Good News

BULLETIN 7 July

Good afternoon, here is your Good News:

# One of Africa’s most elusive and threatened birds, the White-winged Flufftail, has been downlisted from critically endangered to endangered in South Africa. This comes as a result of significant advances in understanding the biology, breeding range, and habitat preferences of the secretive flufftail. BirdLife South Africa CEO, Mark Anderson, says with Ethiopia having sufficient habitat to support only 55 breeding pairs, South Africa plays an important role in preventing the extinction of the species.

# University of Fort Hare Faculty of Agriculture and Science alumnus, Wandile Nikelo, is changing lives in the Eastern Cape through his Sakhikamva Agricultural Training and Development Institute. He is tackling youth unemployment and food insecurity by equipping young people with practical agricultural and entrepreneurial skills. The institute was registered in 2021 and has since trained dozens of young people from underprivileged backgrounds. Nikelo says he is planning to expand the institute’s offerings to home industries, offering training in knitting, sewing, baking, woodworking, and computer literacy.

# The Viewing Room Art Gallery in Brooklyn, Pretoria, is this month presenting Hardware/Softwear. This is an innovative exhibition showcasing contemporary jewellery crafted through cutting-edge 3D printing techniques. It features the work of Tshwane University of Technology’s part-time lecturer, Hesti Wade. TUT says the collection explores themes of materiality and corpo-reality, and the intersection of digital design and physical craftsmanship. It adds that Wade’s work aims to prepare students for an increasingly modernised and technologically driven jewellery industry.

# The seventh instalment in the action-adventure series created by Steven Spielberg, Jurassic World Rebirth, debuted at number one in North American theatres. The film, which features an all-new cast anchored by Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey, also scored the second-best international opening of the year and the franchise. Brad Pitt’s F1: The Movie came in second with DreamWorks Animation’s live-action How to Train Your Dragon in third. Disney and Pixar’s Elio and Sony’s 28 Years Later rounded out the top five.

# And finally: Today is World Chocolate Day, a perfect day to indulge in the rich, creamy goodness of the delicacy. Chocolates have a diverse history that traces back to over five-thousand-300 years ago, when the Mayo-Chinchipe culture first domesticated cocoa beans in Ecuador. Many of the best-loved chocolate bars, including Cadbury’s Flake, Milky Way, KitKat, Aero and Smarties, were all invented during a golden age of cocoa-based creativity in the 1920s and ’30s. A fun fact is that it takes two to four days to make a single-serving chocolate bar.

Stay tuned for more news………….