In keeping with its promise to produce a quality and authoritative national newspaper in South Africa, THISDAY South Africa has released its pilot edition in Johannesburg to a Focus Group for a social scientific analysis.

Terrifying incidents at schools around the country has resulted in a call for staff to be allowed to carry guns at school. A recent incident that has highlighted the vulnerability of educators involves school principal Lucy Lushaba (47) who was shot dead over the festive season.

Home affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi on Tuesday for the first time lifted the lid on allegations of irregular expenditure, totalling millions of rands, in a written reply to the portfolio committee on home affairs.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) has convened a Forum of Non-Governmental Organisations which has resolved to oppose South Africa's proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill, tabled in Parliament for debate on 10 March. The Bill was referred to the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security on the 14 March for public hearings and deliberations. Public invitations for submissions on the Bill have been issued and the deadline for submissions is the 30 April.

The socio-economic system underpinning apartheid in South Africa was based on the exploitation of black workers in the mines, the factories, the fields and the shops. It is widely recognized that the struggles of the South African black working class contributed decisively to the overthrow of the racist regime. In recognition of the power of organised labour, the democratic government elected in 1994 granted South Africa's unions unprecedented legal and constitutional rights. However, despite these gains, the country's labour movement has been facing a fresh set of challenges, from macroeconomic policy to the factory floor, many of them emanating from labour's political allies in Government. The purpose of this book is to examine how the South African labour movement is responding to these challenges in the new millennium.

A leading South African judge has warned of the possible emergence of a ‘genetic apartheid’, arguing that the scientific advances of genetic research have created the spectre of a ‘genetic underclass’ that is vulnerable to exploitation and discrimination.

South African AIDS activists continued a civil disobedience campaign on Tuesday by shouting down Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as she tried to address a conference. Blowing whistles, waving red "wanted" posters and shouting "Murderer" and "Manto go to jail", some 100 members of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) drowned out Tshabalala-Msimang as she tried to make herself heard at a public health conference in Cape Town.

We are angry. According to Government's sources over 600 people will die of AIDS everyday on average this year. We stand here today to say to you that you have wilfully and negligently failed to implement the necessary interventions, including antiretroviral treatment, that would prevent many of these deaths. Also available by clicking on the link below are excerpts from an indictment by the TAC against two government ministers for culpable homicide, for their repeated refusal to act to provide such treatment.

Stellenbosch-based Indutech has released what it describes as the world's first software solution to tackle HIV/Aids in the workplace. The solution, EDEN for HIV/Aids, is to be rolled out soon in the automotive industry.

With its prayers unanswered of avoiding a war in Iraq, South Africa must hope for a short, sharp operation. President Thabo Mbeki's principled stand against the forceful disarmament of Iraq has put South Africa's relations with two of its most important friends in the balance.

South Africa is facing one of the worst Tuberculosis (TB) epidemics in the world, with disease rates up to 60 times higher than currently experienced by the United States or Western Europe, the South African Red Cross Society (SARCS) has warned.

Corruption in South Africa, gripe many locals, is as bad as in the rest of Africa. Poorly-paid policemen let offenders go in exchange for a few notes. Officials pocket pensions and other welfare payments they are supposed to pass on. Even the admired captain of the national cricket team, the late Hansie Cronje, was caught taking money from betting syndicates. Shady practice was long a problem during white rule, says President Thabo Mbeki, but he admits that it remains so today. In December, he promised to "fight graft and root out and defeat networks of corruption". This week, that promise gained some credibility. On March 19th, a court in Pretoria sentenced a senior politician to four years in jail. Tony Yengeni, who was until last year chief whip of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), was found guilty of defrauding Parliament.

Members of the HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign in Sharpeville, South Africa, have filed charges of manslaughter against the country's Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Trade Minister Alec Erwin over not providing "adequate treatment for people with HIV," the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The South African government should not respond with violence to HIV/AIDS demonstrators seeking medical treatment, Human Rights Watch says. Police in Durban last week opened water cannons on some 70 peaceful demonstrators who were urging the government to provide antiretroviral treatment for persons living with HIV/AIDS. This attack took place on the eve of South Africa's Human Rights Day, established in memory of the victims of apartheid-era atrocities. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has also condemned police action against protestors, reports IRIN news.

This Briefing document is intended to help TAC activists and supporters to understand the background to TAC's decision to embark on a civil disobedience campaign in March 2003. Hundreds of pages could be written about TAC's efforts to persuade government to work with civil society on an HIV/AIDS treatment programme - but this is just a summary. In addition, although there is a great deal of independent research and information that could be cited to support TAC's demands, in this document we refer only to government's own research and policy statements to show how, in reality, the reluctance to commit to a treatment plan, including anti-retroviral medicines, contradicts its own findings, policies and constitutional duties.

The European Union (EU) will give a grant of Shs 8m Euro (about 16bn) to Uganda civil society groups to enhance trade and development co-operation.

The National Lotto Distribution Trust Fund has allocated R800000 to Buffalo City after the council applied to the fund last year. The grant will be paid in three installments with the second and third payments subject to progress reports on the first and second installments.

Dot Wampach and Emma Lawler might be in their seventies, but that did not stop them and 500 other volunteers from raising money for the Berea Gardens retirement home. Selling goodies and veggies at a tuckshop, they raised R24000 from selling gifts and food parcels that donors offered for the home. With the other volunteers they also sewed, knitted, baked and did repairs and maintenance.

President Thabo Mbeki will participate in his first major golf tournament, the inaugural Presidential Golf Classic 2003, to raise funds for youth development in the sport. Presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said the tournament, to be hosted by the president, would be held at the Woodhill Country Club in Pretoria on March 22.

South Africa's multi-billion rand arms deal was challenged in the Cape High Court on Wednesday by a group which believes it can still be stopped. The Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (Ecaar), represented by anti-arms activist Terry Crawford-Browne, applied to the court to have the deal scrapped, e-tv reported.