welfare, Social Service and Development Forum (GJWSSDF) hosted a meeting on the funding crisis in the welfare sector on Thursday 8 May. The meeting was a follow up to a meeting held in October of last year. The meeting attracted more than 80 people but was marred by the last minute cancellation by key speakers from the Department of Social Development and the National Development Agency (NDA).

Dispatch Online reports that due to R20 000 and R25 000 donations from the FNB Foundation and the Joan St Leger Lindbergh Charity Fund respectively the Border Community Chest this month recorded its best fundraising result ever.

Bush Tale is a stage play and is currently showing at the Windybrow Theatre for the Arts in Hillbrow. It closes on Saturday 24 May. It is written by Martin Koboekae, and directed by Walter Chakela. Bush Tales is a hilarious story set in the Platteland. It enables both black and white South Africans to look back at their past and laugh at themselves.

The treason trial of 22 alleged members of the rightwing Boeremag organisation was postponed in the high court here for a week to address problems with legal aid. Judge Eben Jordaan directed that a meeting be held this week between defence lawyers, the prosecution and the Legal Aid Board to resolve issues in dispute.

Patrick Bond and his co-authors have researched and campaigned on behalf of social and environmental justice for years: offering alternatives to a huge minerals smelter at Nelson Mandela Metropole, opposing the Lesotho mega-dams, helping township activists end electricity/water disconnections and advocating free lifeline services. The hope lies with grassroots protest movements rising everywhere: against globalisation, privatisation, unemployment, poverty, the denial of healthcare and social services, and ecological degradation. In South Africa, what de-commodifying alternatives do they present?

While Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang made it clear in her R8,38-billion Budget speech earlier this month that the decision to provide anti-retroviral drugs in the public sector rested with Cabinet, her speech contained other good news. Government has finally decided to set aside R500-million to recruit and retain rural health professionals, for increases in allowances and salaries.

Massive inequalities remain in terms of both access to education and quality of education in poor and rich communities, in large part because of the system of almost unregulated school fees. As a result, the education system is not delivering. The education department's recent report on school funding points out SA's educational results are far worse than in many poorer countries. Of 11 southern and east African countries, only Lesotho and Namibia score worse than SA for reading and mathematics.

The 'quiet giant’ of the South African liberation struggle against apartheid, Walter Sisulu, was laid to rest at Croesus Cemetery near Soweto, Saturday, in the same way he lived his life - with quiet dignity and honour. Earlier, thousands of mourners gathered at Orlando Stadium in Soweto to pay their last respects to Sisulu. In a dignified, emotional and nostalgic ceremony, tinged with grief and sadness, South Africans bid "hamba kahle" ("go well") to one of their country’s foremost anti-apartheid heroes in a special funeral, witnessed by his grieving widow Albertina, 84, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as close friend and former jailmate Nelson Mandela.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has failed to endorse a general antiretroviral treatment plan for HIV/AIDS sufferers even though a task team of the national treasury and health department concluded recently that providing these drugs was the most cost-effective way of combating the pandemic.

Once hunted to the verge of extinction, the magnificent southern right whale has not only staged a comeback but is now a major revenue earner for South Africa. Thousands of tourists flock to our shores between May and October to view the gentle giants of the oceans. Each winter and spring the whales congregate in the many small bays along the Cape coast to mate and calf.

The Wits HIV/Aids Research Institute was formally launched 14 May at Hofmeyr House, Wits University. The institute will be headed by Geoffrey Setswe who comes from the Medunsa School of Public Health. He will take office in June. The Institute was established from a $500 000 donation from the Carnegie Foundation and is the brainchild of Prof James McIntyre of the HIV/Aids Perinatal Clinic.

Beyond the R1,4-billion Eskom write-off of electricity arrears announced last week is a deeper political significance. The social movements, or "ultra-left" as they were labelled by the African National Congress last year, are beginning to make an impact on policy.

Five charities in South Africa are set to benefit from donations using short message service technology (SMS) on cellphones. People donate by sending a premium-rated SMS that costs R10, compared to a normal rate of a few cents. The proceeds from the initiative that runs until 31 July will be collected by Supersport Charity Challenge and distributed to Cotlands Baby Sanctuary, the CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation, the Red Cross, Reach for a Dream Foundation and the Ithemba Trust. To ensure people's participation, those who donate using SMS technology will be entered into a draw to win a car.

Antiretroviral drugs are "affordable" and launching a program to deliver the medicines to HIV-positive people throughout South Africa is "feasible," according to a cost study completed by the country's national health and finance ministries.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) has just released a report on the activities of its Anti-Censorship Programme (ACP), which has been in existence since June 2002. A decision was taken to establish the Programme last year, after the FXI experienced a sharp rise in the number of censorship cases it was being called on to handle. In the report, the FXI notes that its decision to establish the Programme has been vindicated, as censorship is clearly increasing in South Africa.

A former Transnet official is facing prosecution after he allegedly accepted bribes worth more than R1-million from a company that was part of a Siemens-led consortium which won a major contract from the parastatal. Anver Hendricks, former national maintenance and support manager for the National Port Authority, a division of Transnet, has been formally charged with corruption in the Cape Town Regional Court for accepting bribes from the parastatal's suppliers.

The column scheduled for this week would have given a breakdown of the actual financial loss to the poorest of the poor despite more widespread and increased government grants and other assistance. It was also to have given details of the possible effects of a R73 million contract awarded to a British think-tank to "provide technical assistance for restructuring public services in South Africa". But that can wait. The macro view has given way to the micro. Only because I quite literally bumped into Thembinkosi earlier this week. Over two days, we established a rapport. His story comes from the increasingly crowded margins of the labour movement; from the ranks of the non-unionised and often frightened workers who live a hand-to-mouth existence, selling their skills and all too frequently their lives in a viciously competitive and grossly exploitative market. It summed up the effects of a brutally competitive market and mass unemployment at a human level.

A black man who fell in love with a tall, slender Afrikaner woman found out this week the outlawed Immorality Act - which prohibited love across the colour-line - still exists as far as his employer is concerned. Johannes Montoedi of Wolmaransstad said he was fired this week from Buisfontein Safari Lodge, where he was employed as a driver, because of his affair with a white woman.