An emotive regional debate on the safety of genetically modified food aid has thrown a spotlight on South Africa's stance on biotechnology, exposing a lonely but unwavering policy. Diplomatic wranglings have overshadowed a food crisis threatening much of southern Africa, with countries in need of food aid first refusing to take GM maize, and then negotiating deals to make sure their own crops do not become contaminated. But while Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and most prominently Zambia have all expressed great concern over even accepting GM crops, regional economic powerhouse South Africa is steaming ahead with an agenda of strong support for agricultural biotechnology that insiders say is here to stay.

Prostitution in South Africa should continue to be illegal, the country's Constitutional Court has ruled. A lower court had earlier declared that the Sexual Offences Act was unconstitutional because it discriminated against women and so should be scrapped.

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said last week that shareholders were failing to call companies to account for poor corporate governance. Speaking at a conference on shareholder activism, Manuel said that while shareholders had a right to oversee the affairs of a company, this right was "tragically too often ignored".

Thisday (Pty) Ltd has announced it will focus its energies on launching a new national weekly newspaper in South Africa, the company said on Thursday.

South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma announced last week that the government has undertaken steps to distribute nevirapine universally to state hospitals in an attempt to reduce the nation's mother-to-child HIV transmission rate, Reuters reports.

The South African government, in a statement on HIV/AIDS, has urged the country to "join hands so that we can together build on the progress that has been made in the fight against the epidemic, to intensify the campaign of hope."

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A rapidly increasing number of foreigners, mostly African, are seeking asylum and refugee status in Cape Town due to the "high incidence of xenophobia" and crime in Johannesburg.

Indian group Paharpur will bid a second time for the Komatiland forests only if its concerns around good governance and fair play in the bidding process are addressed, it says.

Human rights group Women Against Child Abuse and the Democratic Alliance (DA) have launched a campaign to put pressure on government to allocate resources to fight the criminal abuse of women and children.

Charities in KwaZulu-Natal lost about R100-million in donations because of the change-over from a provincial to a national lottery, according to a comparison of funding done by the two lottery organisations.

South Africa has set up a national chapter of one of the biggest philanthropic foundations in the world. The Laureus Sport for Good Foundation uses sporting legends to promote sport as a tool for social change and raise funds for social upliftment programmes worldwide.

Harmbee Holdings and Dimension Data have pledged R28 million for a state–of–the–art school. The school’s plight caught the eye of the minister of Social Development and other MPs when they visited the area three years ago.

Malaria has only recently been overtaken by AIDs as the largest single cause of death by transmitted disease in Africa, but for centuries, it has outranked warfare as a source of human suffering. Over the past generations it has killed millions of human beings and sapped the strength of hundreds of millions more.

The WWF is calling on governments around the world to undertake comprehensive risk assessment of coastlines and to identify Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas (PSSAs) after an Italian freighter ran aground off the East coast of South Africa.

Violence against women is one of the most pressing public health problems in South Africa, with rape being more common than tuberculosis, according to Professor Lynette Denny, senior specialist at Groote Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.

Applications are invited for the two positions of lecturer/senior lecturer/associate professor in International Relations commencing January 2003 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Willie Madisha, president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), says government leaders may be linked to attempts to infiltrate the labour movement in a bid to fragment it. He was responding to a government statement on Wednesday branding Cosatu's two-day anti-privatisation strike a failure and saying there was a crisis of leadership in the union body.
Related Links:
* The Future of the Alliance
http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2,40,5,78
* Sactwu berates government
http://www.africapulse.org/index.phpaction=viewarticle&articleid=416

The Treatment Action Campaign, the lobby pushing for the rights of HIV/AIDS victims, says that a meeting of government's advisory and advocacy panel on the epidemic amounted to another missed opportunity to deal with urgent issues. In its statement the SA National AIDS Council, Sanac, gave no signal of national government's intentions to allow disbursement to KwaZulu-Natal of grant funding from the Global Fund. The Treatment Action Campaign accused the health minister of blocking the grant because it would expand access to antiretroviral treatment in the public sector.

Members of Parliament could face restrictions on what jobs they can take after leaving public office if proposals on an expansion of the MPs' ethical code of conduct find favour with Parliament's ethics committee and the National Assembly.