The University of Natal has come to the rescue of a matriculant who, despite passing with four distinctions last year, had resigned himself to being another unemployment statistic. When Julius Mojapelo of Gauteng received his results in December last year, he realised that he had inadvertently forfeited his exemption.

Sober or not, the gathering of about 1 000 Afrikaners on Tuesday to commemorate the victory of their ancestors over Zulu King Dingane’s army 165 years ago at the Battle of Blood River was like a lacquered, waterlogged unreality.

Intense turbulence simmered to a slow boil last week as UDW and the University of Natal waited to hear who will lead the merged institution. Two contenders were Natal vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba and massively controversial UDW head Saths Cooper. Late on Thursday the announcement was made – Makgoba, to the relief of concerned staffers at both universities.

About 3 500 workers will down their tools on Monday at Africa’s largest medical research service unless their demand for a 12% wage increase is met. The NHLS was given 48 hours’ notice on Thursday that the employees would strike.

Culture clashes, the future employment conditions of staff and the financial sustainability of what will be this country’s largest university of technology have cast a shadow over its progress just six weeks before the nuptial is due to happen.
The new university of technology will arise from the merger between Technikon Pretoria, Technikon Northern Gauteng and Technikon North-West.

She is well known for her writing about how she was raped, her fight against Aids, her tireless passion for human rights. But this week journalist Charlene Smith found herself on the wrong side of her own polemics. She was arrested for violating a protection order brought against her by her former lover.

Vista University has sent a letter to Minister of Education Kader Asmal ”alerting” him that in terms of the Higher Education Act he cannot close the university at the end of the year. The government gazetted its intention to do so in December last year.

The University of Transkei (Unitra) is ”appalled” at Minister of Education Kader Asmal’s announcement this week that the name of the institution to be formed by its merger with Border Technikon and Eastern Cape Technikon will be the ”Eastern Cape University of Technology”.

Vista University will take Minister of Education Kader Asmal to court in an attempt to resolve disagreements over crucial details of merger plans, which have been in contention for two years. The court action threatens to delay the country’s largest tertiary merger.

As the HIV/Aids crisis worsens, independent medical relief organisation Médécins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) has released a report on how countries can gain access to cheap anti-Aids drugs. South Africa is one of 10 countries in which MSF has run pilot HIV/Aids treatment projects.