Estate agents insist that foreign buying is not a factor in Cape Town’s property price spike — but circumstantial and anecdotal evidence tends to contradict them. The 10-person Panel of Experts on the Development of Policy on the Regulation of Ownership of Land in South Africa by Foreigners failed to find hard evidence that foreigners had driven up prices.

Just a few days ago, one of South Africa’s most prominent soccer bosses, Irvin Khoza, chairperson of Orlando Pirates, buried his 30-year-old daughter Zodwa after losing her to HIV/Aids. The ”Iron Lady” was believed to have been infected by her husband and former Jomo Cosmos star Sizwe Motaung, who died in 2001, at 31.

Kwela Books is consulting lawyers with a view to suing the University of Cape Town academic Stephen Watson for libel over his controversial plagiarism allegations against Stellenbosch poet Antjie Krog. Random House, the publisher of Krog’s award-winning Country of My Skull, has also said that it is contemplating libel action on Krog’s behalf.

Power cuts have become a factor in Cape Town’s municipal poll, with the Democratic Alliance climbing in on a succession of blackouts this week. ”I have never seen such outrage. Now whites are going to vote,” said a senior Western Cape DA member, who admitted the levels of enthusiasm fell short of the intensity of the December 2000 poll that clinched the city for the DA.

Hours after a commercial plane struck the Pentagon on September 11 2001 the United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was issuing rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes taken by one of them. ”Hard to get good case. Need to move swiftly,” the notes say.

Iraqi authorities struggled to contain a convulsion of sectarian violence on Thursday in which more than 150 people died in massacres, armed clashes, suicide bombs and reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques. Sunni religious authorities said 128 Sunni mosques had been attacked and three clerics killed.