38+ min ago (670+ words) With the R2.5-million 2024/2025 Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award, we have the opportunity to catapult Africa into the forefront of paediatric traumatic brain injury research and expertise. There is a compelling counterpart to South Africa's growing reputation for exploring the complexities of the outer universe with its strategic astronomy programme: an ambitious exploration of the complex internal universe of the human brain. In children, this complexity is even more pronounced. While an adult's brain is essentially physiologically stable, a child's is not: it constantly undergoes rapid structural and functional changes, so much so that we cannot compare a two-year-old's to a 12-year-old's, let alone that of an adult. This also means that what works in treating any brain injury in adults, including medication and surgery, is not necessarily effective in children. Indeed, trying to translate treatments is a profoundly bad idea. We…...

3+ hour, 30+ min ago (937+ words) As South Africa enters its summer months, animal shelters are overflowing with kittens in need of homes. An animal welfare inspector in Cape Town says that this is the worst year yet. Animal activist Ami Stemmet was driving with her husband down the N7 in the northern suburbs of Cape Town when they noticed a dead kitten in the road. Someone had abandoned a box of kittens on an island in the middle of the road. One kitten, the only survivor, was darting in and out of the box. Stemmet, chief inspector for the South African Animal Welfare Inspectorate Association, says this is not an isolated case. Kittens are found all over the city, even inside ceilings or machinery. "I've come home and found kittens dumped inside my cattery in a box without water, without food," says Stemmet. "And just a…...

10+ hour, 57+ min ago (927+ words) Despite the "challenges and misunderstandings" that have arisen between SA and the US, the President says SA remains a "firm and unwavering friend to the American people". President Cyril Ramaphosa has called US President Donald Trump"s false claims that South Africa is perpetrating genocide against Afrikaners and confiscating land from white people, "blatant misinformation. Ramaphosa was speaking to the nation on Sunday night, 30 November, about the "successful G20 Leaders" Summit held last weekend. He began by thanking South Africans for "showing up for SA, and for "standing by it. The G20 comprises 19 countries, and the European Union and African Union. South Africa invited 16 guest countries to participate in its year-long G20 programme. Ramaphosa said all G20 countries attended all the G20-related meetings throughout the year. "Except for one member country, he continued. "It is regrettable that the United States of America, which is…...

16+ hour, 42+ min ago (434+ words) It is important to note that comments incorrectly attributed to mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis in a recent opinion piece by Telford Vice are based on a misreading of the mayor's answer to an interview question, which is available for anyone to see for themselves here. In response to a question about the false framing by certain individuals and groups who claim that current City of Cape Town policies advance spatial apartheid, the mayor responded that this claim is "propaganda language no longer rooted in reality. The comment was therefore disputing false claims about the intent of current City policy, and not about the legacy of the past, which persists today and which the City is actively working to unstitch. The suggestion that the City of Cape Town " through its policies " aims to perpetuate spatial apartheid is a well-worn favourite attack line…...

21+ hour, 39+ min ago (1389+ words) Teachers in KwaZulu-Natal warn that without proper terminology, books, training and classroom support, SA's Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education policy may deepen the literacy crisis. In her small office at Esidumbini Primary School in eThekwini, Grade 3 teacher Nonhlanhla Kleinbooi flips through her notebook to explain her concerns about language as she prepares learners for the next grade. Her school is slowly rolling out Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE) in Grade 4. This means subjects like maths, previously taught in English from Grade 4, will now continue in isiZulu. Although the aim is to improve outcomes, new materials have introduced a new set of borrowed terms that confuse learners. "In isiZulu, a rectangle is unxande," Kleinbooi says, writing the familiar word on a scrap of paper. Next to it, she scribbles another term: irekhthengile. She pauses, shaking her head. "This is where we lose…...

2+ day, 2+ hour ago (731+ words) When designing youth employment programmes, companies often focus on the obvious barriers: skills gaps, lack of experience, or geographical constraints. But for young women, particularly women of colour, the challenges run far deeper. The barriers start with unconscious biases about which jobs and environments are "suitable, or not, for women. I experienced this firsthand as a young civil engineer when my manager consistently denied me construction site experience, citing safety concerns that were never raised for my male colleagues. This well-intentioned protectiveness unintentionally hindered my career development. Today, we see similar patterns across youth programmes " from assumptions about women's technical capabilities to concerns about their mobility and safety that limit opportunities rather than create supportive pathways. Digital barriers compound these challenges. According to the International Telecommunications Union, globally women are less likely to have access to the internet than men…...

2+ day, 5+ hour ago (1877+ words) Hundreds of vendors and thousands of guests gathered at the Vegandale Festival at Citi Field in Queens, New York, for a cultural culinary experience with a vegan twist. Vegandale was founded in 2015 in Toronto by Hellenic Vincent de Paul. De Paul was born in Sri Lanka, and his family fled to Canada as refugees when he was just three years old. His mission with Vegandale is to "demonstrate the moral imperative of a world free from animal exploitation. Vegandale has since grown and has been hosted in major cities across North America, including Los Angeles. Vegandale is the largest vegan food experience that merges art, culture, music and food from around the world. Due to differing philosophies surrounding veganism, some prefer the term plant-based to describe a more flexible diet and lifestyle, while some refer to "vegan as a strict…...

2+ day, 6+ hour ago (804+ words) A shift in mindset is necessary so that generative artificial intelligence can be used as a tool to produce graduates with the critical thinking skills that tech lacks and cannot duplicate reliably. In universities worldwide, a quiet revolution is under way. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek and Gemini are being used to produce essays, summarise readings and even conduct complex assignments. Generative AI is of a kind that can handle a variety of creative tasks in diverse domains such as arts, music and education. For many university teachers, this raises alarm bells about plagiarism and integrity. Whereas some institutions have rushed to restrict or support AI use, others are still unsure how to respond. But focusing only on policing misses a bigger issue: whether students are really learning. As an education researcher, I'm interested in…...

2+ day, 6+ hour ago (250+ words) Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to visit India on December 4-5 at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss bilateral ties and international issues, the Kremlin and India's Foreign Ministrysaid on Friday. During the state visit, Putin will hold talks with Modi and hold a separate meeting with Indian President Droupadi Murmu, the Kremlin said, saying a number of unspecified intergovernmental and commercial documents would be signed. Putin last went to India in December 2021, just a few months before ordering troops into Ukraine in February 2022. "This visit is of great importance, providing an opportunity to comprehensively discuss the extensive agenda of Russian-Indian relations as a particularly privileged strategic partnership," the Kremlin said in a statement. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on Modi for India to stop buying oil from Russia. India has been one of the biggest…...

2+ day, 7+ hour ago (322+ words) The Shoprite Group strategically integrates youth employment into its business model, continually finding innovative ways to create economic opportunity in the communities in which it operates. Through the YES programme, the retailer aligns transformation, impact reporting, and sustainability into a single measurable framework. As South Africa's largest private sector employer, the Shoprite Group is showing how social and economic impact can strengthen long-term Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance. The Group's 2025 Sustainability Report sums up the approach in their purpose statement, to "[Uplift] lives every day by pioneering access to the most affordable goods and services, creating economic opportunity, and protecting our planet." Sustainability is not an empty promise, but an ethos underpinning operations across the value chain. The Shoprite Group's commitment to ESG has not gone unnoticed. The company is a two-time YES ESG Award winner, in 2023 and 2024, at…...