Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of South Africa in the Russian Federation Mr. Mandisi B.M. Mpahlwa, accompanied by Science and Technology Attaché Doctor Neville Arendse, visited JINR on 14 December 2010. The visit started at the JINR Directorate with a presentation of the major directions of JINR activities. JINR Vice-Director R.Lednický, Chief Scientific Secretary N.A.Russakovich, JINR UC Director S.Z.Pakulyak, Head of the International Cooperation Department D.V.Kamanin and Assistant Coordinator of Relations with the RSA A.Yu.Belova participated in the meeting.

During the meeting, N.A. Russakovich acquainted the Ambassador with a wide range of JINR research, status and prospects of development of the JINR experimental facilities. S.Z.Pakulyak spoke about the JINR educational programmes; he covered the four successfully held trainings of students and young scientists from the RSA. The agreement about discussion of organization of long-term visits of the RSA young scientists to JINR laboratories for work in the frame of “sandwich programmes” (scientific work at JINR based on joint supervising of the master and candidate dissertations with further defense of their theses at home institutes) has been reached. Both sides noted high level and wide prospects for further productive cooperation.

The Ambassador visited the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions and the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems, where he got acquainted with the cyclotron facility IC-100 and JINR medical biological research on hadron beams which is used for radiation therapy. During the official dinner JINR representatives continued to acquaint the Ambassador with organization of JINR international cooperation and discussed arrangement of the forum “RSA-JINR – 5 years together” which will be held in Pretoria in early February 2011. In conclusion, Mr. Mandisi B.M. Mpahlwa expressed his wish to continue acquaintance with the Special Economic Zone “Dubna” during his next visit, which could be held in summer 2011.