Staff Reporter

One Israeli woman has received an unexpected boost from her breast implants during the Lebanon war — the silicone embeds saved her life during a Hezbollah rocket attack, a doctor said on Tuesday. "It’s a fact that the silicone implants prevented her from a more serious and deeper wound," Jacky Govrin, of the hospital in Nahariya that treated the woman, told army radio.

The presidents of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique will on Wednesday open a new border crossing to link a giant transnational game park. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki will join Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe and Mozambican President Armando Guebuza to "officially open the Giriyondo border post in Limpopo", the South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday.

Comprehensive legislation that would prevent child criminals from mixing with adult offenders and provide rehabilitation alternatives remains unenacted nearly three years after its preparation. The Child Justice Bill has seemingly dropped off Parliament’s schedule, child-rights organisations say.

Congratulations to the Teacher on walking for 10 years now — this is a baby that grew up fast! We need papers like yours if education is to play the central role that it should in South Africa’s growth and development. You not only cast a critical eye on the shortcomings and problems in our schools and other institutions, but you stimulate a debate about what should be done.

The Grahamstown National Arts Festival earlier this month celebrated South Africa’s wealth of artistic talent. As part of our 10th birthday, we name the choreographers who have set the arts alive.

A<i> Mail & Guardian</i> investigation has thrown light on a number of lesser-known members of Jacob Zuma’s inner circle.

The circulation of consumer magazines shot up by 40 percent between July 2005 and June 2006, with five new titles launching in the first half of this year, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) results released on Friday.<

For a monk the late Father Trevor Huddleston certainly seems to have sown a lot of wild oats in his early days. He might not have left his physical resemblance lying around the African continent, like many missionary forbears, but he sure left a lot of mothers certain that they did not want their first-born sons named after anyone but him. That, and the good works he left behind, are part of his huge legacy.

As officials sweat over auditing the results of the presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the politicians stay on familiar, albeit treacherous ground. They share the curious quality of public representatives who, until July 30, had never faced an electorate. But this does not make them any less adroit than more conventional politicians at the bluff and double bluff of building coalitions.

Silumko Nondwangu, general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, has emerged as a strong candidate to challenge the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, at the federation’s conference next month. The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> understands some union leaders are pushing for Nondwangu to stand against Vavi.

The president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, Cardinal Wilfred Napier, offered to pay for psychological therapy for a woman allegedly raped by a Catholic priest when she was a child. There was a sting in the tail, however. If she accepted, she would forfeit her right to make any future claims against the church.

There are those who refer to the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as the United States President, George Bush’s poodle. When you reflect on how faithfully Blair obeys the regular choke-chain training he’s received from the White House, it’s not hard to understand why he’s seen as a submissive dog. But why drag in the fine poodle breed?

Sephiwe Shabange (22) sat patiently with four other men in a busy clinic in Mbabane, Swaziland. They were surprisingly calm considering they were there to be circumcised. “I do this to reduce the chance of getting HIV/Aids,” he said.

Any excuse for a jol and a South African will be there. Women’s Day is following suit. There were fashion shows, concerts, club nights with female DJs, you name it. Soon we will have kitsch cards, balloons and discounts for restaurant chains. That’s fine — it means the day is being institutionalised. But what we should not forget is that the day is one on which to mark progress on the woman’s road to equality and freedom.

Over the past 12 years we have, as a nation, made quantitative and qualitative advances towards a truly democratic and non-patriarchal society. South African women constitute 41% of the Cabinet, 50% of the Presidency, 33% of the National Assembly (women also serve as the speaker and deputy speaker of that body) and 44% of premiers.