The council of the University of the Free State must ”go” because they do not want to transform, the African National Congress chairperson in the province, Ace Magashule, said on Tuesday. ”I cannot agree with those people who want to say everything at the University of the Free State was still fine,” Magashule said.
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Newspaper columnist Jon Qwelane on Wednesday at a public forum organised by the South African Human Rights Commission refused to apologise for calling a former colleague a ”coconut” for objecting to a recent, blacks-only Forum of Black Journalists event. The forum discussion was frank and at times heated.
Gold Fields said on Wednesday an employee who was trapped at its Beatrix mine had been rescued but another was still missing after an accident on Tuesday. The company — the world’s fourth largest gold miner — said the incident occurred after the ground shifted in a stope 750m below the surface at the number one shaft of the mine in the Free State.
South Africa’s Standard Bank Group said on Wednesday full-year headline earnings per share rose 23,4% to R1 033,4 cents, but it warned it would take a short-term hit from its deal to sell a 20% stake to China’s biggest lender ICBC. Africa’s biggest bank by assets said normalised headline earnings per share rose 20,6%, and normalised return on equity was 24,8%.
Actor and popular Soweto pub owner Shimmy Mofokeng was shot dead by hijackers while approaching his driveway in Leonard Lane in Mulbarton, Johannesburg police said on Wednesday. Spokesperson Captain Julia Claassen said Mofokeng (53) was shot in his upper body as he was about to drive into his yard in his white Kia kombi on Monday.
Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds will face no action after he knocked over a streaker in his side’s nine-run one-day international loss to India in Brisbane on Tuesday. Robert Murray David Ogilvie stormed the field and ran towards Symonds, who shoulder-charged him to the ground.
”I am shocked to learn from ‘A democracy of untouchables’ (February 8) that Independent Communications Authority of South Africa councillor Robert Nkuna was involved in drafting the African National Congress’s proposal for a print-media tribunal,” writes the Democratic Alliance’s Dene Smuts.
Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh Kambakhsh is a young journalism student at the University of Balkh in northern Afghanistan. A few weeks ago, he was sentenced to death for blasphemy after a summary trial in which he had no legal representation and no opportunity to defend himself.
John Aitchison writes an open letter to Minister of Education Naledi Pandor on his unpleasant experiences after being appointed to a ministerial committee on literacy in January 2006. He was appointed lead writer of the committee’s report, which was approved by the Cabinet in November 2006.
If there is one product on the supermarket shelves that is sold on packaging alone, it is bottled water. Identical in content and taste, the only real difference between competing brands is the marketing value of the label. You’d be hard pressed to differentiate between French, Belgian and British water in a blind taste test.