Expanding the Super Rugby competition to include countries such as Argentina and Japan will be discussed at a series of meetings next month. New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive, Steve Tew, has confirmed the prospect of expansion beyond Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and also new methods of broadcasting will be on the table when South Africa, New Zealand and Australia Rugby (Sanzar) officials negotiate their model beyond 2016.

A week ago, the chef to the French President was serving François Hollande, as he does regularly. But tonight in Washington DC, he’s a guest, serving himself at a buffet line of high-end American comfort food: fried chicken, collard greens, fresh corn and tomato salad. Off duty and dressed neatly in a polo shirt and slacks, he places a piece of fried chicken on his own plate, then picks up another in the tongs, and with a gracious nod, places a crispy drumstick on the plate of the person behind him in line.

The formula has worked in California, Florida and Paris. Now officials in Zimbabwe, eager to rebrand a country notorious for economic collapse and political violence, want to build a "Disneyland in Africa". Walter Mzembi, the tourism and hospitality minister, told New Ziana, the official news agency, that the government was planning a $300m (£193m) theme park near Victoria Falls, the country's top tourist attraction.

Nelson Mandela is officially "improving," though still in critical condition at a South African hospital. His long battle with a lung infection has South Africans anxiously contemplating their "post-Mandela" future in a still racially divided country. In a unique strategy, one man is hoping to help heal those divisions with a pair of barbecue tongs. Jan Scannell is a 32-year-old former accountant with a dream: To establish a national holiday in South Africa like July 4 called Braai Day.

Before traveling to Oman on the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange & Study (YES) Program, Dylan Hoey had never left the United States. Yet through this YES Abroad experience, Dylan proved he could not only live in another country but thrive there. “I think what I’ve taken from Oman is a newfound sense of confidence,” says Dylan. “I have a clearer sense of what I want to do in my life, what I want to achieve career-wise, and what truly makes me happy.

Patrick Chew felt devastated at his grandmother's funeral 27 years ago because he had never learned her mother tongue, Toisanese, a dialect in southern China. Today Chew, 44, uses two to 10 languages every day as the international-community manager for Change.org, a website that conducts online advocacy campaigns in 196 countries. Before that, he traced the source of spam in 33 languages at a network-security firm in San Bruno, Calif.

Every time I travel for work in Indonesia, I'm tempted to describe the journey. The road to (insert destination) was smooth or twisting or pockmarked and broken. I passed roadside stands selling fruit and fried snacks. The traffic was horrendous, more stop than go, or people passed us like maniacs, swerving at 75 miles an hour on snaking back roads. Such details give a sense of place and remoteness. They also convey the vastness and contradiction that is Indonesia, the world's largest island country by population, and the dysfunctional state of its infrastructure.

On Saturday, Yemeni artist and activist, Murad Sobay, launched the '12th Hour' campaign, a series of graffiti murals that will be displayed across the walls of the capital Sanaa to address 12 issues facing Yemenis today. Sobay, 25, said that while art was once thought to be religiously forbidden or 'haram', many Yemenis now join him in painting the walls of their capital. In the first hour, Sobay tackled gun ownership. According to 2012 figures, Yemen has the second highest rate of gun ownership in the world, with nearly 55 guns for every 100 Yemenis.