Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for women in South Africa, with one in 31 women suffering from this disease. The second National Cleavage Day (April 8) is being held to raise funds for the Cancer Association of South Africa through a series of promotional events planned across the country. Misconceptions about breast cancer prevent women from getting frequent mammograms.
Cellphones are fun gadgets, especially the SMS feature. This hitherto unregulated communication tool provided comic relief during the hurly burly of Zimbabwe’s election week. The first hit days before the poll: ”MDC stands for Mugabe’s Departure is Certain.” Zanu-PF supporters hit back: ”Terri Schiavo dies after days of starvation: who is politicising food?”
John Paul II became Pope in 1978, just as the emancipatory 1960s were declining into the long political night of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. As the economic downturn of the early 1970s began to bite, the Western world made a decisive shift to the right, and the transformation of an obscure Polish bishop to John Paul II was part of this transition.
With a change of regime at the Vatican, many are praying for a progressive pope to be appointed. The time is right to move forward on two of the most vexing issues for the laity — contraception and abortion. This is a highly sensitive area but the chance to change the Vatican’s stance could come from new discoveries in embryology.
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) has thrown its weight behind moves to secure two permanent seats with veto rights for Africa in the United Nations Security Council. International parliamentary institutions will be lobbied to support proposals for a further four non-permanent seats for the continent. The PAP adopted a report on reform of multilateral institutions by the standing committee.
President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff warned this week that Russia could break up into several different countries and proposed the creation of “super regions” to be headed by Kremlin appointees. Dmitri Medvedev said, unless political and business elites work together, ”Russia could disappear as a united country”’.
The senate academic freedom committee at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, would like to express our deep concern over the situation in which Professor Kenneth Good finds himself. We feel it important that our voice is heard in defence of the right of all university-based intellectuals to be allowed to speak freely without threat of intimidation or physical sanction.
For the African continent, Karol Wojtyla, otherwise known as Pope John Paul II, is credited with overseeing the implementation of the recommendations of the second council of the all-bishops meeting of the Catholic Church, otherwise known as Vatican II. Was the late pope shackled to the past, or a caring crusader wrongly measured by secular society?
Click on image for full-size view.
A new Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, Die Wêreld, goes on sale this week with 200 000 copies and promises of a fresh approach. ”We are hoping to sell out,” editor Maryna Blomerus said in Pretoria on Thursday before the weekend of the 80-page tabloid-sized paper’s virgin issue.