IN BRIEF PUPIL DEMOS OVER MATRIC The Congress of South African Students (Cosas) plans to picket businesses, private schools and government offices at the end of the month in protest at the poor matric results. The protests will support a Cosas demand that businesses help to sponsor schools, and to object to the continued government subsidies to private schools.
SA COUPLE MUGGED FOR MILLIONS
A SOUTH African couple on holiday in London were robbed of jewels worth R12-million, police said on Wednesday. The gems were taken at knifepoint by three muggers as the unnamed husband and wife were returning to their holiday address in west London early on Tuesday. The stolen items include two rings worth about R5-million and R1,75-million respectively.
AMY BIEHL SCHOLARSHIPS
Two Fulbright scholarships will be awarded annually in memory of Amy Biehl, the Stanford graduate killed in South Africa in 1993. One scholarship will help a SA graduate student study in the United States, it was announced Tuesday. The other will be awarded to an American to study in SA. A 26-year-old Fulbright scholar from Newport Beach, California, Biehl was killed while helping with voter registration for the 1994 election. Four men are serving 18-year prison sentences for her murder.
RWANDA REBELS KILL 52
RWANDAN Hutu rebels killed 52 people in an attack this week in the central Rwandan town of Nyakabanda, according to independent news agency ARI. Nyakabanda council chief Alfred Gasana said the majority of victims are administrative officers and civilians, and include seven children. Nyakabanda is in Gitarama district, just south of the main theatre of the three-year-old civil war between the rebels and the government Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). Fighting between rebels and the RPA continued on Tuesday night.
CAMEROON BANS PALM LIQUOR
CAMEROON has banned a traditional liquor derived from palm wine, following the deaths of some 50 people by poisoning in the past three months. Millions of litres of ‘Odontol’ are believed to be produced each year. During the colonial era, Odontol was banned because of its toxic nature. Never relegalised after independence, it is nonetheless widely consumed by people too poor to buy commercial alcohols.
RADIO STATION ‘WILL MOVE’
THE Voice of Soweto radio station on Wednesday said it will move its offices from the Johannesburg CBD to the township if given sufficient reasons to do so by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. On Wednesday the IBA refused to renew the VOS licence because, among other reasons, the station’s offices are not accessible to the community it servs, in breach of licence conditions. Station manager Tennyson Lekgethe said the IBA had granted the licence knowing the station’s location and had not raised the issue at two hearings last year.
RUSSIAN MINISTER TO VISIT SA
RUSSIAN Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Viktor Posuvalyuk will visit South Africa at the invitation of Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad from January 10 to 12, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. Posuvalyuk and Pahad will discuss, among other issues, the forthcoming summit between President Nelson Mandela and Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow.