Racial and gender transformation topped the agenda of the University of Cape Town’s first lekgotla earlier this month and vice-chancellor Njabulo Ndebele has made it the priority of his final three-year term of office. Judging by the university’s employment equity and student profile, it remains an elusive goal.
In the United Kingdom the average person remortgages their home every two years. In fact, 50% of all new mortgage advances are switches with people moving from one mortgage lender to another in search of a better lending rate. This is because in the UK mortgages are viewed as a commodity rather than something attached to your bank account.
Staff at a state-owned game reserve in Limpopo are allegedly running a lucrative midnight butchery on the reserve and selling off bush meat to surrounding communities. In papers before the Pretoria High Court, it is alleged that the bush meat booty at the Hans Merensky provincial reserve near Gravelotte includes endangered species such as sable antelope.
It seems like I’ve been voluntarily grounded for a long time. People who are used to snooping into this column to find out where I’ve been recently have a pained, disappointed look on their faces. "It seems like you haven’t been anywhere recently," they say.
Capetonian Hein Wagner has been given the use of a Maserati GranSport Coupe for his attempt next month to become the world’s fastest blind driver. Viglietti Motors in Cape Town agreed to provide the R1,5-million vehicle for Wagner’s land-speed-record attempt, the National Council for the Blind said on Monday.
No vital information appears to have been lost in the fire that damaged part of the African National Congress’s headquarters in Johannesburg over the weekend, party secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said on Monday. The fire broke out at Luthuli House in Sauer Street at about 1pm on Saturday, and was restricted to the sixth floor.
Despite international oil prices having surged to fresh record highs on Monday, the situation is not yet a cause for panic, according to Absa industry analyst John Loos. He said petrol prices in Gauteng could reach R6 per litre by October, thus pushing CPIX inflation higher to around 5% in October.
Curtis Brown carries business cards with old pictures of his tumours, including an egg-sized growth on his neck. He says they were each shed after the application of a flesh-eating paste containing the medicinal herb bloodroot. ”I cured myself of cancer,” the cards read.
Tens of thousands of unmarried Swazi girls gathered at the royal residence on Sunday to lay down reeds as part of a week-long celebration of national pride that will culminate in King Mswati III selecting a new virgin bride. The bare-breasted girls in brightly coloured traditional fabric and clutching clumps of reeds, sang and stamped their feet as they edged along a snaking queue toward the thatched dwellings at Ludzidzini.
Eritrean Foreign Minister Ali Said died of a heart attack on Sunday, Eritrean Minister of Information Ali Abdu said. ”It’s a great loss for this country,” he said on Sunday in Asmara, the Eritrean capital. In 1965, Said, the son of a Muslim shepherd, received medical and military training in Syria before joining the Eritrean Liberation Front.