Latest News Archive
Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
22 February 2018
Photo Thabo Kessah
Pakiso Mthembu will be representing South Africa in Mauritius and Algeria.
This year, the University of the Free State’s Qwaqwa Campus will unleash a running sensation that is equally comfortable on track, cross-country, and road running and is on a mission to conquer the world. His name is Pakiso Mthembu from Tweeling in the Eastern Free State. Pakiso has recently qualified for the Junior Men’s Southern Region cross-country championships that will be held in Mauritius on 24 February and in Algeria on 17 March 2018.
“I am glad that I managed to run my personal best time of 24:02 during the qualification trials held in Bloemfontein in January, which set me on the road to Mauritius and Algeria,” said Pakiso, a BEd FET first-year student.
His personal best in the 10 km road-running category and in the 5 000 m track are 30:55 and 14:29, respectively.
Praise for Soke
“It is only through dedication, hard work, and listening to my coach that I can achieve my dreams of representing South Africa at the International Association of Athletics Federations World Junior Championships (IAAF) to be held in Finland in July, and at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. I have one of the best coaches in this part of the world and it gives me great pleasure to work with him, having grown up admiring him during his days,” he says in reference to Boy Soke, who identified his talent and recruited him to the Qwaqwa Campus.
Pakiso has already represented South Africa in Uganda.
Africa still yearns for democracy says academic
2009-05-26
Leading academic Prof Achille Mbembe (pictured), says that in spite of substantial changes the African continent is still yearning for democracy.
Prof Mbembe was delivering a lecture commemorating Africa Day at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein.
He said many Africans feel that democracy and the law, including the paramount law – the constitution itself - have betrayed them.
“Many have a feeling that they have not yet lived fully or fulfilled their lives, that they might not or might never fulfill their lives.”
Prof Mbembe, who originates from Cameroon and has been living in South Africa for nine years , said that what struck him about this country in this democratic era was that many people are still yearning for a return to the past.
He said many black South Africans know that the advent of democracy has not provided them with the kind of life they hoped for.
“If anything, democracy has rendered life even more complex than before,” he said.
“South Africa is still a nation where too many black people possess almost nothing.
“Real freedom means freedom from race,” he said. “The kind of freedom that South Africa is likely to enjoy because this nation will have built a society, a culture and a civilization in which the colour of one’s skin will be superfluous in the overall calculus of dignity, opportunity, rights and obligations,” Prof Mbembe said.
“This freedom will originate, purely and simply, from our being human.”
Prof Mbembe is currently a Research Professor in History and Politics at the University of the Witwatersrand in the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research. He has written extensively on African history and politics.
Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt.stg@ufs.ac.za
26 May 2009