Human rights advocate Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel have won a globalaward for helping to promote children's rights over the past 10 years.

The U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday declared July 18 "Nelson Mandela International Day" to mark the South African anti-apartheid leader's contribution to peace.

South African adventurer Riaan Manser has become the first person to kayak alone and unaided around Madagascar.

South African opera singer Pretty Yende has achieved a world first by taking home all the main prizes in the prestigious International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition held in Vienna Austria last week.

South African Navy hydrographer Captain Abri Kampfer has become the fourth recipient of the Alexander Dalrymple Award for outstanding work in world hydrography.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela will be honoured with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2009 ESPYS on July 19.

The innovative South African architect Shaun Killa, who is the brain behind the world’s first wind-powered building, was lauded along with several international engineering minds in New York recently.

South African Justice Richard Goldstone, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, has been honoured with the prestigious MacArthur Award for International Justice.

The United Nations has honoured Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu for his services to humanity with a Lifetime Humanitarian Achievement award. Tutu received the award in New York last week at the inaugural Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Awards ceremony.

The ceremony was aimed at highlighting all that the programme has achieved so far, and reminding all those involved of what has yet to be accomplished. Hosts included entertainment veterans Vanessa Redgrave CBE and Armand Assante.

Scientists say they have discovered exciting new evidence of the way stars, born in massive clouds of hot gas, settle into the patterns that form galaxies.  The discovery of "streams of stars" in distant galaxies was made by an international team in which Wits University professor David Block was principal investigator.

South African photographer Mikhael Subotzky has been awarded the 2009 Lou Stoumen Prize for photography by the Museum of Photographic Arts in California, USA.

A documentary about a group of South African women who work to defend the rights of abused children, has won the hearts of some of the world's fiercest film critics, claiming the 2009 Sundance World Cinema Jury Prize for Documentary.

South African sports journalist Mesuli Zifo has been named 2008 Boxing Journalist of the Year by the World Boxing Foundation alongside Australian boxing writer Andy Nobbs.

Nick Badminton, CEO of South Africa's Pick 'n Pay Stores, has been honoured with an international accolade for excellence in retail by the retail industry umbrella group, the National Retail Federation (NRF). 

The Google Earth layer designed for the South African Tourism website has won the developers, Quirk eMarketing, an international award for innovation.

South Africa is the top African reformer when it comes to tax and the fourth reformer worldwide, according to a study released on Friday.

Sarietjie Musgrave, a Grade 10 Teacher from the Free State, has been recognised as one of the world's most innovative teachers in Microsoft's 2008 Worldwide Innovative Teachers of the Year awards.

South African telecommunications innovator Rael Lissoos has been named Social Entrepreneur of the Year for his project Dabba which brings cheap mobile communication technology to townships in South Africa.

The awards are aimed at promoting social entrepreneurship and were hosted by German-based Hasso Plattner Ventures earlier this month.

Gautrain has received a Gold Quill Award of Merit from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), a prestigious international competition regarded as the Oscars of business communication.

South African advertising agency DDB (SA) won the Grand Prix award in the Press category at the 55th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival held in Cannes, France this week.

A South African film has won the best documentary award in the 2008 World TV Awards. 

Young South African ambassadors have made the country proud in the recent Model UN debate in New York by taking home the Best Delegation Award and earning two Honourable Mentions.

Abigail Keene (Redhill High School) and Zahraa Khotu (Parktown Girls) competed in the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme debate on Multinational Corporations and Development and won the Best Delegation award.

South Africa's specialist news service Health-e has won the Global Health Council's 2008 Excellence in Media Award.

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) of South Africa has won the 2008 UNESCO Prize for Peace Education.

Founded in 1981, the Prize highlights the efforts of those who work to raise public awareness of the need for peace. 

UNESCO praised the IJR for its outstanding efforts in building sustainable reconciliation through education and in addressing systemic injustice in Africa.

South African explorer and adventurer Mike Horn has launched a unique environmental project that is already being billed as one of the most remarkable voyages of exploration ever to be undertaken.