The national health department says South Africans must be proud and celebrate that the country will be getting money from the Global Fund to fight AIDS. Health department spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said out of more than 100 countries that had applied for grants, South Africa was among the 31 countries that were in discussion with the Fund to work out details of allocation, disbursement and accountability.

A website using the slogan "Welcome to SA's National Robbery" to call for a boycott of the National Lottery because of concerns over donations from its proceeds, has been threatened with legal action by Uthingo. On his website Dewberry wrote that Uthingo owed about R2-billion to the National Lottery Distribution Fund (NLDF) for good causes. The total was calculated from the government requirement for 30 percent of the lottery earnings to be distributed.

About 1 000 HIV-positive, abused or neglected children left stranded by a banking mess-up have been given a R1-million-plus lifeline - after Metro revealed their plight. The project, which was started in late 2000, donated small sums to struggling families to start backyard businesses. It also ran a feeding scheme. It received R100 000 from the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund shortly after it started - but became embroiled in a battle with the bank last August after a series of large deposits were made into its account.

The Eskom Development Foundation on Tuesday presented People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa) with a R100 000 cheque. The grant was to support the objectives of the organisation in the context of celebrating Women's Day and would also go towards the development of its Soweto branch.

The German government has injected about R8-million into the coffers of the Johannesburg World Summit Company (Jowsco) to boost preparations for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

NGOs can be sustained by mobilising funds from their communities, thereby reducing dependence on donor and foundation grants -- if the Ashoka Citizen Base Initiative (CBI) is anything to go by. This strategic shift for organisational sustainability was displayed earlier this week when Ashoka presented five South African organisations with R250 000 in prize money for
demonstrating their ability in tapping resources from the communities they serve.

Representatives from various women's organisations in Mpumalanga will participate in a provincial "women's parliament" on Tuesday to share ideas on matters from HIV/Aids to the world summit on sustainable development.

The possibility of community service for newly qualified teachers was "on the agenda" as a possible mechanism to slow down the poaching of local teachers by developed countries in the north, Education Minister Kader Asmal says.

KwaZulu-Natal has the most complaints about human rights violations on farms out of all nine provinces, according to the Human Rights Commission. The commission heard harrowing stories of regular sjambokking, threats of eviction backed up with a rifle, verbal abuse using racial terminology, the destruction of property and illegal wage deductions.

An extremely rare Longman's beaked whale, only the third complete specimen known to science, has washed up on a South African beach, a senior scientist said last Sunday.

With millions facing starvation in southern Africa, the United Nations warned its top managers Monday against ostentatious entertaining at an environmental summit later this month in Johannesburg.

HIV prevalence reached a high of 40 percent in rural women aged between 21 and 25, 12 percent higher than the overall rate of 28 percent, according to a new study.

Proposed legislation to fight corruption should include the regulation of political party funding, Parliament's justice committee heard last week during public hearings on the Prevention of Corruption Bill.

The anti-privatisation strike planned for October 1 and 2 by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) with the backing of the South African Communist Party (SACP) threatens to plunge the tripartite alliance into its worst crisis ever and could make a split unavoidable, alliance leaders said this week.

The current practice of redlining in housing by financial institutions in the country was discriminatory, racist and anti-developmental, the Congress of SA Trade Unions said recently in its submission to the Department of Housing's draft legislation, the Community Reinvestment Housing Bill.

The German government has allocated another R125-million to a South African fund which loans money to poor people living in rural areas to build houses. The Rural Housing Loan Fund (RHLF) has improved the living conditions of 200,000 people by lending money to over 34,000 households.

NGOs can be sustained by mobilising funds from their communities, thereby reducing dependence on donor and foundation grants -- if the Ashoka Citizen Base Initiative (CBI) is anything to go by. This strategic shift for organisational sustainability was displayed earlier this week when Ashoka presented five South African organisations with R250 000 in prize money for demonstrating their ability in tapping resources from the communities they serve.

The dispute between the South African government and the Global Fund to Fight Aids over funding to KwaZulu-Natal was an “unnecessary controversy” that was damaging South Africa's reputation with the Fund and the international community. More importantly, it was causing a delay in the implementation of programmes to prevent further AIDS deaths and new HIV infections. This is according to a statement signed by a host of organisations and individuals, including the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the South African Medical Association and Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane.

Moving swiftly on startling evidence of prison corruption and mismanagement heard recently by the Jali Commission of Inquiry, the government has set up a team of investigators which will swing into action to probe the allegations.

Township dwellers in South Africa are fighting for basic services, such as water and electricity. On 9 June, Soweto residents marched to the home of the Mayor of Greater Johannesburg, Amos Masondo. Their organisation, Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC), led by Trevor Ngwame, had been set up several weeks before. SECC reports that twenty thousand more houses are being disconnected from electricity in Soweto every month.