South African President Thabo Mbeki in his State of the Nation address to Parliament last Friday "was silent on the key challenge of AIDS," Reuters reports. Mbeki "shrugged off" renewed demands from hundreds of AIDS advocates who marched on Parliament, calling for the government to reconsider its "go-slow" approach to the epidemic.

Government is under increasing pressure to provide anti-retroviral drugs to people with HIV. In developed countries, the drugs have resulted in babies born with HIV now reaching university. But what about South African children with HIV?

A school founded in a shearing shed seven years ago moved to brand new buildings last week, thanks to the work of the Vusisizwe Trust and the AngloGold Fund. Since 1990 the trust has funded and managed the construction of 1051 classrooms, administration facilities and toilets at 56 Eastern Cape schools at a cost of R96,4 million.

The Daily Dispatch reports that the Eskom Development Foundation has donated 10 industrial sewing machines for the Happy Home Centre for Disabled Children in the Eastern Cape. The Foundation is providing a helping hand to the Centre for the second time after it realised the significant impact of a first donation it made in 2001.

According to the Daily Dispatch, Steve Heath has embarked on a month-long journey from Cape Town to KwaZulu -Natal to raise funds for the Bobbi Bear Foundation. Bobbi Bear is a national charity for abused children. Steve is pushing a 85kg trolley which carries a tent, food, fishing rods and clothes as well as a South African flag and a red teddy bear. The Bobbi Bear Foundation is hoping to raise R500 000 from Steve's long journey.

The South African government should urgently implement outstanding recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), say Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in a briefing paper. "President Thabo Mbeki should use the opening of the 2003 parliamentary session to announce a program of reparations for victims and to renounce any possibility of a further amnesty," the organisations urged.

On average, the morals of IT professionals who work for an organisation with a code of ethics are significantly higher than professionals working for companies that do not have a code. Communication and enforcement of a code of ethics is essential in raising public awareness of the code and in minimizing unethical behaviour.

The phenomenon of street children is nothing new. As many as 30,000 children were living on the streets of London in the 1850's, for example. In comparison, it's a relatively recent problem for South Africa, but with numbers steadily rising and the HIV epidemic set to make things worse, it is becoming a pressing issue.

The fraud and corruption trial of former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni and businessman Michael Woerfel appears set to get under way. A possible settlement deal between Yengeni and the state has not materialised.

Every Monday morning, patients infected with the AIDS virus come to the red-brick clinic in this impoverished community of dilapidated shacks. In the waiting room, babies wail, nurses hustle and some young women fidget on wooden benches as their earrings dangle and their chipped pink toenails gleam. The clinic looks like one of the hundreds of medical centers overwhelmed by South Africa's AIDS epidemic. Yet there is little talk of depression or dying here.

The Municipal Services Project (MSP) is looking for an experienced Project Coordinator to manage research and administrative activities in the second phase of the project.  This is a three-year contract position from March 2003 to March 2006.  The Coordinator will ideally be based in Cape Town at the International Labour Research and Information Group Trust (ILRIG) offices, affiliated with the University of Cape Town, although candidates located in Johannesburg or Durban will be considered. 

Gencor has undertaken to pay out more than R460-million to compensate sufferers of asbestos-related diseases. This money will go into a trust fund to pay for treatment and to compensate families who lose breadwinners. But the bill for cleaning up the asbestos mines remains unpaid, and in villages in large parts of the Northern Cape and Limpopo people live in buildings made of asbestos and drive on asbestos roads, while children play on dumps of asbestos fibre.

On February 14, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) will embark on a march for access to HIV/AIDS treatment. TAC says if government fails to sign a national treatment and prevention plan that includes the use of anti-retroviral therapy, then they will be forced to embark on a national and international campaign of civil disobedience against the South African government. The link provided below contains a variety of background information and documents distributed by Africa Action dealing with issues relating to treatment access.

Mpumalanga's controversial health minister, Sibongile Manana, has tried once again to evict the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project from two of the province's hospitals. Manana and Grip - which provides free counselling, health care and anti-Aids drugs to rape victims in the province - have been at loggerheads since October 2000, when she lambasted Grip for providing the drugs to rape survivors.

Public Enterprise Minister Jeff Radebe and his director general said on Saturday they were "outraged" at media reports blaming them for the bungled privatisation of Transnet's production house to an allegedly ANC-linked company.

The National Youth Commission (NYC) has accused the Democratic Alliance of racism, in reaction to a DA comment that it should be disbanded. Monde Mkalipi, a commission spokesperson, says it remains a product of progressive youth formations that aims were to reconstruct and develop South Africa.

The Finnish government has donated R9 million to the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council. About R8 million will be used to further develop democracy and peace in the province, while the remaining R1 million will be used in the fight against HIV/Aids. Despite the row between national government and KwaZulu-Natal based agencies over the recent UN Global Aids funding, the churches do not expect a conflict with government.

According to The Mercury, the South African National Aids Council (SANAC) - now constituted as a legal entity - has been appointed principal recipient of funding to South Africa from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. SANAC will act as an intermediary grantmaker, disbursing grants to organisations and initiatives, monitoring their progress and reporting back to the Fund.

The Daily Dispatch reports that a centre for mentally disabled in East London is still waiting for funding which was alledgedly promised by the National Development Agency (NDA) in 2000. Mfesane Training Centre was allocated R73 000 on 2 October 2001 but only received the funding agreement for signature in September 2002. The grant is currently being processed by the NDA's finance department, and the NDA programme administrator says it is likely to be transferred to the Centre by the end of February 2003.

The Lesaoana Intermediate School in the rural eastern Free State village of Sehlajaneng boasts a computer center that is set to change the learning experience of its pupils, thanks to the Telkom Foundation. The equipment comes from the Telkom Foundation's Adopt-A-Project programme.