A Bosnian teacher irritated by a zealous pupil who practised maths at home even though he had not been given homework punished him by taping his mouth, a school head teacher said on Wednesday. ”In my 33 years’ experience in education, I never heard of such an incident,” the head teacher said.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) recouped early losses to trade slightly higher just after midday on Wednesday in a primarily order-driven market. Dealers said that a slight weakening in the rand from levels seen earlier in the morning was also helping.
Johnnic Communications (Johncom), the listed entertainment and media group, on Tuesday announced that finance and operations director Prakash Desai has been appointed deputy CEO of the group with effect from the start of group’s new financial year on April 1.
Absa, South Africa’s largest retail bank in terms of customers at 6,96-million, has announced bank-fee increases of between 4% and 7% for 2005, which will become effective from April 1. "These fees were determined in response to the additional needs of our customers," Absa said.
Uganda, considered a beacon in Africa for its Aids-beating policies, is adopting sexual abstinence-only programmes.
Russia has criticised the UN Security Council approved sanctions against Sudan as being counterproductive. Russia — which abstained along with China and Algeria in Tuesday’s 12-0 Security Council vote in favour of the US-sponsored sanctions — also expressed doubts whether the measures could be effectively monitored.
Prosecutors in the Michael Jackson trial on Tuesday inflicted new setbacks on a defence team already reeling from a decision to allow testimony about the star’s alleged history of child abuse. The prosecution boost came after Judge Rodney Melville ruled that jurors at the child sex trial could hear about five more boys the embattled ”King of Pop” is alleged to have molested in the past.
A United States federal appeals court agreed early on Wednesday to consider a petition by Terri Schiavo’s parents for a new hearing on whether to reconnect their severely brain-damaged daughter’s feeding tube. The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled without comment on Schiavo’s 12th day without nourishment.
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Limpopo police have heightened security near the Beit Bridge border post ahead of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) demonstration scheduled for Wednesday. Cosatu expects thousands of marchers to participate in the march in solidarity with Zimbabwean trade unions.
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President Robert Mugabe’s government has increased the minimum wage for domestic servants tenfold. A labour union official said the sudden increase will lead to mass unemployment, and the opposition called it an attempt to drive a wedge between urban employers, thought to support the opposition, and their employees.