The term “black diamond”, at least in the geological sense, describes a stone of dubious origin, known more for its porosity than any endearing quality. It figures then that almost all the people interviewed unanimously rejected the term, even though it was ostensibly dreamt up to toast their arrival into middle-class society.

Nine members of the platinum-rich Bakwena Ba Mogopa community have been acquitted on charges of public violence stemming from a protracted leadership battle within the tribe, which has yet to be resolved. In handing down the decision at the Garankuwa Magistrate’s Court, Magistrate Aggrey Siphuthi ruled that no concrete evidence had been provided to justify punishing the accused.

Of all the politicians heading to Polokwane for the ANC conference, presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma will be getting the hottest — or is that warmest — welcome, especially if he is on the Nando’s database. A new Nando’s campaign that is being circulated online in anticipation of the conference borrows the title of a well-known Leon Schuster movie to toast the country’s “most popular Zulu”.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has rejected an application by the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) to subpoena the transcript of proceedings of the Sisulu Commission of Inquiry into alleged blacklisting at the SABC. The move prompted a sharp response from FXI executive director Jane Duncan, who said she was disappointed by the decision.

In 1976 Sindiswa Nunu, then a pupil at Gugulethu’s Isaac Mkhize Secondary, was shot in both legs by the police during the wave of student uprisings that swept the country. She could not walk for three months. Eight years later, while pursuing her diploma in teaching, she was teargassed and detained when Nyanga Bush, a squatter camp near Crossroads in Cape Town.

More than half of South Africa’s maths and science teachers are underqualified, but imminent changes in the education system are set to create an even bigger deficit in quali­fied instructors, making it more difficult to improve maths and science results for learners.

The town of Pomfret will be razed to the ground by December despite a recent assessment by the national department of public works showing that it could be developed into a fully fledged local authority. Bob Namusi, a councillor at the Molopo Local Municipality, under which the town falls, says the national public works department had mistakenly given residents of Pomfret the impression that the asbestos-polluted town could be rehabilitated without its residents moving.

After several false starts, the SABC is finally going to broadcast Unauthorised: Thabo Mbeki, the documentary that it canned 16 months ago “for being incurably defamatory”. The screening, which according to the SABC’s online schedule, will be shown on SABC3 on October 3 at 9.30pm, comes after the documentary had been screened as part of several film festivals in the country.