Unarmed opposition and civil society groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) began informal talks last Friday with South African President Thabo Mbeki, aimed at finding common ground between them and the other belligerents in DRC's war.

Rightwingers behind a suspected plot to overthrow the government do not represent white opinion in South Africa, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said last Saturday.

The African National Congress and the New National Party announced moves to cement their co-operation pact on Saturday in apparent anticipation of them jointly taking control of a number of municipal councils.
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ANC claims Cape Town
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Government must brace itself for more strikes if privatisation is not scrapped, Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willie Madisha said on Wednesday. "If the government does not listen to us as workers and does not address our plight, we will go to the streets until it listens. We don't care how long it takes," he told protesters in Pretoria.

The "Mail & Guardian" newspaper has scored an important victory in a R3 million (approx. US$288,000) defamation suit filed by South Africa Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele against the newspaper. On 27 September 2002, the court ruled that a cabinet minister should not have the standing to sue for defamation when criticised in relation to the execution of her function as a minister.

Two hospital administrators at major Zululand hospitals were arrested on Tuesday in an ongoing fraud and corruption swoop. The latest arrests form part of a province-wide crackdown on about 180 corrupt Health Department officials and suppliers involved in a scam in which they benefited financially to the tune of more than R35 million.

President Thabo Mbeki spoke out against corruption and inadequate service delivery during the closing session of the African National Congress (ANC) policy conference. Mbeki said the quality of ANC councillors had to be improved because "they are very much at the front trenches".

Based on the document adopted in the First Preparatory Committee on Principles guiding the Preparatory work and the WSIS, as well as the proposal from the Chair of Sub-Committee 2 on themes for the WSIS, informal consultations of Sub-Committee 2 were held from 16 to 18 September 2002. The meeting agreed to submit the following as an informal input to the Regional Preparatory Meetings and to the Second Preparatory Committee of the WSIS.

The business community has announced that it will inject R50 million into the LoveLife HIV/Aids prevention project.
Former presidents Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Bill Clinton of the United States attended a ceremony yesterday to celebrate the partnership between the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation in support of the loveLife initiative.

Minister of Social Development, Dr Zola Skweyiya, has questioned the distribution of Lotto proceeds, the Star reports. He has hinted that an amendment of the legislation in this regard might bring more transparency to the allocation of funds.

The mergers and restructuring of tertiary institutions are geared towards the creation of a docile, unskilled slave mass and an elite of controllers of the working class [the amabhunu amnyama]. Many working class and other poverty-stricken parents are making huge sacrifices to enroll their sons and daughters to tertiary institutions to study in the hope that they will have a better life than what the parents had to endure.

The communities of South Durban are not convinced that a new coal fired incinerator won't affect their health and have unanimously rejected Mondi's proposed development.

A proposed amendment to South Africa's broadcasting law jeopardises the South African Broadcasting Corporation's (SABC) fundamental rights to freedom of expression and editorial independence, warns Article 19. Article 19, the independent and non-partisan NGO that works to promote and protect freedom of expression, says the new Broadcasting Amendment Bill raises a number of concerns. A formal requirement that SABC's output be accurate, accountable and fairly reported and that staff should act in the best interests of the corporation, "give room to undue interference with their editorial independence and journalistic standards," the group warns.

Salvage workers are resuming the pumping of oil from the ship that went aground off the east coast of South Africa in mid-September. The Jolly Rubino, a freighter carrying hazardous chemicals, is still aground near the St Lucia Wetlands reserve - a designated World Heritage site.

A government-sponsored program that includes HIV/AIDS prevention, counseling and testing, as well as antiretroviral treatment, could help save nearly three million lives and prevent almost as many new infections in South Africa by 2015, thereby averting a "social catastrophe," according to a report released last Thursday by the Treatment Action Campaign.

South African scientists at the University of Cape Town Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine have announced plans to begin manufacturing and testing three new AIDS vaccines, the AP/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

The Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM), an independent corruption monitoring unit, has declared as a "whitewash" an investigation that cleared a top level health official of improper conduct following revelations of his business interests in the health sector.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) has strongly condemned the physical attacks, harassment and death threats issued against journalists working for the African Eye News Service (AENS) in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga Province. The FXI has written to the Mpumalanga Member of Executive Council (MEC) for Safety and Security, Thabang Makwetla, calling for action against the perpetrators.

Prevented from hunting dwindling stocks of wildlife in their desert homelands, Gulf Arabs are increasingly setting their sights on the big game and birds of South Africa's veld.

They say that it takes a thief to catch another thief. Conversely, when it comes to HIV it can be said that it is much easier for a person living with the HI-virus to convincingly offer counselling and support to a recently diagnosed individual, or to one another. Khopotso Bodibe of Health-e News Service, spent time with two AIDS counsellors at the clinic during a debriefing session and spoke with them about the benefits of giving their time to helping other HIV-infected women.