Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu has expressed his deep disappointment at South Africa’s vote to block a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an end to human rights abuses in Burma, saying it was a betrayal of his country’s ”noble past”.

No one on the continent has responded so far to the call for 8 000 African peacekeepers for Somalia, perhaps because it looks like it will be some time before there’s enough peace to keep. Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Benin and Ghana, among the other nations on whom hopes were pinned, have been reticent on the matter.

United States talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is due to open her long-awaited school on Tuesday — fulfilling a promise she made to former President Nelson Mandela six years ago and giving more than 150 poor South African girls a chance for a better future. Mandela was invited to be among the dignitaries at the opening of the lavish Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in the small town of Henley-on-Klip.

Vernon Gibbs and Tony Halls got married on Friday in South Africa’s first gay wedding, a day after the government made same-sex marriages legal. The couple, who run a guest lodge on the south-western coast, went down to the local home affairs office in the town of George.

Despite their notorious reputation, ”conflict diamonds” make up less than 1% of the global trade in the sparkling gemstone, according to a South African report released on Wednesday. However, the report warns that consumer concerns over conflict diamonds ”pose a long-term threat to the industry”.

Fugitive businessman Jacob ”Kobi” Alexander, accused in the United States of hatching a scheme to pocket millions of dollars by secretly manipulating stock options, was granted bail by a Namibian court on Tuesday. Alexander was arrested on September 26 in Windhoek at the request of the FBI after at two-month manhunt.