The summer blockbuster Marvel's Avengers opened to record numbers in the United States and around the world. With an opening gross in excess of 200 million dollars, the mega hit recorded the highest opening ever for a three day weekend putting the film on course to make in excess of 700 million dollars in US box office receipts alone. A figure that can only be matched by James Cameron's Avatar, which made roughly $750 million in North American theaters.

Amidst harsh economic conditions, Malian women are improving their lives by producing hand-dyed local fabric called bazin that has brought them fame and fortune, reports Kingsley Ighobor and Aisatta Haidara.

Should Africa and Europe be heading for the divorce courts? This bad marriage first consummated over half a millennium ago now looks beyond redemption.

The written word lies at the heart of the Swahili culture. And the poem – locally known as mashahiri - is the paramount aesthetic expression in which celebrated local savants excel.

Ahead of Saturday's crucial talks between Iran and the P5 + 1 countries, Stefan Simanowitz intercepts a letter from George W. Bush to President Obama.

Shauna and her colleague Simon, who is quite the ladies' man, are on a mission to dissect an energy sector initiative that binds the national electricity utility and a private company together in a murky concession agreement. Some remote areas of the KwaZulu-Natal province are laden with inadequate electricity services and underdevelopment in a backdrop of partnerships among "parties that have no communication whatsoever", and Shauna wants to get to the bottom of it. Following a number of spats, one of which makes Shauna feel like a "prize idiot", the two colleagues evoke the philosophies of Ubuntu.