April 10, 2015.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.
Making headlines:

Advocate George Bizos says statues shouldn’t be destroyed. 

The United Nations launches an appeal to raise over $174-million to support refugees who’ve escaped the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency. 

And, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa encourages entrepreneurs to help grow the South African economy. 

Struggle veteran advocate George Bizos said museums were anxiously waiting to take in statues of people that have played a role in the history of the country and pleaded with citizens not to destroy them.

Bizos was addressing a public lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Howard College Theatre, where the statue of King George V was defaced last month.

Bizos said, however, that he didn’t want to issue a final judgement on the matter adding that to remove one statue with merit was acceptable, but to simply remove all the statues was unfair.  Bizos said defacing the statues was also not in accordance with the country’s Constitution.

The United Nations (or UN) launched an appeal on Thursday to raise slightly over $174-million to support refugees who have fled to Chad, Niger and Cameroon to escape northern Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.

Boko Haram fighters have killed thousands of people in their six-year bid to create an Islamist emirate in northeastern Nigeria.

Though a military campaign by Nigeria and its neighbours has driven Boko Haram out of many positions it previously held, the UN still expects refugee numbers to rise from 192 000 to 240 000 by the end of this year.

The 23 UN agencies and non government organisations involved in the support plan each drew up their cost estimates, which came to a combined $174.4-million.

In addition to the refugees, there are more than 1.1-million people displaced within northeast Nigeria by Boko Haram, the UN says.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa urged entrepreneurs to think not only about what they would like to achieve for themselves, but also what they would like to achieve for the nation.

Ramaphosa told entrepreneurs at the third annual South African Premier Business Awards to consider how they could contribute to building social cohesion  as they built their businesses. He said enterprise was not just an economic good but also a social good.

Ramaphosa said government would continue to strive to make it easier for companies to grow, to invest and to create more decent jobs for South Africans.  He reiterated that the economy needed to grow at a faster rate to create those jobs and eliminate poverty.

Also making headlines:

South African power utility Eskom said that workers who were fired for destroying property at the Medupi power plant were blocking employees from entering the construction site.

Mali announced that northern rebels would give preliminary approval to a UN-brokered peace proposal next week, but a northern Tuareg separatist group denied that any deal had been struck.

Political allies of Burkina Faso's deposed President Blaise Compaore suspended their participation in the country's transitional institutions to protest modifications to the electoral code that bars them from running for office.

And, rainwater harvesting can boost water security in South Africa, but water-related legislation does not provide a clear legal framework for its adoption, which is hampering national expansion.

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.