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The Netherlands has contributed about R70-million towards a five-year literacy and numeracy research programme in South Africa.

South Africans from across the spectrum were united this week in their praise for internationally renowned KwaZulu-Natal battlefields historian David Rattray, who was murdered in his family home above Fugitives' Drift last weekend.

South Africa is a beautiful country, boasting a gorgeous coastline, stunning mountains, and mesmerising bushveld. It begs to be explored, and doing that on mountain bikes is a wonderful way to go about it. The longest trail in the country is the Freedom Trail.

The head of a women's housing cooperative, the founder of the world's first Aids hospice, a car thief turned businessman ... to mark Heritage Month, the International Marketing Council celebrates six ordinary South Africans who "have become true heroes through their extraordinary actions".

South Africa is the second least corrupt country in Africa, with a slightly improved score in the 2006 Corruption Index by Transparency International. The country is also way ahead of similar major emerging market countries such as China, India and Brazil.

There was not too much to shout about for Bafana Bafana, South Africa's national soccer team, in 2003, but the women's side, affectionately called Banyana Banyana, can look back on a job well done. So too can the Tsetse Flies - the national under-12 team.

Alexandra township in Johannesburg has been under threat of demolition many times in its 100-year-old history - particularly in the height of the apartheid period, when other "black spots" in the middle of white suburbs met their deaths beneath state bulldozers. Of these, Alex alone survived. Thanks to a friendship.

Nelson Mandela turned 85 on 18 July 2003 - and you, and you, and you ... sent him 17 842 birthday messages via the official Mandela 85th Birthday website. View a selection of messages in the moving, amazing, 25-page Nelson Mandela 85th Birthday Message Book.

Some 20 years ago, a young Mogwailane Kenneth Mohlala left his rural homestead on the outskirts of Steelpoort in Limpopo Province for the beckoning lights of Johannesburg. Today, Mohlala is the CEO of a company with an annual turnover in the region of R2.5-billion.

Hang out a kilometre high over Cape Town, or over crashing waves at the western head at Knysna, do a combination abseiling and canyoning trip on the Storms River Gorge, or rapp jump down buildings in Durban and Johannesburg. Gravity sucks in spectacular fashion in South Africa!