Fikile Ntshangase, a South African environmental activist at the forefront of an effort to stop the expansion of a massive open pit coal mine, was shot dead in her home last week. Four gunmen entered her home and shot her. Ntshangase lived near Mtubatuba, in KwaZulu-Natal province, near the Somkhele Coal Mine, which is owned by Tendele Coal Mining Ltd, a subsidiary of Petmin. Just days before she was killed, Ntshangase was prepared to write an affidavit alleging she had been offered a R350,000 bribe to withdraw her legal objections to the expansion of the coal mine, which will displace hundreds of families in the Mpunkyoni tribal area where villagers make their living raising goats and cattle, and growing food. “I cannot sell out my people and if need be I will die for my people,” Ntshangase declared recently, according to her lawyer. (The Guardian, Daily Maverick, Mongabay, BizNews)