Sunday, September 30, 2012

"Speed Freak" killer breaks silence on where the bodies are

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Chevelle "Chevy" Wheeler's mother dropped her off at Franklin High School in Stockton, California, the morning of October 7, 1985. "I love you," the 16-year-old said as she left the car. Paula Wheeler never saw her daughter again.

She still recalls in chilling detail the scene 16 years later, when the man convicted of killing her daughter and three others turned to her and her husband in court and highlighted the painful fact that their child's body had never been found.

"My parents will know where I'm at when I'm gone, but you'll never know where Chevy is," she remembers Wesley Shermantine telling them. The condemned killer long refused to offer information about his victims' fate or whereabouts.

But after more than a decade of silence on death row, Shermantine, 46, has begun to speak out about the string of murders - by his count, six dozen - he committed with his childhood friend and partner in crime, Loren Herzog.

Together they were dubbed the "Speed Freak" killers, so named for the methamphetamine-fueled violence investigators said they unleashed in and around California's farm-rich San Joaquin Valley during the 1980s and 1990s.

Authorities have long suspected the pair in as many as 22 deaths in all, mostly of young women and girls who went missing.

If Shermantine's claims prove true, he and Herzog, who committed suicide in January, could end up responsible for 72 killings, ranking them among the most prolific serial murderers in U.S. history.

Shermantine began dribbling out information late last year to a bounty hunter who offered him money in exchange for the location of burial sites.

The killer's crudely drawn maps helped lead authorities in February to skeletal remains of Chevy Wheeler and four others, finally providing a measure of closure to Paula Wheeler and some of the other victims' relatives.

But those discoveries may represent just a fraction of a much larger tally.

In a recent letter to a reporter, Shermantine put the number of victims at "24 X 3," though he has suggested Herzog was mainly responsible. And a telephone hot line investigators set up this year drew reports of about 65 missing persons who callers believed may have fallen prey to Sherman tine and Herzog.

Prosecutor Thomas Testa, who tried both men, said such high numbers strike him as possibly intended for "shock value."

"We never had a number anywhere near 70," he said. But, he added, "I wouldn't discount it entirely ... Maybe there's some fame in a higher number than the next guy."

Meanwhile, efforts to locate and positively identify remains have been painstakingly slow.

A California state legislator and a retired FBI agent assigned to interview Shermantine and assess his credibility say the renewed investigation was badly hindered by ineptitude and by law enforcement agencies working at cross purposes.

A KILLER'S MAPS AND GUIDED TOUR

In a rare step authorized by the state Legislature in hopes of a breakthrough, Shermantine was briefly released under guard from San Quentin State Prison late last month to personally direct FBI agents to sites where he claimed to have disposed of more of his victims.

Law enforcement officials have remained tight-lipped about what, if anything, they discovered during his one-day outing in August, months after excavations of Shermantine's map sites first bore fruit.

In a shallow grave near the former site of Shermantine's family home in San Andreas, 100 miles northeast of San Francisco, cadaver dogs discovered Wheeler's remains and her lavender-colored sweatshirt in February. The remains of Cyndi Vanderheiden, who was 25 when she disappeared in 1998, were unearthed from a ravine a short distance away.

Although prosecutors could not produce either body when they brought Shermantine to trial, a jury convicted him in 2001 of murdering both Vanderheiden and Wheeler, along with two men shot on a pitch-black highway in 1984.

Also in February, investigators recovered three more sets of remains tied to Shermantine from an abandoned well near a former cattle ranch in the San Joaquin County town of Linden. A forensic anthropologist determined the bones belonged to Kimberly Billy, 19, JoAnn Hobson, 16, and an unidentified teenage girl.

Skeletal remains of a fetus were found there as well, along with shoes, coats, a woman's ring, a purse and nearly 1,000 bone fragments.

Neither Shermantine nor Herzog was charged in the murder of Billy, a newlywed who went missing in 1984, or Hobson, a friend of Wheeler who attended the same high school and vanished in 1985, weeks before her classmate. But in another courtroom outburst at the time of his own sentencing, Shermantine told Hobson's mother that Herzog had gone out on a date with her daughter the night she died.

A separate jury found Herzog guilty of three murders, including Vanderheiden's, but his conviction was reduced on appeal to a single count of manslaughter, and he was paroled after 11 years in prison.

Whatever Herzog knew about his victims' whereabouts, he took to his own grave in January, hanging himself just hours after the bounty hunter involved in the investigation informed him that Shermantine was starting to pinpoint grave sites.

'WE'RE TIRED OF WAITING'

Shermantine began mapping locations of remains he claimed were discarded in abandoned wells and mine shafts and buried on remote hillsides and beneath a trailer park after meeting late last year with retired FBI agent Jeffrey Rinek.

By then, a Sacramento-based bounty hunter, Leonard Padilla, had agreed to pay Shermantine up to $33,000 for information leading to remains of his victims.

But Rinek and Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, a Stockton Democrat, have sharply criticized San Joaquin County Sheriff Steve Moore as impeding the effort. They accused Moore of trying to block Shermantine's visit to burial sites, then destroying evidence by allowing his deputies to recklessly dig for graves with a backhoe.

"They give more respect to dinosaurs than they do to these victims," said Rinek, who joined the investigation at the request of the FBI.

Galgiani recently formed a special task force to bring together dozens of law enforcement agencies that believe Shermantine might help them crack cold cases.

"The families of victims have waited and waited, and they wonder why nothing's happening. I know the torture it puts families through," Galgiani said.

The FBI has since taken the lead in the search for bodies, but a bureau spokesman declined to comment on the case.

Moore likewise declined to discuss specifics of the probe, though he confirmed that Shermantine visited San Joaquin County under heavy guard on August 26.

"We are now working with the FBI to further the investigation based on that activity. We stand ready to assist the FBI in making recoveries, which has been our goal all along," he said. "We will do everything we can to bring these victims home."

Sue Kizer is waiting. Her 18-year-old daughter, Gayle Marks, disappeared from Stockton in 1988. Authorities consider Shermantine and Herzog possible suspects.

"I want to get her out of wherever she is, thrown at the bottom of a dusty well or laying in the mud somewhere. I can't bear the thought," Kizer said. "Every family I'm in contact with, they all want the same thing. We want them to get out there and dig up the bodies. And we're tired of waiting."

(This story restores dropped letter in Testa, paragraph 12)

(Editing by Tim Gaynor and Doina Chiacu)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/speed-freak-killer-breaks-silence-where-bodies-154424883.html

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Acupuncture May Assist You to Shed Extra ... - Remedies for health

Posted: September 30, 2012 in Fitness, Weight Loss
Tags: Acupuncture

Everyone has heard a lot about acupuncture procedure and its benefits. An acupuncturist put needles into some spots on your body thanks to it you can calm down, forget about your concerns and worries and dream of some pleasant stuff. But I would like to notice acupuncture is more than just relaxing medical procedure. It turned out the alternative medicine technique. can effectively fight your extra weight.
Many people all over the world experience this approach and are satisfied with the result. Acupuncture is practiced for 5000 years and it is much older than other alternative medicine therapies and techniques.
If you are fed up with diets and other methods of losing weight I consider it is time to look inside and define the actual reason of your obesity with acupuncture. A specialist won?t put right now needles on special spots. First of all, he will try to disclose the issues of your excess weight. There are a bunch of causes why people get extra weight. Overeating, lack of physical activities, hormonal changes, slow metabolism process and poor diet are culprits of getting obese.
The rational approach of using acupuncture is established to control weight, enhance the work of your stomach, boost the metabolism process, get out from the liver all chemicals and toxins for better digestion and monitor obesity-related hormones. Acupuncture can regulate your brain and hormones that are responsible for body temperature, thirst, hunger and etc. It maintains the energy flow to your brain and handles your fat keeping and metabolism. The procedure has such a feature to make sure people that they are full as it strengthens the smooth muscle of the stomach.
Acupuncture helps to output endorphins that take charge of controlling appetite. After an acupuncturist determinates the cause of gain weight problem he will put needles on some bodily spots. Some landmarks on it have responsibility for a special function of your body. Some of them will stimulate your parts of the body to reduce a natural addiction to food. I convince you this procedure is not harmless and doesn?t induce any addiction. It is a natural and weight loss stimulating approach.
To get prolific results it is recommended to do this therapy several times as weight loss is a permanent process and will take some time to succeed. If you decide to take up acupuncture you have to eat a well-balanced diet, get enough physical exercises and avoid stress. It just increases the process of reducing extra pounds.
Some tips how to use acupuncture:
1. Make a research to find a good acupuncturist. The specialist must have a license for this routine and have a special education and enough experience. Firstly, they have to be medical doctors and other professional staff that know about basis of this medical practice.
2. To get more result it is better to select a full course of acupuncture. Your specialist will set up a daily plan for you and you have to stick to it. It will take some time to achieve the main goal. Usually it is necessary to get 10 courses of acupuncture for more effective treatment. The daily plan also includes easting healthy food and doing regular exercises.
3. Don?t be afraid of acupuncture. It is actually a relaxing and natural way of treatment. Some methods of acupuncture contain ear stapling that is also kind of new and forcible treatment for weight loss.
I guess it is worth to try acupuncture as for some sessions you will feel definite relief and calm. I have experienced it 2 times and it lived up to my expectations. I guess it is quite better to try it in conjunction with nutritious diet and exercises.
Irina Carter is the author of the site http://www.raipharmacies.com/ where you can get a valuable run-down about sexual healthy news and methods of ED treatment. She is pretty proficient at sexual health, healthy eating, fitness, weight loss and men?s health. She is writing two books about healthy eating and sexual healthy that will come off the press soon.

Source: http://remediesforhealth.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/acupuncture-may-assist-you-to-shed-extra-pounds/

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Many Iraq, Afghan vets choosing 'second service'

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) ? The link between U.S. military service and running for office is as old as the republic itself. It started with George Washington, who famously wrote that, "When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen."

During the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of thousands of veterans have come home and laid aside their uniforms. But not all have opted to simply blend back into civilian life.

Many have chosen to run for public office.

Several dozen veterans ? some of them from earlier wars ? are vying for U.S. House and Senate seats this year. And many others are seeking state and local offices across the country. Men and women, Republicans and Democrats, they range from well-known hopefuls such as congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth in Illinois, who became a double amputee when her National Guard helicopter was shot down in Iraq, to Arizona state House contender Mark Cardenas, a 25-year-old Iraq vet who remains a National Guardsman.

They are people like former Marine tank commander Nick Popaditch, who lost his right eye during the April 2004 Battle of Fallujah in Iraq, and who is now the Republican nominee in California's 53rd Congressional District.

"I was looking at my government and I wasn't happy with it," says the ex-gunnery sergeant, who cuts a striking figure on the campaign trail with his shaved head and black eye patch. "So rather than complain, I decided to run myself. I thought I could do a better job, and I still feel that way."

After back-to-back wars, there are more recent combat veterans in the United States today than at any time since Vietnam.

But the number of former military members in public office has been declining for years. In 1969, nearly 90 percent of all U.S. House and Senate seats were held by people who'd served in uniform. Today, says the Congressional Research Service, it's about 20 percent. And for the first time in decades, none of the major party candidates for president and vice president has been in the military.

Seth Lynn thinks that's one of the problems with our political system these days, and he's working to change that.

Lynn, a Naval Academy graduate who spent six years in the Marines, helped found Veterans Campaign to train former service members interested in running for office.

He notes that as the number of veterans on Capitol Hill has dropped, there has been "an almost parallel decrease in America's confidence in Congress."

"I'm not saying that the two are necessarily a causal relationship," says Lynn. "But I do think that there is that ability to put your country before yourself, but also to work together across party lines, that Americans want more that just isn't happening in Washington."

There is a natural ebb and flow to this nexus between military and public service.

When World War II ended, 16 million men and women had served in uniform around the globe, and as a result postwar politicians were often veterans. The pool of veterans grew smaller in following years, especially since the end of the military draft in 1973.

The all-volunteer military engenders a sense of duty and "selflessness" that Lynn and others feel has been sorely lacking in the political arena. He sees this quality as a motivation for veteran-candidates today.

Even though he lost a Sept. 6 Democratic primary for a Massachusetts state Senate seat, Joe Kearns Goodwin says he's more convinced than ever "that a life of service is a very worthy one."

Goodwin was a new Harvard graduate when, following the Sept. 11 attacks, he announced he was enlisting in the Army.

His parents "thought I was totally insane" then and were surprised again when he declared he was running for office. But they shouldn't have been, given the family's proximity to politics. His mother is Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, and his father, Richard Goodwin, was an adviser and speechwriter for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

"I was weaned on stories of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Great Society, the New Frontier," says the 34-year-old Goodwin. His father worked on these issues, he noted, "all of which represented the ability of government to do good, when it's done well."

Goodwin served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rose to the rank of captain. "Before we went on patrol, nobody asked, 'Are you a Democrat or a Republican?'" he says. "No one asked if you were from a blue state or a red state, a progressive or a conservative. We were just, 'What do we need to do to get the job done?'"

In California, Popaditch is making his second run for Congress ? but were it not for a rocket-propelled grenade, he'd most likely still be wearing a uniform.

The son of a Korean War veteran, Popaditch turned down a college scholarship to join the Marines. In the first Gulf War, he commanded a tank during the invasion of Iraq. He left the Marines after six years, but re-enlisted in 1995 and went through training as a drill instructor. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Popaditch asked to be reassigned to tanks.

He took part in the second Iraq invasion in 2003. On April 7, 2004, his tank was struck by an RPG, shrapnel carving a path through his sinuses and destroying his right eye. His actions earned him a Silver Star and a Purple Heart but cost him his career.

Like former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole and other wounded vets before him, Popaditch used the GI Bill to go back to school. Last year, he graduated magna cum laude from San Diego State University with a degree in teaching.

Misgivings about the country's direction troubled Popaditch while an undergraduate, prompting his unsuccessful 2010 congressional race. He has put his studies toward a master's on hold this year to run again.

"I think things are slipping," he says. "And they will continue to slip if we don't get involved."

Tom Cotton, the Republican nominee in Arkansas' 4th Congressional District race, compared his decision to run with his decision to join the Army in 2005.

"At that time, it was an attack from a foreign enemy, and we were in an active war. And now we're in a debt crisis that threatens our future prosperity and, therefore, ultimately freedom," says Cotton, 35, who declined a commission as a legal officer to go into the infantry.

Cotton served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, then left a position as a management consultant to run for office. He says the skills he developed in the military have served him well in the business world, as well as on the campaign trail.

"The constant ability to prioritize and reprioritize tasks, to work with imperfect information, to handle ambiguity, to build coalitions to reach a common goal," says Cotton, who defeated a fellow veteran in his primary race. "Being part of a team and helping lead a team by purpose and motivation and direction so it can accomplish more than the individual could accomplish on his or her own."

For many veteran-candidates, their military service is front and center ? but that carries risks.

Running against Cotton for the open 4th District seat is longtime Arkansas state Sen. Gene Jeffress, a retired school teacher.

"I appreciate ALL of our veterans, and I respect them," says Jeffress. "But I think it's been overdone. If he (Cotton) hadn't have had that, I don't know what else he would have had to run on."

In Illinois, Duckworth's opponent, Republican incumbent Rep. Joe Walsh, said her service ? which cost her both legs and partial use of one arm ? demands respect. "However," he added, "unlike most veterans I have had the honor to meet since my election to Congress, who rarely, if ever, talk about their service or the combat they've seen, that is darn near all of what Tammy Duckworth talks about."

Lynn says the "single biggest pitfall" veteran candidates face is overestimating the power of the war-service narrative. The "Candidate's Field Manual" developed for Veterans Campaign hammers that point home.

John F. Kennedy's World War II heroics after the sinking of PT 109 might have helped him in the close 1960 presidential race against Richard Nixon, but George McGovern's bombing runs over Europe in same war didn't lift him over Nixon in 1972, the manual notes. By the same token, allegations of draft dodging and preferential treatment during the Vietnam War didn't stop Bill Clinton and George W. Bush from becoming two-term presidents.

Vietnam veteran John Kerry's failed 2004 presidential campaign introduced a new verb to the political lexicon: to be "swiftboated," a reference to the members of his river boat crew who came out to question his war record.

"A DD-214 (military discharge form) is not an ironclad guarantee to winning office," the manual says ? but it adds that military credentials, "wielded with care," can help.

"All things being equal," says Lynn, "being a veteran of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars today is a greater benefit to a politician than being a veteran of Vietnam 40 years ago."

Mark Cardenas, who recently won his Arizona state House Democratic primary and is unopposed in the general election, was reluctant to play off his veteran status.

The son of Mexican immigrants, he didn't see many options when he graduated from high school. But he knew that if he joined the Army, "I'd have the GI Bill. ... It's something that I had to do to get ahead in life."

But supporters urged him to make more of his veteran status, he says, telling him, "That's your credibility right there."

The youngest candidate in his district, he says his Iraq tour came in handy when questions arose about his youth or his experience.

"Well, for one thing, I'm the only person (in the race) that's ever had an AK-47 shot at them in anger," says Cardenas, whose stint in the National Guard won't end until nearly two weeks after the Nov. 6 election.

Cardenas was among the first graduates from one of Lynn's boot camps in 2009. The program has since blossomed into the George Washington University Center for Second Service, of which Lynn is now director.

Lynn says nearly 60 veterans have won their primaries for the U.S. House and Senate. Not all are recent veterans.

Another of Lynn's alumni is Blair Milo. At 29, she has been an anti-submarine warfare officer and lived aboard Iraqi oil platforms in the North Arabian Gulf; at the Pentagon, she worked on the program to develop the Navy's latest stealth destroyer. She's still a lieutenant in the Navy Reserves.

In 2010, the ROTC graduate from Purdue University was home in La Porte, Ind., on "terminal leave" and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. The local newspaper was full of stories about the city's fiscal crisis.

Milo wrote a series of guest columns, offering solutions. Before she knew it, she'd been recruited to run for mayor. Challenging the two-term Democratic incumbent, she won.

The city of 22,000 continues to borrow money to meet its obligations, but Milo says things are improving. She's focusing her efforts on economic development and has even invited residents to join her for a weekly 5k run. About 250 people now participate in Fitness Friday.

"I like my job ? MOST days," Milo says.

It's important, Lynn says, for vet-candidates to make it clear that they won't be fixated simply on military issues.

After more than two decades in the Army, those issues are certainly close to Steve Wilkins' heart. But the retired lieutenant colonel says that's not why he's seeking to unseat Rep. Renee Ellmers, a tea party favorite, in North Carolina's 2nd Congressional District.

Wilkins, who served as Gen. David Petraeus' logistics chief during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, says there's a tendency to see military people as all moving in "lockstep." In his 22 years of service, he found that there was room for disagreement and discussion.

But at the end of the day, the Democratic nominee says, "there has to be some kind of compromise."

"I've been distressed at looking at the political environment right now, how divisive it is and how our political leaders, particularly in the Congress, just don't seem to be getting anything done," Wilkins says. "There's more of a focus on waiting each other out to see who can have a stronger upper hand before doing anything.

"And I just don't think that's in the spirit of our democracy," he says. "Things have got to get done to advance the football down the field."

In that respect, Wilkins says, government could stand a little more military discipline.

___

Allen G. Breed is a national writer, based in Raleigh, N.C. He can be reached at features(at)ap.org. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/(hash)!/AllenGBreed

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Part of the occasional series Coming Home, about veterans' adjustment to civilian life.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/many-iraq-afghan-vets-choosing-second-145934631--election.html

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South Africa beat Wallabies 31-8

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of Africa. It is divided into nine provinces and has of coastline. To the north of the country lie the neighbouring territories of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an enclave surrounded by South African territory.

South Africa is a multi-ethnic nation and has diverse cultures and languages. Eleven official languages are recognised in the constitution. Two of these languages are of European origin: South African English and Afrikaans, a language which originated mainly from Dutch that is spoken by the majority of white and Coloured South Africans. Though English is commonly used in public and commercial life, it is only the fifth most-spoken home language. All ethnic and language groups have political representation in the country's constitutional democracy comprising a parliamentary republic; unlike most parliamentary republics, the positions of head of state and head of government are merged in a parliament-dependent President.

About 79.5% of the South African population is of black African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, nine of which have official status. South Africa also contains the largest communities of European, Asian, and racially mixed ancestry in Africa.

South Africa is ranked as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank. It has the largest economy in Africa, and the 28th-largest in the world. About a quarter of the population is unemployed and lives on less than US $1.25 a day.

History

Prehistoric finds

South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world. Extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has been termed the Cradle of Humankind. The sites include Sterkfontein, which is one of the richest hominin fossil sites in the world. Other sites include Swartkrans, Gondolin Cave Kromdraai, Coopers Cave and Malapa. The first hominin fossil discovered in Africa, the Taung Child was found near Taung in 1924. Further hominin remains have been recovered from the sites of Makapansgat in Limpopo, Cornelia and Florisbad in the Free State, Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal, Klasies River Mouth in eastern Cape and Pinnacle Point, Elandsfontein and Die Kelders Cave in Western Cape. These sites suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa from about three million years ago starting with Australopithecus africanus. These were succeeded by various species, including Australopithecus sediba, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo helmei and modern humans, Homo sapiens.

Settlements of Bantu-speaking peoples, who were iron-using agriculturists and herdsmen, were already present south of the Limpopo River (now the northern border with Botswana and Zimbabwe) by the fourth or fifth century CE. (See Bantu expansion.) They displaced, conquered and absorbed the original Khoisan speakers, the Khoikhoi and San peoples. The Bantu slowly moved south. The earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal Province are believed to date from around 1050. The southernmost group was the Xhosa people, whose language incorporates certain linguistic traits from the earlier Khoisan people. The Xhosa reached the Great Fish River, in today's Eastern Cape Province. As they migrated, these larger Iron Age populations displaced or assimilated earlier peoples.

In Mpumalanga, several stone circles have been found along with the stone arrangement that has been named Adam's Calendar.

Modern humans have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 170,000 years. At the time of European contact, the dominant indigenous peoples were Bantu-speaking peoples who had migrated from other parts of Africa about one thousand years before. The two major historic groups were the Xhosa and Zulu peoples.

In 1487, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias led the first European voyage to land in southern Africa. On 4 December, he landed at Walfisch Bay (now known as Walvis Bay in present-day Namibia). This was south of the furthest point reached in 1485 by his predecessor, the Portuguese navigator Diogo C?o (Cape Cross, north of the bay). Dias continued down the western cost of southern Africa. After 8 January 1488, prevented by storms from proceeding along the coast, he sailed out of sight of land and passed the southernmost point of Africa without seeing it. He reached as far up the eastern coast of Africa as, what he called, Rio do Infante, probably the present-day Groot River, in May 1488, but on his return he saw the Cape, which he first named Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms). His King, John II, renamed the point Cabo da Boa Esperan?a, or Cape of Good Hope, as it led to the riches of the East Indies. Dias' feat of navigation was later memorialised in Lu?s de Cam?es' epic Portuguese poem, The Lusiads (1572).

Colonization

In 1652, a century and a half after the discovery of the Cape Sea Route, Jan van Riebeeck established a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope, at what would become Cape Town, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch transported slaves from Indonesia, Madagascar, and India as labour for the colonists in Cape Town. As they expanded east, the Dutch settlers met the southwesterly migrating Xhosa people in the region of the Fish River. A series of wars, called the Cape Frontier Wars, were fought over conflicting land and livestock interests.

The discovery of diamonds, and later gold, was one of the catalysts that triggered the 19th-century conflict known as the Anglo-Boer War, as the Boers (original Dutch, Flemish, German, and French settlers) and the British fought for the control of the South African mineral wealth. Cape Town became a British colony in 1806. European settlement expanded during the 1820s as the Boers and the British 1820 Settlers claimed land in the north and east of the country. Conflicts arose among the Xhosa, Zulu, and Afrikaner groups who competed for territory.

Great Britain took over the Cape of Good Hope area in 1795, to prevent it from falling under control of the French First Republic, which had invaded the Dutch Republic. Given its standing interests in Australia and India, Great Britain wanted to use Cape Town as an interim port for its merchants' long voyages. The British returned Cape Town to the Dutch Batavian Republic in 1803, the Dutch East India Company having effectively gone bankrupt by 1795. The British finally annexed the Cape Colony in 1806 and continued the frontier wars against the Xhosa; the British pushed the eastern frontier through a line of forts established along the Fish River. They consolidated the territory by encouraging British settlement. Due to pressure of abolitionist societies in Britain, the British parliament stopped its global slave trade with the passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and then abolished slavery in all its colonies with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

In the first two decades of the 19th century, the Zulu people grew in power and expanded their territory under their leader, Shaka. Shaka's warfare led indirectly to the Mfecane ("crushing") that devastated and depopulated the inland plateau in the early 1820s. An offshoot of the Zulu, the Matabele people created a larger empire that included large parts of the highveld under their king Mzilikazi.

During the 1830s, approximately 12,000 Boers (later known as Voortrekkers), departed from the Cape Colony, where they had been subjected to British control. They migrated to the future Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal regions. The Boers founded the Boer Republics: the South African Republic (now Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West provinces) and the Orange Free State (Free State).

The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1884 in the interior started the Mineral Revolution and increased economic growth and immigration. This intensified the European-South African subjugation of the indigenous people. The struggle to control these important economic resources was a factor in relations between Europeans and the indigenous population and also between the Boers and the British.

The Boer Republics successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880?1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics, which were well suited to local conditions. The British returned with greater numbers, more experience, and new strategy in the Second Boer War (1899?1902) but suffered heavy casualties through attrition; in spite of which they were ultimately successful.

Within the country, anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence. During the Dutch and British colonial years, racial segregation was mostly informal, though some legislation was enacted to control the settlement and movement of native people, including the Native Location Act of 1879 and the system of pass laws. Power was held by the ethnic European colonists.

After four years of negotiating, the South Africa Act 1909 created the Union of South Africa from the Cape and Natal colonies, as well as the republics of Orange Free State and Transvaal, on 31 May 1910, eight years after the end of the Second Boer War. The newly created Union of South Africa was a British dominion. The Natives' Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by blacks; at that stage natives controlled only seven per cent of the country. The amount of land reserved for indigenous peoples was later marginally increased.

In the Boer republics, from as early as the Pretoria Convention (chapter XXVI).

In 1931 the union was effectively granted independence from the United Kingdom with the passage of the Statute of Westminster. In 1934, the South African Party and National Party merged to form the United Party, seeking reconciliation between Afrikaners and English-speaking "Whites". In 1939 the party split over the entry of the Union into World War II as an ally of the United Kingdom, a move which the National Party followers strongly opposed.

In 1948, the National Party was elected to power. It strengthened the racial segregation begun under Dutch and British colonial rule. The Nationalist Government classified all peoples into three races and developed rights and limitations for each. The white minority controlled the vastly larger black majority. The legally institutionalised segregation became known as apartheid. While the White minority enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Africa, comparable to First World Western nations, the Black majority remained disadvantaged by almost every standard, including income, education, housing, and life expectancy.

Republic

On 31 May 1961, following a whites-only referendum, the country became a republic and left the Commonwealth. Queen Elizabeth II ceased to be head of state, and the last Governor-General became State President.

Despite opposition both within and outside the country, the government legislated for a continuation of apartheid. Apartheid became increasingly controversial, and some Western nations and institutions began to boycott doing business with South Africa because of its racial policies and oppression of civil rights. International sanctions, divestment of holdings by investors accompanied growing unrest and oppression within South Africa. The government harshly oppressed resistance movements, and violence became widespread, with anti-apartheid activists using strikes, marches, protests, and sabotage by bombing and other means. The African National Congress (ANC) was a major resistance movement. In the late 1970s, South Africa began a programme of nuclear weapons development. In the following decade, it produced six deliverable nuclear weapons.

The Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith, signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz in 1974, enshrined the principles of peaceful transition of power and equality for all, the first of such agreements by acknowledged black and white political leaders in South Africa. Ultimately, F. W. de Klerk negotiated with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for a transition of policies and government.

In 1990 the National Party government took the first step towards dismantling discrimination when it lifted the ban on the African National Congress and other political organisations. It released Nelson Mandela from prison after twenty-seven years' serving a sentence for sabotage. A negotiation process followed. The government repealed apartheid legislation. South Africa destroyed its nuclear arsenal and acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994, which the ANC won by an overwhelming majority. It has been in power ever since. The country rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations.

In post-apartheid South Africa, unemployment has been extremely high as the country has struggled with many changes. While many blacks have risen to middle or upper classes, the overall unemployment rate of blacks worsened between 1994 and 2003. Poverty among whites, previously rare, increased. In addition, the current government has struggled to achieve the monetary and fiscal discipline to ensure both redistribution of wealth and economic growth. Since the ANC-led government took power, the United Nations Human Development Index of South Africa has fallen, while it was steadily rising until the mid-1990s. Some may be attributed to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and the failure of the government to take steps to address it in the early years.

In May 2008, riots left over sixty people dead. The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions estimates over 100,000 people were driven from their homes. Migrants and refugees seeking asylum were the targets, but a third of the victims were South African citizens. In a 2006 survey, the South African Migration Project concluded that South Africans are more opposed to immigration than anywhere else in the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2008 over 200,000 refugees applied for asylum in South Africa, almost four times as many as the year before. These people were mainly from Zimbabwe, though many also come from Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Competition over jobs, business opportunities, public services and housing has led to tension between refugees and host communities. While xenophobia is still a problem, recent violence has not been as widespread as initially feared.

Politics

South Africa is a parliamentary republic, although unlike most such republics the President is both head of state and head of government, and depends for his tenure on the confidence of Parliament. The executive, legislature and judiciary are all subject to the supremacy of the Constitution, and the superior courts have the power to strike down executive actions and acts of Parliament if they are unconstitutional.

The National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, consists of 400 members and is elected every five years by a system of party-list proportional representation. In the most recent election, held on 22 April 2009, the African National Congress (ANC) won 65.9 per cent of the vote and 264 seats, while the main opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA) won 16.7 per cent of the vote and 67 seats. The National Council of Provinces, the upper house, consists of ninety members, with each of the nine provincial legislatures electing ten members.

After each parliamentary election, the National Assembly elects one of its members as President; hence the President serves a term of office the same as that of the Assembly, normally five years. No President may serve more than two terms in office. The President appoints a Deputy President and Ministers, who form the Cabinet. The President and the Cabinet may be removed by the National Assembly by a motion of no confidence.

South Africa has three capital cities: Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, is the legislative capital; Pretoria, as the seat of the President and Cabinet, is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein, as the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal, is the judicial capital.

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, South African politics have been dominated by the ANC, which has been the dominant party with 60?70 per cent of the vote. The main challenger to the rule of the ANC is the Democratic Alliance. The National Party, which ruled from 1948 to 1994, renamed itself in 1997 to the New National Party, and chose to merge with the ANC in 2005. Other major political parties represented in Parliament are the Congress of the People, which split from the ANC and won 7.4 per cent of the vote in 2009, and the Inkatha Freedom Party, which mainly represents Zulu voters and took 4.6 per cent of the vote in the 2009 election.

Since 2004, the country has had many thousands of popular protests, some violent, making it, according to one academic, the "most protest-rich country in the world". Many of these protests have been organised from the growing shanty towns that surround South African cities.

In 2008, South Africa placed 5th out of 48 sub-Saharan African countries on the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. South Africa scored well in the categories of Rule of Law, Transparency & Corruption and Participation & Human Rights, but was let down by its relatively poor performance in Safety & Security. The Ibrahim Index is a comprehensive measure of African governance, based on a number of different variables which reflect the success with which governments deliver essential political goods to its citizens. In November 2006, South Africa became the first African country to legalize gay marriage.

Law

The primary sources of South African law are Roman-Dutch mercantile law and personal law with English Common law, as imports of Dutch settlements and British colonialism. The first European based law in South Africa was brought by the Dutch East India Company and is called Roman-Dutch law. It was imported before the codification of European law into the Napoleonic Code and is comparable in many ways to Scots law. This was followed in the 19th century by English law, both common and statutory. Starting in 1910 with unification, South Africa had its own parliament which passed laws specific for South Africa, building on those previously passed for the individual member colonies. During the years of apartheid, the country's political scene was dominated by figures like B. J. Vorster and P. W. Botha, as well as opposition figures such as Harry Schwarz, Joe Slovo and Helen Suzman.

The judicial system consists of the magistrates' courts, which hear lesser criminal cases and smaller civil cases; the High Courts, which are courts of general jurisdiction for specific areas; the Supreme Court of Appeal, which is the highest court in all but constitutional matters; and the Constitutional Court, which hears only constitutional matters.

According to a survey for the period 1998?2000 compiled by the United Nations, South Africa was ranked second for murder and first for assaults and rapes per capita. Nearly 50 murders are committed each day in South Africa. Total crime per capita is 10th out of the 60 countries in the data set. Middle-class South Africans seek security in gated communities. Many emigrants from South Africa also state that crime was a big motivator for them to leave. Crime against the farming community has continued to be a major problem.

It is estimated that 500,000 women are raped in South Africa every year with the average woman more likely to be raped than complete secondary school. A 2009 survey found one in four South African men admitted to raping someone and another survey found one in three women out of 4000 surveyed women said they had been raped in the past year. Rapes are also perpetrated by children (some as young as ten). Child and baby rape incidences are some of the highest in the world and a number of high profile cases have outraged the nation.

Foreign relations

As the Union of South Africa, the country was a founding member of the United Nations. The then Prime Minister Jan Smuts wrote the preamble to the United Nations Charter. The country is one of the founding members of the African Union (AU), and has the largest economy of all the members. It is also a founding member of the AU's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). South Africa has played a key role as a mediator in African conflicts over the last decade, such as in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Comoros, and Zimbabwe. After apartheid ended, South Africa was readmitted to the Commonwealth of Nations. The country is a member of the Group of 77 and chaired the organisation in 2006. South Africa is also a member of the Southern African Development Community, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, Southern African Customs Union, Antarctic Treaty System, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, G20 and G8+5. South African President Jacob Zuma and Chinese President Hu Jintao upgraded bilateral ties between the two countries on 24 August 2010, when they signed the Beijing Agreement, which elevated South Africa's earlier "strategic partnership" with China to the higher level of "comprehensive strategic partnership" in both economic and political affairs, including the strengthening of exchanges between their respective ruling parties and legislatures. In April 2011, South Africa formally joined the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRICS) grouping of countries, identified by President Zuma as the country's largest trading partners, and also the largest trading partners with Africa as a whole. All five BRICS member countries are currently on the UN Security Council; Brazil, India and South Africa as non-permanent members. Zuma asserted that BRICS member countries would also work with each other through the UN, the Group of Twenty (G20) and the India, Brazil South Africa (IBSA) forum.

Military

The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was created in 1994, as an all volunteer force composed of the former South African Defence Force, the forces of the African nationalist groups (Umkhonto we Sizwe and Azanian People's Liberation Army), and the former Bantustan defence forces. The SANDF is subdivided into four branches, the South African Army, the South African Air Force, the South African Navy, and the South African Medical Service. In recent years, the SANDF has become a major peacekeeping force in Africa, and has been involved in operations in Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi, amongst others. It has also served in multi-national UN peacekeeping forces.

South Africa is the only African country to have successfully developed nuclear weapons. It became the first country (followed by Ukraine) with nuclear capability to voluntarily renounce and dismantle its programme and in the process signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991. South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s According to former state president FW de Klerk, the decision to build a "nuclear deterrent" was taken "as early as 1974 against a backdrop of a Soviet expansionist threat." South Africa may have conducted a nuclear test over the Atlantic in 1979, though De Klerk asserted that South Africa had "never conducted a clandestine nuclear test." Six nuclear devices were completed between 1980 and 1990, but all were destroyed before South Africa signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991.

Provinces

At the end of apartheid in 1994, the "independent" and "semi-independent" Bantustans were abolished, as were the four original provinces (Cape, Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal), and nine new provinces were created. Each province is governed by a unicameral legislature, which is elected every five years by party-list proportional representation. The legislature elects a Premier as head of government, and the Premier appoints an Executive Council as a provincial cabinet. The powers of provincial governments are limited to topics listed in the Constitution; these topics include such fields as health, education, public housing and transport. align="left" align="left" align="left" align="left" align="left" align="left" align="left" align="left" align="left"
Province ! Provincial capital ! Largest city ! Area (km2) ! Population (2011 est.)
align="left" Eastern Cape Bhisho Port Elizabeth || 168,966 6,829,958
align="left"Free State Bloemfontein ||Bloemfontein 129,825 2,759,644
align="left"Gauteng Johannesburg ||Johannesburg 18,178 11,328,203
align="left"KwaZulu-Natal Pietermaritzburg ||Durban 94,361 10,819,130
align="left"Limpopo Polokwane ||Polokwane 125,754 5,554,657
align="left"Mpumalanga Nelspruit ||Nelspruit 76,495 3,657,181
align="left"North West Mahikeng ||Rustenburg 104,882 3,253,390
align="left"Northern Cape Kimberley ||Kimberley 372,889 1,096,731
align="left"Western Cape Cape Town ||Cape Town 129,462 5,287,863

The provinces are in turn divided into 52 districts: 8 metropolitan and 44 district municipalities. The district municipalities are further subdivided into 226 local municipalities. The metropolitan municipalities, which govern the largest urban agglomerations, perform the functions of both district and local municipalities.

Geography

South Africa is located at the southernmost region of Africa, with a long coastline that stretches more than and along two oceans (the South Atlantic and the Indian). At , South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world and is comparable in size to Colombia. Mafadi in the Drakensberg at is the highest peak in South Africa. Excluding the Prince Edward Islands, the country lies between latitudes 22? and 35?S, and longitudes 16? and 33?E.

The interior of South Africa is a vast, flat, and sparsely populated scrubland, the Karoo, which is drier towards the northwest along the Namib desert. In contrast, the eastern coastline is lush and well-watered, which produces a climate similar to the tropics.

To the north of Johannesburg, the altitude drops beyond the escarpment of the Highveld, and turns into the lower lying Bushveld, an area of mixed dry forest and an abundance of wildlife. East of the Highveld, beyond the eastern escarpment, the Lowveld stretches towards the Indian Ocean. It has particularly high temperatures, and is also the location of extended subtropical agriculture.

South Africa also has one possession, the small sub-Antarctic archipelago of the Prince Edward Islands, consisting of Marion Island () and Prince Edward Island () (not to be confused with the Canadian province of the same name).

Climate

South Africa has a generally temperate climate, due in part to being surrounded by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans on three sides, by its location in the climatically milder southern hemisphere and due to the average elevation rising steadily towards the north (towards the equator) and further inland. Due to this varied topography and oceanic influence, a great variety of climatic zones exist. The climatic zones range from the extreme desert of the southern Namib in the farthest northwest to the lush subtropical climate in the east along the Mozambique border and the Indian ocean. Winters in South Africa occur between June and August.

The extreme southwest has a climate remarkably similar to that of the Mediterranean with wet winters and hot, dry summers, hosting the famous Fynbos biome of shrubland and thicket. This area also produces much of the wine in South Africa. This region is also particularly known for its wind, which blows intermittently almost all year. The severity of this wind made passing around the Cape of Good Hope particularly treacherous for sailors, causing many shipwrecks. Further east on the south coast, rainfall is distributed more evenly throughout the year, producing a green landscape. This area is popularly known as the Garden Route.

The Free State is particularly flat because it lies centrally on the high plateau. North of the Vaal River, the Highveld becomes better watered and does not experience subtropical extremes of heat. Johannesburg, in the centre of the Highveld, is at and receives an annual rainfall of . Winters in this region are cold, although snow is rare.

The high Drakensberg mountains, which form the south-eastern escarpment of the Highveld, offer limited skiing opportunities in winter. The coldest place in South Africa is Sutherland in the western Roggeveld Mountains, where midwinter temperatures can reach as low as . The deep interior has the hottest temperatures: a temperature of was recorded in 1948 in the Northern Cape Kalahari near Upington.,but this temperature is unofficial and was not recorded with standard equipment, the official highest temperature is 48.8C at Vioolsdrif in January 1993.

Flora and fauna

South Africa is ranked sixth out of the world's seventeen megadiverse countries, with more than 20,000 different plants, or about 10% of all the known species of plants on Earth, making it particularly rich in plant biodiversity. The most prevalent biome in South Africa is the grassland, particularly on the Highveld, where the plant cover is dominated by different grasses, low shrubs, and acacia trees, mainly camel-thorn and whitethorn. Vegetation becomes even more sparse towards the northwest due to low rainfall. There are several species of water-storing succulents like aloes and euphorbias in the very hot and dry Namaqualand area. The grass and thorn savannah turns slowly into a bush savannah towards the north-east of the country, with denser growth. There are significant numbers of baobab trees in this area, near the northern end of Kruger National Park.

The Fynbos biome, which makes up the majority of the area and plant life in the Cape floristic region, one of the six floral kingdoms, is located in a small region of the Western Cape and contains more than 9,000 of those species, making it among the richest regions on earth in terms of floral biodiversity. The majority of the plants are evergreen hard-leaf plants with fine, needle-like leaves, such as the sclerophyllous plants. Another uniquely South African plant is the protea genus of flowering plants. There are around 130 different species of protea in South Africa. While South Africa has a great wealth of flowering plants, only 1% of South Africa is forest, almost exclusively in the humid coastal plain of KwaZulu-Natal, where there are also areas of Southern Africa mangroves in river mouths. There are even smaller reserves of forests that are out of the reach of fire, known as montane forests. Plantations of imported tree species are predominant, particularly the non-native eucalyptus and pine. South Africa has lost a large area of natural habitat in the last four decades, primarily due to overpopulation, sprawling development patterns and deforestation during the nineteenth century. South Africa is one of the worst affected countries in the world when it comes to invasion by alien species with many (e.g. Black Wattle, Port Jackson, Hakea, Lantana and Jacaranda) posing a significant threat to the native biodiversity and the already scarce water resources. The original temperate forest found by the first European settlers was exploited ruthlessly until only small patches remained. Currently, South African hardwood trees like Real Yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius), stinkwood (Ocotea bullata), and South African Black Ironwood (Olea laurifolia) are under government protection.

Numerous mammals are found in the bushveld including lions, leopards, white rhinos, blue wildebeest, kudus, impalas, hyenas, hippopotamus and giraffes. A significant extent of the bushveld exists in the north-east including Kruger National Park and the Mala Mala Reserve, as well as in the far north in the Waterberg Biosphere. Statistics from South African National Parks show a record 333 rhinos have been killed in 2010.

Climate change is expected to bring considerable warming and drying to much of this already semi-arid region, with greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, flooding and drought. According to computer generated climate modelling produced by the South African National Biodiversity Institute parts of southern Africa will see an increase in temperature by about one degree Celsius along the coast to more than four degrees Celsius in the already hot hinterland such as the Northern Cape in late spring and summertime by 2050. The Cape Floral Kingdom has been identified as one of the global biodiversity hotspots since it will be hit very hard by climate change and has such a great diversity of life. Drought, increased intensity and frequency of fire and climbing temperatures are expected to push many of these rare species towards extinction.

South Africa houses many endemic species, among them the critically endangered Riverine Rabbit (Bunolagus monticullaris) in the Karoo.

Economy

South Africa has a mixed economy with a high rate of poverty and low GDP per capita. Unemployment is high and South Africa is ranked in the top 10 countries in the world for income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient. Unlike most of the world's poor countries, South Africa does not have a thriving informal economy; according to OECD estimates, only 15 per cent of South African jobs are in the shadow economy, compared with around half in Brazil and India and nearly three-quarters in Indonesia. The OECD attributes this difference to South Africa's widespread welfare system. World Bank research shows that South Africa has one of the widest gaps between per capita GNP versus its Human Development Index ranking, with only Botswana showing a larger gap.

After 1994 government policy brought down inflation, stabilised public finances, and some foreign capital was attracted, however growth was still subpar. From 2004 onward economic growth picked up significantly; both employment and capital formation increased.

South Africa is a popular tourist destination, and a substantial amount of revenue comes from tourism. Illegal immigrants are involved in informal trading. Many immigrants to South Africa continue to live in poor conditions, and the immigration policy has become increasingly restrictive since 1994.

Principal international trading partners of South Africa?besides other African countries?include Germany, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Spain.

The South African agricultural industry contributes around 10% of formal employment, relatively low compared to other parts of Africa, as well as providing work for casual labourers and contributing around 2.6 per cent of GDP for the nation. Due to the aridity of the land, only 13.5 per cent can be used for crop production, and only 3 per cent is considered high potential land.

Labour market

During 1995?2003, the number of formal jobs decreased and informal jobs increased; overall unemployment worsened.

The government's Black Economic Empowerment policies have drawn criticism from Neva Makgetla, lead economist for research and information at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, for focusing "almost exclusively on promoting individual ownership by black people (which) does little to address broader economic disparities, though the rich may become more diverse." Official affirmative action policies have seen a rise in black economic wealth and an emerging black middle class. Other problems include state ownership and interference, which impose high barriers to entry in many areas. Restrictive labour regulations have contributed to the unemployment malaise.

Along with many African nations, South Africa has been experiencing a "brain drain" in the past 20 years. This is believed to be potentially damaging for the regional economy, and is almost certainly detrimental for the well-being of those reliant on the healthcare infrastructure. The skills drain in South Africa tends to demonstrate racial contours given the skills distribution legacy of South Africa and has thus resulted in large white South African communities abroad. However, the statistics which purport to show a brain drain are disputed and also do not account for repatriation and expiry of foreign work contracts. According to several surveys there has been a reverse in brain drain following the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and expiration of foreign work contracts. In the first quarter of 2011, confidence levels for graduate professionals were recorded at a level of 84 per cent in a PPS survey.

Science and technology

Several important scientific and technological developments have originated in South Africa. The first human-to-human heart transplant was performed by cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in December 1967. Max Theiler developed a vaccine against Yellow Fever, Allan McLeod Cormack pioneered x-ray Computed tomography, and Aaron Klug developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques. These advancements were all (with the exception of that of Barnard) recognised with Nobel Prizes. Sydney Brenner won most recently, in 2002, for his pioneering work in molecular biology.

Mark Shuttleworth founded an early Internet security company Thawte, that was subsequently bought out by world-leader VeriSign. Despite government efforts to encourage entrepreneurship in biotechnology, IT and other high technology fields, no other notable groundbreaking companies have been founded in South Africa. It is the expressed objective of the government to transition the economy to be more reliant on high technology, based on the realisation that South Africa cannot compete with Far Eastern economies in manufacturing, nor can the republic rely on its mineral wealth in perpetuity.

South Africa has cultivated a burgeoning astronomy community. It hosts the Southern African Large Telescope, the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. South Africa is currently building the Karoo Array Telescope as a pathfinder for the ?1.5?billion Square Kilometer Array project. On 25 May 2012 it was announced that hosting of the Square Kilometer Array Telescope will be split over both the South African and the Australia/New Zealand sites.

Demographics

}} South Africa is a nation of about 50?million people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The last census was held in 2011. Even though the population of South Africa has increased in the past decade, the country had an annual population growth rate of ?0.412% in 2012 (CIA est.), where the birth rate is higher than the death rate but there is a net emigration rate. South Africa is home to an estimated 5?million illegal immigrants, including some 3?million Zimbabweans. A series of anti-immigrant riots occurred in South Africa beginning on 11 May 2008.

Statistics South Africa provided five racial categories by which people could classify themselves, the last of which, "unspecified/other" drew negligible responses, and these results were omitted. The 2010 midyear estimated figures for the other categories were Black African at 79.4%, White at 9.2%, Coloured at 8.8%, and Indian or Asian at 2.6%. The first census in South Africa in 1911 showed that whites made up 22% of the population; it declined to 16% in 1980.

By far the major part of the population classified itself as African or black, but it is not culturally or linguistically homogeneous. Major ethnic groups include the Zulu, Xhosa, Basotho (South Sotho), Bapedi (North Sotho), Venda, Tswana, Tsonga, Swazi and Ndebele, all of which speak Bantu languages.

The Coloured population is mainly concentrated in the Cape region, and come from a combination of ethnic backgrounds including White, Khoi, San, Griqua, Chinese and Malay.

White South Africans are descendants of Dutch, German, French Huguenots, English and other European and Jewish settlers. Culturally and linguistically, they are divided into the Afrikaners, who speak Afrikaans, and English-speaking groups. The white population has been on the decrease due to a low birth rate and emigration; as a factor in their decision to emigrate, many cite the high crime rate and the affirmative action policies of the government. Since 1994, approximately 440,000 white South Africans have permanently emigrated. Despite high emigration levels, a few immigrants from Europe have settled in the country. By 2005, an estimated 212,000 British citizens were residing in South Africa. By 2011, this number may have grown to 500,000. Some white Zimbabwean emigrated to South Africa. Some of the more nostalgic members of the community are known in popular culture as "Whenwes", because of their nostalgia for their lives in Rhodesia "when we were in Rhodesia".

The Indian population came to South Africa as indentured labourers to work in the sugar plantations in Natal in the late 19th and early 20th century. They came from different parts of the Indian subcontinent, adhered to different religions and spoke different languages. Serious riots in Durban between Indians and Zulus erupted in 1949. There is also a significant group of Chinese South Africans (approximately 100,000 individuals) and Vietnamese South Africans (approximately 50,000 individuals). In 2008, the Pretoria High Court has ruled that Chinese South Africans who arrived before 1994 are to be reclassified as Coloureds. As a result of this ruling, about 12,000?15,000 ethnically Chinese citizens who arrived before 1994, numbering 3%?5% of the total Chinese population in the country, will be able to benefit from government BEE policies.

South Africa hosts a sizeable refugee and asylum seeker population. According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, this population numbered approximately 144,700 in 2007. Groups of refugees and asylum seekers numbering over 10,000 included people from Zimbabwe (48,400), The Democratic Republic of the Congo (24,800), and Somalia (12,900). These populations mainly lived in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth. Many refugees have now also started to work and live in rural areas in provinces such as Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Religion

According to the 2001 national census, Christians accounted for 79.7% of the population. This includes Zion Christian (11.1%), Pentecostal (Charismatic) (8.2%), Roman Catholic (7.1%), Methodist (6.8%), Dutch Reformed (; 6.7%), Anglican (3.8%); members of other Christian churches accounted for another 36% of the population. Muslims accounted for 1.5% of the population, Hindus about 1.3%, and Judaism 0.2%. 15.1% had no religious affiliation, 2.3% were other and 1.4% were unspecified.

African Indigenous Churches were the largest of the Christian groups. It was believed that many of these persons who claimed no affiliation with any organised religion adhered to traditional indigenous religions. There are an estimated 200 000 indigenous traditional healers in South Africa, and up to 60% of South Africans consult these healers, generally called sangomas or inyangas. These healers use a combination of ancestral spiritual beliefs and a belief in the spiritual and medicinal properties of local fauna and flora, commonly known as muti, in order to facilitate healing in clients. Many peoples have syncretic religious practices combining Christian and indigenous influences.

South African Muslims constitute mostly of those who are described as Coloureds and those who are described as Indians. They have been joined by black or white South African converts as well as others from other parts of Africa. South African Muslims claim that their faith is the fastest-growing religion of conversion in the country, with the number of black Muslims growing sixfold, from 12,000 in 1991 to 74,700 in 2004

There is also a Hindu minority from India.

Languages

thumb|left|Map showing dominant South African [[Languages of South Africa|languages. ]] South Africa has eleven official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. In this regard it is third only to Bolivia and India in number. While all the languages are formally equal, some languages are spoken more than others. According to the 2001 National Census, the three most spoken first home languages are Zulu (23.8%), Xhosa (17.6%), and Afrikaans (13.3%). Despite the fact that English is recognised as the language of commerce and science, it was spoken by only 8.2% of South Africans at home in 2001, an even lower percentage than in 1996 (8.6%).

The country also recognises several unofficial languages, including Fanagalo, Khoe, Lobedu, Nama, Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, San, and South African Sign Language. These unofficial languages may be used in certain official uses in limited areas where it has been determined that these languages are prevalent. Nevertheless, their populations are not such that they require nationwide recognition.

Many of the "unofficial languages" of the San and Khoikhoi people contain regional dialects stretching northwards into Namibia and Botswana, and elsewhere. These people, who are a physically distinct population from other Africans, have their own cultural identity based on their hunter-gatherer societies. They have been marginalised to a great extent, and many of their languages are in danger of becoming extinct.

Many white South Africans also speak other European languages, such as Portuguese (also spoken by black Angolans and Mozambicans), German, and Greek, while some Asians and Indians in South Africa speak South Asian languages, such as Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, and Telugu. French is spoken in South Africa by migrants from Francophone Africa.

Largest cities

Health

The spread of AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is an alarming problem in South Africa, with up to 31% of pregnant women found to be HIV infected in 2005 and the infection rate among adults estimated at 20%. The link between HIV, a virus spread primarily by sexual contact, and AIDS was long denied by prior president Thabo Mbeki and then health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who insisted that the many deaths in the country are due to malnutrition, and hence poverty, and not HIV. According to the South African Institute of Race Relations, the life expectancy in 2009 was 71 years for a white South African and 48 years for a black South African.

In 2007, in response to international pressure, the government made efforts to fight AIDS. In September 2008 Thabo Mbeki was recalled by the ANC and chose to resign and Kgalema Motlanthe was appointed for the interim. One of Motlanthe's first actions was to replace Minister Tshabalala-Msimang with Barbara Hogan who immediately started working to improve the Government's approach to AIDS. After the 2009 General Elections, President Jacob Zuma appointed Dr Aaron Motsoaledi as the new minister and committed his government to increasing funding for and widening the scope of AIDS treatment.

AIDS affects mainly those who are sexually active and is far more prevalent in the black population. Most deaths are people who are also economically active, resulting in many families losing their primary wage earners. This has resulted in many 'AIDS orphans' who in many cases depend on the state for care and financial support. It is estimated that there are 1,200,000 orphans in South Africa. Many elderly people also lose the support from lost younger members of their family. According to the 2011 UNAIDS Report, South Africa has an estimated 5.6 million people living with HIV - more than any other country in the world.

Society and culture

Cuisine

South African culture is diverse; foods from many cultures are enjoyed by all and especially marketed to tourists who wish to sample the large variety of South African cuisine. In addition to food, music and dance feature prominently.

South African cuisine is heavily meat-based and has spawned the distinctively South African social gathering known as a braai, or barbecue. South Africa has also developed into a major wine producer, with some of the best vineyards lying in valleys around Stellenbosch, Franschoek, Paarl and Barrydale.

Different lifestyles

The South African black majority still has a substantial number of rural inhabitants who lead largely impoverished lives. It is among these people that cultural traditions survive most strongly; as blacks have become increasingly urbanised and Westernised, aspects of traditional culture have declined. Urban blacks usually speak English or Afrikaans in addition to their native tongue. There are smaller but still significant groups of speakers of Khoisan languages who are not included in the eleven official languages, but are one of the eight other officially recognised languages. There are small groups of speakers of endangered languages, most of which are from the Khoi-San family, that receive no official status; some groups within South Africa are attempting to promote their use and revival.

Members of the middle class, who are predominantly white but whose ranks include growing numbers of black, coloured and Indian people, have lifestyles similar in many respects to that of people found in Western Europe, North America and Australasia. Members of the middle class often study and work abroad for greater exposure to the markets of the world. Asians, predominantly of Indian origin, preserve their own cultural heritage, languages and religious beliefs, being either Christian, Hindu or Sunni Muslim and speaking English, with Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil or Gujarati being spoken less frequently, but the majority of Indians being able to understand their mother tongue. The first Indians arrived on the famous Truro ship as indentured labourers in Natal to work the Sugar Cane Fields. There is a much smaller Chinese community in South Africa, although its numbers have increased due to immigration from Republic of China (Taiwan).

South Africa has also had a large influence in the Scouting movement, with many Scouting traditions and ceremonies coming from the experiences of Robert Baden-Powell (the founder of Scouting) during his time in South Africa as a military officer in the 1890s. The South African Scout Association was one of the first youth organisations to open its doors to youth and adults of all races in South Africa. This happened on 2 July 1977 at a conference known as Quo Vadis.

In 2006, South Africa became the fifth country in the world, and the first in Africa, to legalise same-sex marriage.

Art

The oldest art objects in the world were discovered in a South African cave. Dating from 75,000 years ago, these small drilled snail shells could have no other function than to have been strung on a string as a necklace. South Africa was one of the cradles of the human species. One of the defining characteristics of our species is the making of art (from Latin 'ars' meaning worked or formed from basic material).

The scattered tribes of Khoisan peoples moving into South Africa from around 10000 BC had their own fluent art styles seen today in a multitude of cave paintings. They were superseded by Bantu/Nguni peoples with their own vocabularies of art forms. In the 20th century, traditional tribal forms of art were scattered and re-melded by the divisive policies of apartheid.

New forms of art evolved in the mines and townships: a dynamic art using everything from plastic strips to bicycle spokes. The Dutch-influenced folk art of the Afrikaner Trekboers and the urban white artists earnestly following changing European traditions from the 1850s onwards also contributed to this eclectic mix, which continues to evolve today.

Literature

South Africa's unique social and political history have generated a strong group of local writers, with themes that span the days of apartheid to the lives of people in the "new South Africa".

Many of the first black South African authors were missionary-educated, and the majority of which thus wrote in either English or Afrikaans. One of the first well known novels written by a black author in an African language was Solomon Thekiso Plaatje's Mhudi, written in 1930.

Notable white South African authors include Nadine Gordimer who was, in Seamus Heaney's words, one of "the guerrillas of the imagination", and who became the first South African and the seventh woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. Her most famous novel, July's People, was released in 1981, depicting the collapse of white-minority rule.

J.M. Coetzee was the second South African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2003. When awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy stated that Coetzee "in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider". The press release for the award also cited his "well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance", while focusing on the moral nature of his work.

Athol Fugard, whose plays have been regularly premiered in fringe theatres in South Africa, London (The Royal Court Theatre) and New York. Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) was a revelation in Victorian literature: it is heralded by many as introducing feminism into the novel form.

Alan Paton published the acclaimed novel Cry, the Beloved Country in 1948. He told the tale of a black priest who comes to Johannesburg to find his son, which became an international best-seller. During the 1950s, Drum magazine became a hotbed of political satire, fiction, and essays, giving a voice to urban black culture.

Afrikaans-language writers also began to write controversial material. Breyten Breytenbach was jailed for his involvement with the guerrilla movement against apartheid. Andre Brink was the first Afrikaner writer to be banned by the government after he released the novel A Dry White Season about a white South African who discovers the truth about a black friend who dies in police custody.

J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, was born in Bloemfontein in 1892.

Cinema

While many foreign films have been produced about South Africa (usually involving race relations), few local productions are known outside South Africa itself. One exception was the film The Gods Must Be Crazy in 1980, set in the Kalahari. This is about how life in a traditional community of Bushmen is changed when a Coke bottle, thrown out of an aeroplane, suddenly lands from the sky. The late Jamie Uys, who wrote and directed The Gods Must Be Crazy, also had success overseas in the 1970s with his films Funny People and Funny People II, similar to the TV series Candid Camera in the US. Leon Schuster's You Must Be Joking! films are in the same genre, and hugely popular among South Africans.

Arguably, the most high-profile film portraying South Africa in recent years was District 9. Directed by Neill Blomkamp, a native South African, and produced by Peter Jackson, the action/science-fiction film depicts a sub-class of alien refugees forced to live in the slums of Johannesburg in what many saw as a creative allegory for apartheid. The film was a critical and commercial success worldwide, and was nominated for Best Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Other notable exceptions are the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 as well as U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, which won the Golden Bear at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival.

Media

South Africa has a large mass media sector and is one of Africa's major media centres. While South Africa's many broadcasters and publications reflect the diversity of the population as a whole, the most commonly used language is English. However, all ten other official languages are represented to some extent or another.

Music

There is great diversity in music from South Africa. Many black musicians who sang in Afrikaans or English during apartheid have since begun to sing in traditional African languages, and have developed a unique style called Kwaito. Of note is Brenda Fassie, who launched to fame with her song "Weekend Special", which was sung in English. More famous traditional musicians include Ladysmith Black Mambazo, while the Soweto String Quartet performs classic music with an African flavour. White and Coloured South African singers are historically influenced by European musical styles. South Africa has produced world-famous jazz musicians, notably Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, Abdullah Ibrahim, Miriam Makeba, Jonathan Butler, Chris McGregor, and Sathima Bea Benjamin. Afrikaans music covers multiple genres, such as the contemporary Steve Hofmeyr and the punk rock band Fokofpolisiekar. Crossover artists such as Verity (internationally recognised for innovation in the music industry) and Jo

Source: http://article.wn.com/view/2012/09/29/South_Africa_beat_Wallabies_318/

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