Vodacom to expand across Africa.

Cellular service giant Vodacom has this morning announced plans to extend its reach across three new African countries by 2014.

Experts now predict that there will be millions of new cellphone users being eternally pissed off at their cellphones in a countries ranging from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania to Mozambique and Lesotho.

"This is a marvelous new opportunity," said expansion coordinator Lotsa Prophits. "We've fulfilled our mandate of giving kind of service sometimes in all the major cities in South Africa. It's time to do the same in other countries."

Prophits also pointed out the company benefits of such a move.

Vodacom is really looking forward to giving great service to the people of other countries NOT

"In an age where an sms actually costs nothing at all to transmit between carriers, we're looking forward to raking in ridiculous amounts of cash in places other than South Africa," he said. "I'm really looking forward to finally getting my three-year-old son that private jet he wants so badly."

The Department of International Affairs has also applauded the decision, saying that it is a massive step forward for diversity and multicultural respect.

"Now we just won't hear people bitching about terrible BBIS service in just isiXhosa, English or Zulu," said Minister of IA, Zen Hofobea. "Now we'll hear exotic and diverse exclamations of general shittiness in Swahili and Portuguese."

However, the banks of South Africa have raised concerns, saying that their money pits aren't big enough to handle these new volumes of hard, sweet cash.

"We used to have a lot of space in the chasms of our bank, but these have been quite unexpectedly filled by Government Ministers, Tenderpreneurs, Fat Cats, ridiculous banking charges some of our most valued customers. We just don't think we'll be able to handle the lucrative amount of flippin' hard currency that is going to come."

When reached for comment, the CEO of Vodacom Brad Signal said, "The mobile subscriber you have dialled, is currently unavailable, but you'll still pay for this short message. Thanks for the money, and for continuing to unhesitatingly accept bloated telecommunications charges."

South Africa to send politicians into CAR

Following the widespread failure of military action in the Central African Republic, the ANC government has announced its decision to send South African politicians into the fray.

This constitutes the largest covert military operation in South African history.

"It's going to be a massive inside job," said military strategist Guy Didmisile. "We're going to destroy them from the inside."

According to Didmisile, the decision first came out when they realised the destructive potential of our politicians.

"If we look at any government sector in South Africa, you'll see chaos and devastation," he said. "In fact, I don't think we could do as much damage with all the bombs in the world."

South African politicians are the latest development in modern warfare. Fueled by Corruptium-231 (empirical formula An-C), they are highly radioactive, and fieldtests have shown their devastating capabilities, especially in very Tender areas of the battlefield. These Weapons of Mass Destruction were first developed in May 2000, and have culminated with recent developments in Project Nkandla, the largest Corruptium-core armament in human history.

Political analysts have raised concerns with the move, but Didmisile has remained adamant.

"These men and women are all too qualified to fuck up a country," he said.

Artist's impression of the Eastern Cape Department of Education

One criticism was aimed at the expectation that the politicians would encounter child soldiers - an unfounded fear, said Didmisile.

"The troops were shot and attacked and beaten by the CAR 21st Infant-ry," he said. "This is a battalion that is made up of children of school-going age. Our politicians have shown all to clearly how they deal with schoolchildren. I think this kids won't know what hit them."

The decision, however, has been criticised by the international community.

"We can't allow this to happen," said a representative from the United Nations. "This isn't some small surgical strike. This will devastate an entire country - and god help us if the radiation should spread." 

SRC Councilor does his job

A wave of shock and awe has swept across Rhodes University Campus this morning following a post on the Rhodes Student Representative Council page by Environmental Councilor Luke Cadden.

The post followed a planned release of purple helium balloons to celebrate environmental initiatives. According to the post, which was informative, to-the-point and contained no spelling mistakes, Cadden successfully put a stop to this responsible, carefully-thought-out, and environmentally friendly littering of purple balloons in the wild.

"We at first thought that sending purple baby-animal-choking bags of helium into the air to be scattered across the game reserves and untouched areas of South Africa would be the best way of spreading our environmentally-responsible message," said event organiser Litta Hevriwhere. "But Luke showed us the error of our ways. Things like a naked run or selling brownies make a lot more ecological activism sense."

According to the post, the Cadden and the SRC took into account the student's complaints, queries and suggestions - a governance method that was abandoned in 1912.

"This is a bold new way of doing student governance," said student political analyst Mu Zanabuuz. "Back then, it made sense, because government as a whole didn't really give a shit about people. We'll just have to see how the strategy pays off in the near future."

This, however, is not the first incidence of involvement of the student voice and opinion, and indeed, is not the first sighting of an SRC Councillor. In fact, since the current SRC was voted in, they have been spotted all over campus, and are actually visible. This abandonment of their previous ideals and invisibility has caused much international controversy.

"We've seen a couple of examples this year where the SRC has actually asked us for our input beyond who I want to drunkenly scream in front of on the Great Field at Trivar," said student Jonathan Mayar. "It was such a strange feeling."

Just one example is the multiple Student Forum meetings and Student Body deliberations that have been organised.

"We've moved back to this old system," said SRC President Askin N.E Bhadi. "It'll probably take the students a while to get used to having to care about their own University."

Previously, the SRC would throw a party at the beginning of the year, and then spend the rest of the year holding boring, behind-the-scenes things like meetings and forums and Council hearings that no one gives a crap about.

"These get the job done, but no one can see how effective they are. We keep getting blamed for doing nothing. Student Forums, even if they are less effective, are at least in the public eye. Now, if everything goes to hell on a handwagon, we can blame the students as well as the SRC," said SRC historian Orik Efei.

According to Bhadi, they're already well on their way to accomplishing this.

"We've had a low turnout at most of these hearings where students can tell us what they want so that we just won't bugger around for the rest of the year," he said.

However, he doubts that future meetings will have improved attendance.

"Many students have complained of having very important commitments, such as Game of Thrones Season 3, predrinks, watching cat videos on youtube, sleep, tests and assignments, that clash with the meetings. I completely understand. With another meeting tonight, we expect to be able to say it's the students' fault by early September."