NICRO, a leading social service organization working in the field of crime prevention and restorative justice through development, is looking for a Programme MAnager and a Victim Support Worker.

The Australian Agency for International Development (Pretoria) is seeking a short-term gender consultant to assist with the selection process for the 2002 round of the Addressing Gender Violence Fund (AGVF), a program that provides grants to South African civil society organisations engaged with combating gender violence.

The Electoral Institute of Southern Africa is holding a seminar series entitled The Role of Observer Missions in the SADC Region.

Umhlaba Development Services is a development consultancy company providing a range of support services to NGOs, donors, and government departments. It is looking for a Financial Services Consultant.

A Cape Town-based black empowerment group has bought a majority stake in one of the biggest printing companies on the African continent. Arise Communications, a black-and women-owned empowerment group, recently bought a 52% stake in Associated Printing valued at R80 million.

Two Limpopo schools are still closed after mayhem broke out in Tshivhase village two weeks ago. Pupils at a primary and high school in the sprawling village's Mukula section will be urged to attend afternoon and weekend classes to catch up on their work.

Mystery there certainly is, but not of the Harry Potter kind. Most South Africans believe in witches but they fear the misery they inflict. It is not simply a matter of a curse and suffering seven years of bad sex, unpleasant as that certainly is, but of the way a belief in witches ensures social control and conformity, and requires exile and even death as the ultimate form of elimination. Sakkie Niehaus' Witchcraft, Power and Politics is the most important book yet published on witchcraft. It does not lend itself to simple summaries and bullet-proof conclusions. And so I choose to address two themes that seem to me to bring out the best in the book. The first has to do with witchcraft as a cultural script and the second with witchcraft as a weapon of the weak. Pluto, London and David Philip, Cape Town, 2001.

Millions of southern Africans will starve unless emergency relief efforts are stepped up, according to the United Nations World Food Programme. The WFP, which is already feeding 2.6 million people in the area, says a combination of natural and economic disasters is threatening millions more, and has asked for 69 million dollars to avert tragedy.

Changing the South African army's contentious ban on recruiting HIV positive combat soldiers could be seriously costly and compromise the army's effectiveness as a force, warned deputy director of the centre for military studies Lindy Heinecken on Wednesday.

The ANC is keen to prevent possible protests at Johannesburg's World Summit. Senior government leaders briefed the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) this week, in what is seen as a move to head off possible protests at the World Summit on Sustainable Development later this year.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela has said that he was "relieved" that the South African government may implement a national nevirapine program to prevent vertical HIV transmission by year's end, Agence France-Presse reports. "These are responsible people who could not allow babies to continue to die," Mandela said. But Mandela "dismissed" reports that the government changed its stance on antiretroviral drugs because "he entered the fray".

South African President Thabo Mbeki has acknowledged that the government has not communicated its message on HIV/AIDS successfully and urged all South Africans to "take responsibility for [their] health," the South African Press Association reports.

The second pilot scheme of a Commonwealth strategy to promote tolerance and help fight racism and discrimination through education has been launched in Pretoria, South Africa. The pilot framework for citizenship education, part of the new approach to citizenship education being developed by the Commonwealth Secretariat, involves teaching recognition and respect for the heritage of every group in society as well as promoting values that support a multicultural society.

There is a "possibility" that the South African government in December will launch a program to provide universal access to the antiretroviral drug nevirapine for HIV-positive pregnant women to prevent vertical HIV transmission, Reuters reports.

The Alliance for Children's Entitlement to Social Security (ACESS) is a national alliance of 70 organisations sharing a common vision and mission of ensuring that children's rights to survival and development are promoted and protected through the development of a comprehensive and effective social security system. It is currently seeking a National Co-ordinator, and Advocacy co-ordinator.

EISA, an internationally recognised centre for policy, research, training and information dissemination on elections and democracy in SADC countries, is looking for an Executive Director.

The Catholic Institute of Education is looking for a national fieldworker, willing to travel extensively, who will be responsible for implementing, monitoring and evaluating the CIE's HIV/AIDS prevention programme in Catholic primary schools.

SANGONeT, in association with LINK Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand, is offering a certificate course designed to promote computer literacy.

Two challenging vacancies exist in Cape Town for Training Co-ordinators in the health sector.

The Rural Action Committee of Mpumalanga Province (TRAC-MP) is seeking to recruit a dynamic and motivated person to Co-ordinate Training, Research and Organisational Development activities within the organisation.