An ambitious project to safeguard future food supplies began on on Monday with the launch of a ”Noah’s ark” for the world’s most important plants. The new Svalbard International Seed Vault will serve as a repository for crucial seeds in the event of a global catastrophe, said Norway’s Agriculture Minister, Terje Riis-Johansen.
The soldiers rounded up the villagers at first light. The Taliban had just pummelled the new Afghan National Army base at Gaza in the Arghandab Valley, a notorious rebel nest in Zabul province. Now the soldiers wanted to know who was sheltering them. They grabbed Jamal Ludin as he left for morning prayers.
The last thing Elijah Mathibela expected when his phone rang on Easter Monday was to be told of deaths in the community. The broken bodies of three young women were lying behind a shopping centre in Mamelodi West, Pretoria. They were murdered. Mathibela, the principal of Jafta Mahlangu High, could not help but wonder whether they were among his charges.
Bear Khumalo adopts what can only be called an inverted pyramid approach to empowerment and a maverick, high-risk approach to investments. His modus operandi is to focus on sectors that are out of favour with investors and thus "do not attract the usual [empowerment] suspects", consolidate assets in these sectors.
The launch of the Cape Town Book Fair is a major development for the book sector in South Africa and the entire continent. However, for its full potential to be realised, transformation across the whole book chain is urgently needed. This requires a major mind shift.
Gas supply in the Gauteng area is expected to return to normal over the next few days after a series of mishaps that has throttled supply since the onset of an early winter in May. Afrox, the market leader in bottled gas, says it has supplied an additional 50 000 9kg bottles to alleviate the shortage.
Young people were often at the forefront of the struggle to liberate South Africa and 30 years on they are still leading the way, producing solutions to age-old problems that have long vexed their elders. The South African Bureau of Standards Young Design Achievers Awards celebrates youngsters with big visions and the tenacity to bring their ingenious ideas to fruition.
Chad and Sudan’s frosty relations are expected to plumb new lows following Chadian Foreign Minister Ahmat Allami’s statement that Sudan’s role in its conflict be investigated by the United Nations Security Council. The security council is no stranger to the conflict in Sudan.
Is this the best of times for South African literature? South Africans are buying more South African books. There are high-profile literary awards (leave aside, for now, the weak representation of poetry), successful local literature promotions, popular magazines commissioning new work by writers and a robust literary festival circuit.
The Palestinian foreign minister returned to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday from a trip abroad with an estimated -million packed in 12 separate suitcases, according to officials. Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas, declared the amount he was carrying to Egyptian officials at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.