Many South African children are absent from school because their parents or other family members are affected by HIV/AIDS, according to a report released Wednesday by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Human Sciences Research Council, AFP/News24.com reports. The report, titled "Emerging Voices," describes how children in rural schools "struggle to cope with harsh living conditions brought about by poverty and AIDS," according to AFP/News24.com.

As South Africa enters its second decade of democracy, we find that health gains anticipated in 1994 remain unrealized for the majority of our people, particularly the poorest in society. Why is it that, despite a Constitution hailed as the most progressive in the world, a victorious liberation movement and a set of governmental and non-governmental institutions designed to promote human rights in our society, we have failed to translate the provisions of our Bill of Rights into reality? To understand this contradiction, we need to understand, firstly, what are human rights; secondly, the relationship between health and human rights; and, thirdly, how human rights commitments can be translated into health-generating conditions and material gains in health for those who need it most. There are potential contradictions between a human rights approach and broad strategies for Primary Health Care, but these arise because of an incomplete or selective understanding of human rights, sometimes deliberately so, intended to further neo-liberal or imperialist political agendas.

Thousands of South Durban residents have said no to City Manager, Mike Sutcliffe regarding a proposed Spatial Development Plan. At a meeting, Speaker after speaker from different organisations, Trade Unions, Civic Structures and Medical Practitioners said that they did not trust the City Council and saw no benefit in the SDB Spatial Development Plan for the residents of South Durban. The only benefit would be increased pollution, loss of housing and industrial benefits for the major Petro-Chemical and Paper Industries.

This 5-day training course will aim to explore some of the core concepts and competencies of a developmental field-practice, providing a process for participants to understand where key work of facilitating development lies.

"The Freedom of Expression Institute welcomes the progress made by the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) made with respect to the investigation of complaints of assault and torture by three activists of the Landless Peoples' Movement (LPM) on the 15 April 2004. As a result of investigations by the ICD, the DPP has charged one police officer, and others may also be prosecuted in due course. "

The emergence of an increasingly global economy suggests that the ability of individual countries to shape their own destinies is becoming more difficult. International trends and pressures now influence national, and even local, health care policy making. Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, together with Oxford University, looked at the effect of globalisation on health issues in South Africa and assessed its influence compared to national and local forces. Political and economic developments in the international arena will inevitably influence health issues in South Africa. Institutions such as the WHO and the World Bank, together with international events such as the spread of AIDS, affect health care in the country. However local forces also play a large part in shaping the future of the South African health service.

Human Rights Law in Africa covers the activities of the United Nations, the African Union and its predecessor the Organization of African Unity, as well as sub-regional and other inter-governmental organizations and NGOs in the field of human rights in Africa. It also covers the national legal systems of all African countries.

South Africa said Thursday it was ready to help the International Criminal Court investigate war crimes on the continent as the tribunal tackles its first cases in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. "We are working on a memorandum of understanding as to how we can assist the ICC," Justice Director General Vusi Pikoli told reporters in Pretoria after meeting with chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Jointly chaired by the Government's Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs and the South African Human Rights Commission in Johannesburg, the outcome of the first-ever public hearings on xenophobia held in early November 2004 will lead to a report that will be tabled before Parliament with the ultimate aim of realising some of the most pertinent recommendations made towards addressing xenophobia. Readily acknowledged as a global phenomenon, the public hearings on xenophobia gave the civil society, government agencies and communities affected by this scourge, the opportunity to voice their concerns.

The corruption trial of a prominent South African businessman resumed on Tuesday with the court hearing details of his financial links to Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who has presidential aspirations. The high-profile case of Schabir Shaik on fraud and corruption charges has put Zuma on the defensive since it opened in October amid allegations that President Thabo Mbeki's deputy accepted kickbacks and bribes.

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A new South African company, Open Voice, has launched into the local market with a range of low-cost telephony products, including voice over IP solutions. The reason for the low cost? Because they have turfed out the proprietary software they were developing and adopted the freely available open source Asterisk software. Asterisk is an open source telecommunications platform, designed to allow different types of IP telephony hardware, middleware and software to interface with each other consistently, while maintaining quality of service. Asterisk has become the de facto standard for voice switching and PBX functions within the open source environment.

The murder trial of three men accused of throwing a black farm worker to the lions offers an extreme example of the plight of farm workers in a country that still has a culture of violence, human rights researchers said. Prosecutors allege that Mark Scott-Crossley, a white farmer, and two of his workers attacked Nelson Chisale with machetes last January, beat him, held him at gunpoint, tied him up and then drove him 20km to a lion reserve and threw him over the fence where he was devoured.

There are signs that Travelgate could be turned into a "managed scandal", as marathon, closed-door meetings took place this week between prosecutors and the lawyers for 40 MPs implicated in the parliamentary travel scam. The 40 sitting and former MPs, drawn from all major political parties, were expected to be rounded up by the Scorpions this week for their involvement in the scam, which is said to have cost Parliament R17m.

"My excitement upon arriving at a large weekend workshop of the Anti-Privatization Forum (APF) in South Africa and seeing a room filled with community activists, more than half of whom were women, was abated as the workshop progressed and I realized that most of the women were not participating. It was men’s voices that overwhelmingly dominated the comments from the floor. Of the women who did participate, it was primarily women with lighter skin, for whom English is their primary language," writes Dawn Paley, an intern with Alternatives, currently living in Johannesburg, South Africa. "This experience has led me to question how is it that Black women can make up the bulk of the membership of the movements against neo-liberal policies and be so marginalized in the functioning of these organizations?," she writes in this commentary for www.zmag.org

The Cape Town High Court decided in favor of Earthlife Africa this week and set aside the approval for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). Earthlife Africa and other interested parties will now have their chance to challenge Eskom's version of the truth. ESKOM, the second respondent in this case wishes to construct a demonstration model 110 Mega Watt class PBMR at the site of the only existing nuclear plant in South Africa near Cape Town.

South African generic AIDS drug manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, has become the first African firm to win approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its production plant. The FDA conducted a pre-operational review and close inspection to ascertain good manufacturing practice at Aspen's Port Elizabeth facility in September last year. As a result of this approval, funds from the US President's Emergency Plans for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) can be used to purchase Aspen-manufactured drugs for use in countries where the local drug regulatory agency has approved them.

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has learnt that its objections, lodged exactly 7 months ago, strenuously resisting Dow Agrosciences' application to field test its GM maize event TC 1507 have been successful. On the 23 November 2004, the Executive Council (EC), the government body under the aegis of the Department of Agriculture and comprising of government officials from various national departments, took a decision not to approve Dow's application. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in particular, raised questions about impacts on non-target organisms, whereas the Department of Science and technology called upon the Registrar to investigate the ACB's objections in greater detail.

A packed courtroom echoed to the chants of furious South African demonstrators yesterday as a white farmer went on trial, accused of murdering a black worker by feeding him to a pride of lions. Mark Scott-Crossley, 37, pleaded not guilty to all charges, drawing hostile glares from the public benches on the opening day of the most racially charged court case in South Africa's recent history.

Deadline: 01 February 2005 @ 16h00

Mveledzandivho is a School Development Project that is being implemented in six provinces and is funded by BHP Billiton through its Development Trust. The aim of the Project is to improve management practices and teaching and learning in 29 schools spread across six provinces.

The project calls for proposals from interested service providers in Inclusive Education at one project school in Mpumalanga.