Andriette Stofberg passes away; ANC complaint lacks Max impact

(Image courtesy Beeld)

In Malaysia, one newspaper has suffered much criticism following its publication of a contentious cartoon, reports Times Live.

For more:

• Beeld: Beeld-vrou sterf ná dapper kankerstryd... Andriette Stofberg (58), Beeld deputy editor, passed away yesterday after a brief but brave battle against cancer. We at Bizcommunity.com extend our condolences to her family, friends and colleagues.

• News24.com: ANC's Max du Preez complaint dismissed... Motshekga's complaint against Du Preez regarding the latter's column last week has been thrown out; it appears the Chief Whip didn't quite get the gist of the column. Or to be more precise, he appears to have not got the gist at all and laid a complaint, which Du Preez and the newspaper have described variously as 'ridiculous', 'opportunistic' and 'mischievous'. Motshekga is out of the country and many attempts to get comment from his spokesperson Moloto Mothapo (every Tom, Dick and Harry... or Mathole, for that matter, has a spokesperson) have been unsuccessful.

• Times Live: Malaysian paper apologises over tsunami cartoon... There's a mug born every minute, and top of the heap yesterday is the editor of the Malaysian newspaper Berita Harian, who presumably OK'ed a cartoon depicting Ultraman, a popular Japanese icon, fleeing from an oncoming tsunami. The newspaper apologised yesterday, saying, "We do not intend to be insensitive or to poke fun at last Friday's incident," the paper said in a front-page apology on Monday, adding that it was "very sympathetic" to the plight of the Japanese people.

  Well, what happened to Japan is not so much an 'incident' as a catastrophe, which the dictionary describes, pretty accurately, as "a sudden and widespread disaster... a sudden, violent disturbance, especially of a part of the surface of the earth".

  Considering Malaysia lost a number of people in the 2004 tsunami, one would have thought that the Berita Harian's head honcho would not have been as dof as he appears to have been.