Vodafone wiped £28-billion off the value of its business recently as it warned that tough competition in its core European markets, regulatory price cuts and the effect of new technology, such as free calls on the Internet, will hurt profits. The news, the company’s third warning about tough trading in four months, sent its shares into reverse, increasing pressure on embattled chief executive Arun Sarin.

The African National Congress appeared to have substantially increased its majority in the local government poll, while the Democratic Alliance, hit by voting for other opposition parties, had not done as well as as it hoped. These appear to be the major trends of Wednesday’s voting for South Africa’s 284 municipalities.

Israelis have always been horrified at the idea of parallels between their country, a democracy risen from the ashes of genocide, and the racist system that ruled the old South Africa. Yet even within Israel itself, accusations persist that the web of controls affecting every aspect of Palestinian life bears a disturbing resemblance to apartheid. The Guardian Middle East correspondent Chris McGreal reports.

During World War II, the future South African prime minister John Vorster was interned as a Nazi sympathiser. Three decades later, he was being feted in Jerusalem. In the second part of a remarkable special report, Chris McGreal investigates the clandestine alliance between Israel and the apartheid regime, cemented with the ultimate gift of friendship — A-bomb technology.