{pp}Once the New Year’s fireworks and festivities had subsided, crystal-ball readers, Sangomas and political analysts have been calling upon their powers to give us their predictions for 2008.

{pp}South Africa will have a second opportunity this year to head the United Nations Security Council, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday.

{pp}The North West Department of Social Development is to spend R10.9 million on orphans and vulnerable children as part of their back to school support campaign.

{pp}A drug rehabilitation and child care centre is to open in one of Cape Town’s most notorious communities.

{pp}South Africa is now officially the country with the most HIV infections. This evidence of incapacity forms part of the latest report on the global AIDS epidemic released by UNAids HIV statistics and once again puts South Africa's AIDS policies in the spotlight as ineffective and failing dismally only days before World Aids Day on 1 December.

{pp}South Africa currently has in place a commitment to children’s rights of which it can justly feel proud. The denial of children’s rights under apartheid, and the brutal treatment of those who resisted, spawned a deep child rights consciousness in those involved in making the new state. To this end, the South African Bill of Rights, law reform and policy decisions all support the well-being and positive development of children.

{pp}In light of the recent blackouts experienced in the Greater Ekurhuleni Metropolitan area the municipality is responding to consumer needs by investing over R25million in upgrading and strengthening of its electrical infrastructure.

{pp}The 46664 Concert is to be transmitted live from both the external (giant) and internal (big) screens at Red Location Museum. The Live transmission is in preparation for the "NoNameFever-uGawulayo" Exhibition which would be launched at the Museum on 14 December 2007. The latter is a combo-exhibition which stems from the World Culture Museum's "NoNameFever" Exhibition and the Red Location Museum's "uGawulayo" collection.

{PP}As part of Red Location Museum’s marketing campaign – it was envisaged that it would be good for the Museum to work on a community project with the immediate surrounding residents which would simultaneously afford the Museum the opportunity to add to its collections. A pre-selected group of 20 Red Location Residents (age group 50 and upwards) will participate in a project where they would be able to tell their narrative in a three dimensional memory book format.

{pp}December 2007: Red Location Museum, Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. Since 1981 over 24 million people have died from HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Globally, statistics have escalated to more than 25 million deaths. And in Africa – over 12 million children have been subsequently orphaned.