This paper explores the historical precedents to BEE in South Africa, its origins, and its points of contact with the experience of 'empowerment' in Malaysia. The authors review the different steps taken by the South African government in promoting empowerment over the past 12 years, together with some of outcomes to date.

E-learning, the use of computer and network technologies in teaching and learning, has taken off at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) as a result of a co-ordinated effort by the E-learning unit of the Information and Communication Services (ICS) and UWC academics. "E-learning encompasses distance learning via the internet, which we do not do very much of at UWC, but also includes the use of World Wide Web, CD-ROM and other computer technologies to enhance the more traditional face-to-face education," says Juliet Stoltenkamp, E-learning manager in ICS.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) says it applauds The Daily Voice's News Editor, Gasant Abarder, for his ethical stand in not testifying in the civil defamation case involving a poultry chain. "The FXI is disturbed to note that both Courts do not recognise that Abarder has a 'just excuse' not to testify."

Two men walk determinedly towards the improvised minibus taxi rank on the Mpumalanga side of the Ressano Garcia border post with Mozambique. One dangles a faded canvas bag leisurely over his shoulder. The other mumbles something in Portuguese and points a finger in the direction of the taxis, his unoccupied arm swinging purposefully as if to remind the two women in tow carrying heavy bags that being a man extricates him from such burdensome preoccupations.

The South African Department of Education is to develop a framework, which allows advantaged schools to receive subsidies if they enrolled non-fee paying learners. This after Education Minister Naledi Pandor recognised that the number of fee exemptions granted to poor learners at certain schools was becoming a burden on schools' finances.

SABC board members did not agree unanimously with the way the state broadcaster handled its response to the report of a commission of inquiry on allegations that it blacklisted political commentators, Parliament’s communications committee heard yesterday. Board member Prof Alison Gillwald said she understood a board decision for an ad hoc committee to draw up a statement meant that board members would have an opportunity to scrutinise it before its release.

The Portfolio Committee on Communications is leaving no stones unturned in influencing the rollout of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to all South Africans. Without access to the means to communicate and distribute information and communication South Africa's democracy will remain a monopoly of the rich and the powerful. Access and affordability of Internet and broadband connectivity have remained a problem area for the government and this is despite the government's efforts to make ICTs available to all South Africans.

There has been a recent set of developments in South Africa that bring convergence between the worlds of telecommunications, media and broadcast much closer. Three things in particular – media liberalisation, new technologies to deliver media and yet another project that promises cheap bandwidth – all make it likely that South Africa will become the first fully converged market on the continent.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela's lawyer has been accused of profiting from corruption proceeds involving Zambian ex-leader Frederick Chiluba, court documents obtained yesterday show. Iqbal Meer, a partner in the London-based firm Meer, Care and Desai, is among those being sued by the Zambian government for allegedly stealing about £13.5 million in state funds, according to documents.

It was revealed yesterday that President Thabo Mbeki’s office is to fork out R10m for former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s legal fees, despite recent public statements that the matter was still “under consideration”. Two months ago, the Pietermaritzburg High Court heard from Zuma’s defence counsel in his fraud and corruption trial that assistance with legal costs should come from the state, but that at that stage it was “nonexistent”.

The African Sociological Association announces its 1st Congress which is scheduled to hold in Grahamstown-iRhini, South Africa, from 15 -- 18 July 2007. The Afri-can Sociological Association was formally constituted in December 2000 on the back of the 10th General Assembly of CODESRIA, in Kampala, Uganda.

Prominent academic Prof Adam Habib was last week denied entry into the US at New York's John F Kennedy airport. He told Business Day yesterday (24 October 2006) that he was still mystified as to why he had been refused entry into the US last Friday. Habib, who is executive director of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) democracy and governance research programme and a political commentator, said he was at the airport for about 10 hours before being escorted by an armed guard on to a return flight to SA.

A leading land expert this week warned that expropriation should not be seen as the sole saviour of land reform in South Africa. Edward Lahiff, a researcher at the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape, says that, given the active condition of the land market in South Africa, there is no reason why the majority of land reform needs cannot be met through negotiated purchases.

Get your friends jobs and earn a mint. That is the idea behind a new South African recruitment website, employmint.co.za, which launched this week. Taking advantage of Web 2.0 features and using an innovative business model, the site offers a reward for people who successfully refer a candidate for the job.

It seems SABC's AM Live presenter John Perlman is headed for a disciplinary inquiry -- which should, at the very least, trigger alarm over a corporate culture that must be rippling with eggshell trepidation of arbitrary victimisation. After all, how is it that Perlman can be comprehensively vindicated by a commission of inquiry, yet still be up on disciplinary charges?

The South African Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa-SA) and the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) are appalled at the attack by Patrick Chauke, Chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Home Affairs Committee, on Sanef (SA National Editors' Forum) over the interaction between editors and the cabinet on the ill-conceived Films and Publications Amendment Bill 2006.

THE SABC yesterday lost, with costs, a last-ditch court bid to force the Mail & Guardian to remove from its website the Sisulu commission report into blacklisting of certain analysts by the public broadcaster. In dismissing the SABC's application, Judge Zukisa Tshiqi found it was in the public interest to release the report, and rejected argument by the public broadcaster that the full report could cause harm to employees.

Columnist Thami Mazwai writes in Business Day: "The furore around Snuki Zikalala and the so-called blacklist is the continuation of a witch-hunt on the one hand and, on the other, a further manifestation of the resentment, or suspicion, in certain quarters when African National Congress (ANC) people are appointed to key positions. Anton Harber, who led the latest charge in his column last week, drags my name into the equation and misquotes me."

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) poses specific threats and challenges in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Tuberculosis is the most common opportunistic infection accelerating HIV infection among those living with the virus.

The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) is outraged that the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has decided not to release the much-awaited report into allegations of a politically-motivated "blacklist" implemented by the Group Executive of News, Dr. Snuki Zikalala, on SABC services. Instead they have chosen to release the findings.