“This system is taking us back to square one,” said Mvenda Masalas, an unemployed father of three fighting eviction from an inner city tenement in Johannesburg. He was among 150 poors, many of them already homeless, who marched on the offices of the provincial Minister of Housing last Saturday.

A non-governmental organisation filed a lawsuit in November against 21 multinational corporations and leading international banks for helping prop up the apartheid state. The Khulumani Support Group (Khulumani) filed the suit in its name as well as that of 85 of its 33000 members, in the New York Eastern District Court. This feature, by Jubilee SA and in Question and Answer format, answers some of the common questions around the lawsuit and delves into the issues raised.

Supporters stood at attention and sang the old Transvaal Republic's anthem as eight alleged rightwingers appeared in the Pretoria Regional Court last Thursday afternoon on charges of high treason, terrorism, and sabotage.

One avenue of investigation into South Africa's controversial arms probe has been closed, with accountant Ian Pierce being found not guilty of failing to produce financial records in connection with his company Futuristic Business Solutions (FBS).

President Thabo Mbeki's SABC 2 interview last Thursday sounded like a highly over-rated Hallmark card. Key questions could have made this otherwise interesting interview more relevant to issues confronting the country, argues Mohau Pheko.

President Thabo Mbeki has said that South Africa still has a long way to go if it is to create a non-racial society. The bulk of the economy, including the land, remains predominantly white-owned, nine years after the end of apartheid, he said in an opening speech to the African National Congress convention.

South Africa is now eight years into its inclusive democracy. The overall direction and success of this democratic experiment can be judged with various types of evidence. This report focuses on one type - the opinions of South African citizens about the overall direction of their new democracy. “We believe that the views of ordinary citizens, as the ultimate consumers of what democratic governments supply, can offer perhaps the most conclusive assessment of the quality of democratic governance,” says Idasa.

The popular Cancer shave-a-thon has come to an end. Guys and girls of courage lost their silky locks for a good cause as donors poured in hundreds of rands for the sake of cancer patients.

Oprah Winfrey, television talk show host, says the school she is helping to build must be regarded as an institutional symbol of the rejection of violence against women and girls.

Christmas trees, Rastafarians, punk rockers and even postboxes were just some of the fun costumes worn by runners in the Community Chest Twilight Team Run on Tuesday. Last year, the event raised over R190 000, which was distributed to more than 520 social welfare and development projects throughout the Western Cape.

The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development says it has reached its target of collecting 100 000 pledges for the 16-day long campaign against the abuse of women and children. For each of the first 100 000 signatures collected, NGOs working with abused women and children will get R2, helping them offer crucial services to those affected.

Geoff Brown and Tyrone Woods are on a unique cycling expedition. The Johannesburg-based AAA School of Advertising students arrived in town here on Tuesday en route to Cape Town to raise funds for burn victims. They began their journey at the Botswana border last month.

Nelson Mandela, the former president, announced at the weekend that he will host an exclusive concert featuring some of the world's leading entertainers to raise funds for Africa's millions of Aids victims.

Power-sharing talks between the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and its opponents resumed in the South African capital, Pretoria, on Monday.

Environmental NGO GroundWork has called for Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala Msimang, who recently announced her intentions to make it compulsory for alcoholic drinks to carry health warnings similar to those used on tobacco products, to go further and make it a requirement that there are health warnings on other products which are consumed daily or used by young children and pregnant women.

The Landless Peoples Movement and Urban Evicted People of Kwa-Zulu Natal have united to fight landlessness and evictions. On the 12th of December 2002, hundreds of members of both organisations will converge on the Durban City Hall for a protest.

Communities from across Durban will converge in Merebank on the 11th December 2002 to plan a campaign of rolling mass action against the City's new relocation policies. Residents in South Durban who face increasing industrial expansion and pollution have found common cause with the poor of Chatsworth, Sydenham Heights and Umlazi, who face evictions for rental arrears and unpaid rates bills.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) holds its first national conference in five years at Stellenbosch University next week -- with elections likely to indicate whether the left or "right-wing" of the movement holds sway.

Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, minister of the Department of Public Service and Administration, will address the Global Forum on Thursday to highlight SA's goals in implementing electronic government.

Zackie Achmat is not hungry, but tucks into the chocolate cake just the same. Achmat is HIV positive, yet refuses to take the antiretroviral drugs that could prolong his life. But he does boost his immune system with protein -- with chocolate cake. Achmat is not a shanty dweller unable to afford the drugs; he is not a so-called "Aids dissident" who believes the drugs are poison; he is not mad, and he is not suicidal. Zackie Achmat, according to Nelson Mandela, is a national hero: an ordinary man whose extraordinary resolve could help save thousands of African lives, at the cost of his own.