South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-- South Africa's Nelson Mandela, who was spending Christmas in the hospital recovering from serious illness, was in good spirits and looking much better, President Jacob Zuma said Tuesday. He said Mandela immediately greeted him, shouting out Zuma's clan name, Nxamalala. Zuma visited Mandela, along with Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, and other members of the Mandela family. “We found him in good spirits. He shouted my clan name, Nxamalala, as I walked into the ward!

Behind an unassuming storefront in Orange County's Little Saigon, prosecutors say, was the driving force behind an illicit international trade in rhinoceros horns. Vinh Chuong "Jimmy" Kha and Felix Kha may never have journeyed to the savannas of Africa, but by trafficking in hundreds of pounds of the prized horns that some Vietnamese and Chinese believe can cure cancer, the father and son were responsible for the hundreds of rhinos targeted by poachers, prosecutors said. "Their fingers might as well have been on the triggers of poachers' guns," Assistant U.S. Atty.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- After three days of silence on the illness of national icon Nelson Mandela, President Jacob Zuma's office issued a three-line statement Tuesday announcing that the anti-apartheid hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner is suffering from a lung infection. Mandela's hospitalization Saturday for medical tests caused national alarm. Zuma's office said Monday that the former president was "in good hands" without commenting on his condition. On Tuesday, presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said new tests indicated that the 94-year-old Mandela was suffering from a recurrence of a previous lung infection.

During the 1960s, when most African nature reserves were being established, lions tended to be born free. But today, freedom doesn't always serve them well. Fifty years ago, human population densities were low in the areas where lions roamed. But since then, the human population in that part of Africa has increased fourfold to fivefold, and demands on land have intensified. The prey that lions rely on has been reduced by poaching and habitat loss, which means that lions living in unfenced preserves roam out into farms and pastures, where they kill livestock - or humans.

JOHANNESBURG -- South Africa's elder statesman, Nelson Mandela, will spend Christmas in the hospital, with authorities announcing that doctors have no plans to discharge the former president. Mandela, 94, South Africa's first black president, has been hospitalized since Dec. 8, his longest stay since he was released from prison in 1993. He originally was hospitalized for a lung infection but also has had surgery for gallstones. Authorities have offered scant day-to-day information about Mandela's illness.

More than five years ago, as a newly arrived correspondent, I learned an important lesson from the courageous people of this little township. And now, as I leave, their example gives me hope for South Africa. Oukasie had existed for half a century to tend the rose bushes, work the factory lines, clean the clothes and mind the children for whites in Brits, half a mile away. Trouble was, the whites had suddenly decided that Oukasie was getting too close.

The commander of the military wing of the radical Pan Africanist Congress of South Africa, Victor Sabelo Phama, was killed in a car crash in southern Tanzania, government officials said Thursday. Phama died instantly Wednesday night when his car rammed into a stationary truck outside the town of Morogoro, 125 miles west of the capital Dar es Salaam, they added.

When Mobutu Sese Seko seized control of the Congo some three decades ago, Africa was emerging into independence with an uncertainty that made it prime territory for post-colonial exploitation. Abetted by the Central Intelligence Agency, he signed on as a Cold War client and, with the aid of the United States and former European colonialists, grew to be a ruinous dictator. When Laurent Desiree Kabila toppled Mobutu last spring, the continent was gaining a sense of its own strength.

South African Ambassador to Britain Denis Worrall resigned Friday, saying he wants to return to his country and "re-enter national public life." Although Worrall did not specify his plans, informed speculation here said he intends to leave South Africa's ruling National Party and run as an independent candidate for Parliament in the whites-only election scheduled for May 6.

World Cup 2010: SOUTH AFRICA FIFA ranking: 88 Overall World Cup record: 1-2-3 Coach: Carlos Alberto Parreira Best performance: First round, 1998, 2002 Overview: South Africa finds itself in the same situation the U.S. was in back in 1994 -- playing host to a World Cup and expected to perform but without a legitimate star or even much of a team. The U.S. reached the second round, and Parreira's squad will be desperate to avoid the ignominy of being the first Cup host in history not to make it out the first round.

Vuvuzelas might be on the way out during soccer games in South Africa, where Premier Soccer League officials are considering a ban on the plastic horns, but not for the reason one might think. The vuvuzela gained international attention during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, where the blare of the horn was a constant drone during play. As irritating as many found the sound, the fact that the horns have been used as weapons is now of concern to soccer officials. Vuvuzelas were among objects thrown at Orlando Pirates Coach Roger de Sa after a recent game in which fans were unhappy with the home team's draw against AmaZulu.

Long before Ernest Cole became one of South Africa's first black photojournalists, he had dreams of becoming a doctor, a bold aspiration for a young man coming of age during apartheid rule in the 1950s and 1960s. In an unpublished biography from late 1966 Cole wrote that it was a Baldafix folding camera in a drugstore window that caught his attention and set him on another path. A family friend lent him a twin lens reflex camera and he quickly began making money taking snapshots.

Less than two months after being charged in the shooting death of his girlfriend, sprinter Oscar Pistorius has been spotted on the track and could soon resume training. A picture of the double-amputee athlete, wearing his famed blades, appeared in the Thursday edition of the Afrikaans-language  Beeld newspaper . Pistorius has denied intentionally shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in the bathroom of his South African home on Valentine's Day, saying that he mistook her for an intruder.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela is showing signs of recovery after his second night in a hospital for treatment of a recurring lung infection, President Jacob Zuma said Friday. Mandela was admitted to the hospital in Pretoria shortly before midnight Wednesday. The unexpected late-night admission and reports that the infection had advanced rapidly alarmed many South Africans. However, Zuma issued a statement Friday afternoon that Mandela, South Africa's first black president, "is in good spirits and enjoyed a full breakfast this morning.

Barely a decade old, the BRICS alliance forged to challenge Western-dominated global economic strategy may already have outlived its purpose. The collaborative five-country bloc that came together to create a counterweight to the Group of 7 rich-nation club failed at its summit in South Africa this week to deliver on promises to pool resources and create a $50-billion development bank to foster growth in developing nations. That countries as diverse as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa couldn't forge a common blueprint came as little surprise to those who follow the arcane world of multilateral development strategy.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Nelson Mandela was readmitted to a hospital after a worrying recurrence of the lung infection he suffered in December, the South African presidency announced Thursday. It was the third time Mandela, known affectionately to South Africans by his clan name, Madiba, has been hospitalized since December. The unexpected late-night admission rang alarm bells for many. South Africa's first black president went into a hospital in Pretoria just before midnight.

Vuvuzelas might be on the way out during soccer games in South Africa, where Premier Soccer League officials are considering a ban on the plastic horns, but not for the reason one might think. The vuvuzela gained international attention during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, where the blare of the horn was a constant drone during play. As irritating as many found the sound, the fact that the horns have been used as weapons is now of concern to soccer officials. Vuvuzelas were among objects thrown at Orlando Pirates Coach Roger de Sa after a recent game in which fans were unhappy with the home team's draw against AmaZulu.

Campaigning in his KwaZulu-Natal heartland last week, Jacob Zuma took aim at one of his sharpest critics, the Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The cleric had "strayed" from his pastoral responsibilities by criticizing him, said Zuma, who has battled charges of fraud and racketeering for most of the last decade. "As far as I know," Zuma said, "the role of priests is to pray for the souls of sinners, not condemn them."

JOHNANNESBURG, South Africa - When Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe was in college, a European professor assigned "Mister Johnson," which portrayed Africa as a land of grinning, shrieking savages. Time magazine called it "the best novel ever written about Africa. " Achebe was outraged. He vowed that if someone as ignorant as Joyce Cary, the novel's Anglo-Irish author, could write such a book, "perhaps I ought to try my hand at it. " FOR THE RECORD: Chinua Achebe obituary: In the March 22 Section A, the obituary of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe referred to writer Ngugi wa Thiongo as a fellow Nigerian.

Nine South African police officers pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of killing a man who died after being dragged behind their van, according to news reports. The police officer driving the vehicle said he was unaware of what was happening to the man when he began pulling away from an agitated crowd, according to Agence France - Presse . The death of Mido Macia last week outraged South Africans after a video was posted online by the Daily Sun tabloid.