Johannesburg – The Deutsche Internationale Schule Johannesburg has said no to cupcakes for suicide teen Klara Gottert’s birthday celebration.

This comes after Liesl Gottert, whose 14-year-old daughter Klara jumped to her death from the roof of the Northgate Shopping centre in Johannesburg in August, requested to celebrate her daughter’s birthday on Friday by taking cupcakes to the school.

For more http://www.news24.com

Police in Biesiesvlei in the North West have launched a manhunt for five men suspected of robbing a family at Wolvepan farm in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The group of armed men allegedly entered the family home through a window at around 4am before waking up the husband, 64, and his 58-year-old wife.

Pointing firearms at the couple, they took them to a nearby shop, where they stole an undisclosed amount of money and five firearms belonging to the victims.

The male victim was hit over the head, sustaining minor injuries. The gang drove off with the victim’s Ford Ranger, which was later found abandoned about near the scene.

No arrests have been made yet and investigations are continuing. Biesiesvlei police are appealing for information that can lead to the arrest of the suspects.”

African News Agency

Kimberley – After two years of improvements, the Northern Cape provincial government has shown a regression in the overall audit outcomes for the last financial year, with both provincial Treasury and the Department of Economic Development and Tourism failing to receive clean audits this year.

Releasing this year’s audit outcomes of national and provincial government departments and public entities in Pretoria on Wednesday, Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu said the Northern Cape showed a total of six regressions, including the two departments that had received clean audit opinions in the previous year but were not able to maintain this status due to a regression in their compliance with legislation.

“The management of the four auditees that had regressed to a qualified audit opinion were not able to respond to concerns that, in most instances, were highlighted as risk factors during the previous audit.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Women and children are seen as objects upon whom men exert their anger and frustration, writes Adv Hishaam Mohamed.

Wednesday marked the start of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children.

This year we also celebrate the 17th anniversary of this international campaign and as we do, so we need to ask ourselves: does this campaign contribute to the prevention of violence against women and children?

We know that not a single day goes by without reports of the scourge of violence against women and children.

In our years of Struggle during the apartheid era, as youths we turned to our mothers for strength and comfort, and as adults we protected our children in order for them to take up the fight against our oppressors.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Parliament – An Economic Freedom Fighters MP was booted from the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Thursday for comparing President Jacob Zuma to a giant wave.

“Today we are listening to a man whose view of democracy is as twisted and dangerous as a tsunami telling us about what ought to be done to ensure democracy benefits all South Africans,” Vusiwana Mtileni said as he responded to Zuma’s annual address to the NCOP.

ANC MPs jumped to the President’s defence, and asked that Mtileni’s comments be ruled out of order.

NCOP chairwoman Thandi Modise agreed, saying: “In this particular instance you are deliberately impugning on a member of this Parliament.”

Zuma ceased to be a member of Parliament after MPs voted him into his position during a National Assembly sitting in May last year.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

The Pan South African Language Board in the province has said the death of philanthropist Dietrich Masher was a huge blow but his life was worth celebrating.

Masher was born in 1937 and grew up in Bodenfelde village in Western Germany.

He studied theology at Heildelberg and Göttingen from 1957 until 1963.

He joined the Hermannsburg Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church where he learnt Tswana to the point of teaching the language.

Masher was buried in Jericho near Brits at the weekend.

The PanSouth African Language Board (Pan SALB) provincial spokesperson, William Manana said: “It is with great sadness to lose a person of Dietrich Masher’s calibre.”

Masher was a recipient of the PanSALB Multilingualism Award (2009-2010).

He came to the country and contributed towards the development of Tswana.

“We encourage people to learn from Masher’s life. He came all the way from Germany and defied all odds. He spoke the Tswana language fluently,” Manana said.

“Masher registered for a one-year language study, which was largely Setswana, at Witwatersrand University shortly after he arrived in the country.”

Since 1966, he worked in various places in the Tswana language area as a pastor.

In 1972, he was elected as a dean for a six-year period.

“In 1979, he was asked to train young missionary couples in Setswana. He had since then taught the course to many others, mostly to people from a foreign background.

“He conducted the studies at Wits, but had many innovations especially where Tswana was taught consistently as a tonal language.”

Manana pointed out that the positive reactions from Masher’s students led him to delve deeper into the issues of language use and policy in South Africa.

“Another important milestone for his interest in language policy was teaching a course in Hebrew in 1983 and 1984 through the medium of Tswana, which led to interests in other African languages like Oromo (the third largest language in Africa).

“A subsequent visit to Prof B Heine in Cologne was extremely instructive.

Reading the Perestroika in 1987 and other books on Leninist policy, especially G Simon’s important book, Nationalismus and Nationalitatenpolitik in der Sowetunion (Baden-

Baden: 1986) made a great impact on him.”

An initiative of language practice was spearheaded by pastors in Kgetlheng circuit.

The initiative was later joined by teachers to open up the discussion of language use, especially in education.

Bishop Marcus Ditlhale said: “We lost a warrior in Dietrich Masher. He never let any challenges stand in his way.

“He was born a German, but died as a South African. Masher dedicated his life to developing the African child.

“He was deployed at a Hermannsburg Mission. He worked over 40 years and administered in Tswana.”

He learned Tswana and spoke it with eloquence and precision. Masher was a researcher in issues of mother tongue education with European experience.

“He visited countries like Germany, Serbia and Ireland. He also played a pivotal role in influencing the Batswana and authorities to apply mother tongue education.

“He also served as an advisor in the office of the MEC for education on language in education in the province,” he said.

Masher was the first foreigner to serve on the Tswana National Language Board for over six years.

He was also a former director of the board of governors for the then Setswana Academy in the erstwhile Bophuthatswana.

-TDN

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THE farming community of Mamphoku Makgoba, near Rustenburg, is pleased a long-running battle over the control of its farms has finally been settled.

The community has been fighting to gain control of 39 farms it won through the land restitution programme from a trust whose members were refusing to leave office.

The farms are said to be worth more than R120m and they bring in income of about R89m a year from rentals and lease payments.

However, residents complained that they were no longer benefiting after a community trust, established in 2004, was clinging on to power.

The community approached the courts and on Tuesday, the North Gauteng High Court ordered all members of the trust to resign and pave the way for new elections in 30 days.

For more http://www.thenewage.co.za

This weekend, Zimbabwe’s newly crowned “Mister Ugly” hitched up his slouching coveralls and smiled widely as supporters poured beer over his head to celebrate the 42-year-old’s win in the country’s annual anti-beauty pageant. Mison Sere beat out 35 other entrants for the coveted title, surviving three rounds of runway modeling at a nightclub in Harare.

The purpose of the event — to look as ugly as humanly possible — is simple. The stakes are anything but: The winner takes home a grand prize of $500, roughly half the annual income in hyper-inflation wracked Zimbabwe.

This time around, though, the fourth-annual competition turned even uglier than usual, when sore losers claimed Sere simply wasn’t ugly enough to be named the winner.

Sere, whose grin shows a huge number of missing teeth, used his alarming need for orthodontia to his advantage by contorting his face to highlight his dental shortcomings. William Masvinu, who had held the title of Mr. Ugly since 2012 until this weekend, took the loss especially personally, even though his long reign over the title was due in part to the fact last year’s competition was canceled over funding issues.

“I am naturally ugly. He is not,” Masvinu said after the results were announced. “He is ugly only when he opens his mouth.” And Masvinu, who was a runner-up, wasn’t the only one who thought the judges should have looked past Sere’s teeth to recognize that with his mouth shut, he doesn’t look that bad at all.

Another contestant, Patrick Mupereki, suggested that Sere’s decaying teeth gave him an unfair advantage.

“Do we have to lose our teeth to win? This is cheating,” he reportedly shouted after the results were announced.

But the judges who crowned Sere weren’t fazed by the losers’ complaints. In fact, one judge, university student Abigail Mataranyika, suggested that some contestants thought they were ugly enough to get away with not putting in any effort.

“Sere made tremendous effort to enhance his ugliness by pulling facial stunts,” she said. “Masvinu thought he is so ugly that he didn’t need to try hard. That cost him the crown.”

Masvinu refused to acknowledge his loss, shouting after the event that he is still number one and that participants “need to redo the whole thing.”

Sere, on the other hand, said it was time for the losers to move on.

“They should just accept that I am uglier than them,” he said. “I hope to get a TV contract. I already moved around schools performing and showcasing my ugliness so this is a chance to make it on TV.”

Ironically, this is the second time in less than a year that Zimbabweans have been disappointed by the results of a pageant. Last time, though, critics had the opposite problem: They claimed Emily Kachote, winner of the Miss Zimbabwe beauty competition, wasn’t pretty enough for the crown.

And in the end, they got their way. Kachote, just like her predecessor, was forced to cede her title after nude images were publicly leaked.

Foreign Policy