Doctors and nurses have borne the brunt of the HIV/Aids pandemic but have received inadequate training to cope with the disease. A new project aims to change that by providing African health workers with the skills to better treat HIV/Aids patients.

A Durban environmentalist, Desmond D’Sa felt so opposed to a proposal by Mondi to burn waste at its Durban paper mill, that he bought a share in Mondi’s parent company Anglo American, and last week flew to London to voice his concerns at Anglo American’s London AGM.

When Johannesburg Water started installing pre-paid water meters in their community in the weeks running up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), residents of Orange Farm in South Africa got a taste of today's conception of "sustainability": privatization of basic services, cost recovery policies, and tariff increases. For the one and a half million people living in Orange Farm, an informal settlement 50km south of Johannesburg where unemployment reaches 80 percent, these policies mean cut-offs and evictions. A harsh reality for an increasing number of people in the new, neoliberal South Africa.

The South African AIDS advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign held an international day of protest on April 24 against the South African government's handling of the AIDS epidemic, demanding that the government improve access to antiretroviral drugs.

Lesotho and Swaziland are among the five countries most affected by HIV/AIDS and are among a number of Southern African countries facing deteriorating economic and food supply conditions. These factors along with the re-occurrence of natural disasters, have contributed to two thirds of the people of Swaziland living below the poverty line. Similarly, in Lesotho, all indicators point to a continuous structural decline in the role of migrant remittances and growing poverty in the wake of poor economic growth. SC UK Southern Africa Regional office (SC UK SAFRO) is working with other organisations to provide immediate food aid intervention and longer term technical recommendations and livelihood interventions for vulnerable populations. This requires immediate and long-term assessments employing a multi-sectorial approach, to analyse issues of HIV/AIDS, health, water, food access and production.

Non-Profit Resource Training invites registrations for the
following workshops to be held in Cape Town.
* 13 - 15 May: Creative and Constructive Approaches to Conflict.
* 28 & 29 May: How to Write the Winning Funding Proposal.
* Inquiries: (021) 685 7726 or email: [email protected]

The South African Human Rights Commission on Tuesday released a 533-page report calling for the South African government to implement the Constitutional Court's ruling regarding the provision of antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive pregnant women and their infants, the South African Press Association reports. A Pretoria High Court in December 2001 ruled that the government must provide nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women through the public health system to reduce the risk of vertical HIV transmission.

This paper focuses on the transfixing configurations of migration dynamics in a new South Africa, while examining the context of migration and migration dynamics with an emphasis on the historical and institutional setting; the role of immigrants, including those doing the dirty and dangerous jobs, even when they are unwanted; the dynamics of replacement; and policy responses to fashion out appropriate migration regimes in the country.

The African National Congress Women's League last Friday said it accepted the outcome of the fraud and theft case against its president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. A Pretoria Regional Court magistrate sentenced Madikizela-Mandela to five years in jail after her conviction on dozens of fraud and theft charges on Thursday.

Apartheid debts, in the narrow sense of the word, are those debts which the newly elected democratic government inherited from the former apartheid regime. Many of these are domestic debts, of which nearly 40% are based on the fact that the apartheid state restructured the public pension fund in its final days in power from a pay-as-you-go system to a capital interest scheme. Foreign debts owed by the public sector amounted at the end of 1993 to US$ 15 billion. Adding the debts of the banking sector, including the Reserve Bank, and of the private sector, the total foreign apartheid debt amounted to US$ 25 billion. Read this briefing from Action for Southern Africa (Actsa) by clicking on the link provided.

Royal Dutch Shell’s recent concurrent annual general meetings in The Hague and London were attended by activists from communities neighbouring Shell facilities around the world. Local community based organisations from around the world recently decided to buy single shares in this multi-national corporation in order to gain direct access to Shell shareholders with the hope of raising awareness of the environmental destruction and human suffering Shell is causing worldwide.

The impact of HIV/AIDS could reverse democratic gains in Southern Africa, according to a report by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). A recently published research paper by the Pretoria-based institute found that lost incomes, increasing health and labour costs and decreasing productivity threatened the economic growth “necessary to sustain democratic practice in poor countries”.

When the colonial conquest of South Africa was completed, many black communities suddenly found themselves defined as the property of white men who, through pieces of paper written by other white men, not only owned their land but the people, too. All companies that operated at the time benefited from the policy, including De Beers, which now wants to do an intellectual gymnastic routine and claim it never benefited from apartheid. The diamonds mined using the slave labour of the late 19th century until the not-so-distant past were actually blood diamonds, as now defined in terms of war-related sparkling stones.
Related Links:
* Mbeki awards one-off payments to apartheid victims
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=397639
* Apartheid suit aims at
chemical giants
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1347584,00.html

The Southern Education Research Alliance's (SERA) Sustainable Rural Development task team, in partnership with Limpopo Provincial Government, invites proposals on rural development to the Greater Giyani Natural Resources Development Programme. The programme aims to utilise local natural resources to leverage economic activity in the Mopani district.

As part of its mandate, the NDA is carrying out activities to strengthen civil society and to engage civil society in dialogue. For this purpose, a network of strategic NGO and CBO partners will be selected in each province to participate in activities around: Dialogue around Poverty Issues with civil society; Capacity Building of the NGO and CBO sector; Project Formulation & Management; and Impact assessment of Poverty Eradication initiatives.

Link FM threw its financial weight behind the House on the Rock last month when it donated R10000 to the home. The House on the Rock is home to 23 children, some of whom were abandoned by parents, some who are Aids orphans and others who have been abused.

American talk show host Oprah Winfrey would have shed a tear or two when homeless people at a local care centre here battled for their free pair of takkies. The expensive athletics shoes were donated by the billionaire in December. Winfrey, together with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, donated 50000 gift packs -- including the takkies -- to schoolchildren as part of the Christmas Kindness project.

Sports Coaches' Outreach (Score) are to build a R500000 multi-purpose sports facility in Peddie. The project will be funded by the European Union, the organisation's community co-ordinator Ntombentle Zungula said.

The tide is turning for thousands of ex-mine workers in Pondoland after a R2,5 million boost from the National Skills Development Fund. Last week the Mining Qualifications Authority of South Africa (Mqasa), in conjunction with the OR Tambo District Municipality, launched the pilot project for ex-mine workers at Emfundisweni Skills Development and Resource Centre.

The National Development Agency (NDA) Act should be amended urgently to allow non-profit organisations to have greater influence in the budgeting and business planning processes of the Agency. This is one of the principal findings of a recent research study commissioned by the Non Profit Partnership (NPP) and the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) into the NDA Act. The research was commissioned to determine how the NDA could be strengthened to more effectively deliver on its mandate to the non-profit sector.