Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant party scrambled on Wednesday to secure a seamless transfer of power after its firebrand leader, Ian Paisley, announced his departure, drawing tributes from all sides. Paisley said on Tuesday he would step down as Democratic Unionist Party head in May.
Santos continued their fine form of late when they secured a 2-1 win over Wits at the Athlone Stadium on Tuesday night. Wits started the game brightly and had early chances through Noah Chivuta, but his long-range shots did not have the beating of Wayne Roberts.
The JSE widened its losses by midday on Wednesday as profit-taking and negative sentiment continued to dampen the market. By noon, the JSE’s broader all-share index declined 1,4%, led by a 2,72% pull back in the platinum-mining index. The gold-mining index retreated 2,71% and resources dipped 1,85%.
Students, security personnel and police engaged in running battles at Durban’s Mangosuthu University of Technology on Wednesday. Rubber bullets were used by university security personnel and the public-order policing unit to disperse about 500 protesting students at the Umlazi campus, south of Durban.
This is the week when Grahamstown’s Grocott’s Mail newspaper finalises legal papers to protest against an advertising boycott by the local city council. The case concerns the actions of four officials, who will now be diverting scarce municipal resources to defend the impending action.
Clashes between separatists and police sent to impose order in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s western Bas-Congo flared again on Tuesday, the official death toll rising to 22. Police began battling members of the Bundu dia Kongo movement in the town of Luozi, 200km west of Kinshasa on Friday.
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From ”uninspired and boring” to ”down to earth” and ”confident” were some of the varying opinions about African National Congress president Jacob Zuma expressed by members of the Jewish community on Tuesday night. Zuma was invited to speak at a forum on South Africa’s future, hosted by Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein.
African National Congress treasurer general Mathews Phosa has called for an improvement in the country’s black economic empowerment (BEE) policy and urged the legal profession to consider whether the current BEE "framework" is "functional" and whether it is assisting emerging black entrepreneur.
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.
The Israelites may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, according to a study by an Israeli psychology professor. Benny Shanon said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.