Good News 14:00

NEWSFLASH NEWS AGENCY 15 November 2 pm

Good afternoon, here is your Good News:

# Eastern Cape MEC for Education Fundile Gade has unveiled phase three of the restoration project of the Healdtown High School near Fort Beaufort. The project is to preserve and restore the legacy of the historic school as an institution of cultural and educational excellence. Among the great illustrious former students are politicians, church leaders, academics, publishers, doctors, and historians including the late Nelson Mandela. Gade says phase three will include a hostel with 700 beds:

Play sound: ENG FundileonHealdton

# University of Cape Town’s paleobiologist Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan has had a sabre-tooth cat species named after her. Chinsamy-Turan of the Department of Biological Sciences has been acknowledged for her groundbreaking work in deciphering the biology of animals that inhabited the West Coast five to seven million years ago. The fossilised remains of the species were unearthed alongside another new species in the West Coast Fossil Park near the Langebaanweg Air Force Base. This genus has also been discovered in locations spanning Kenya and Chad.

# The City of Cape Town has extended the pensioner support application deadline to the end of this month. All residents aged 60-years and older, including social grant recipients with pensions up to 22-thousand-rand, are urged to apply for financial support. The city has increased its social support package for the current fiscal year and extended the deadline to assist more qualifying citizens. Mayoral committee member for Finance Siseko Mbandezi says the aid includes rates rebates and indigent benefits, making it one of the most substantial assistance packages for low-income households.

# A world-first mobile in vitro fertilisation laboratory has been unveiled at the University of Pretoria to assist underprivileged communities access infertility care. This was revealed at the Access to Infertility Care symposium. The project is in collaboration with Belgium’s Hasselt University and non-profit organisation, The Walking Egg. Acting deputy director of Medical Science at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital’s Reproductive Biology Laboratory, Gerhard Boshoff, emphasises the goal of providing assisted reproductive technology services to economically disadvantaged and infertile couples in low- and middle-income communities.

# And finally: A Frenchman with advanced-stage Parkinson’s Disease says it’s wonderful to walk again after receiving a new spinal implant. The 63-year-old, only known as Marc, was diagnosed with the condition 20-years ago and wasn’t able to walk without assistance later. GoodNewsNetwork reports he was the subject of Swiss experimental implant technology that was also used to restore some mobility to a man left paralyzed after a spinal cord injury. Marc says he can now walk kilometres at a time and his whole life has changed for the better.

Stay tuned for more news………….