Leading South African Muslim scholars and intellectuals this week distanced themselves from what they called the ”over-reaction” of sections of the international Muslim community to the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. But they also insisted the reaction should be seen in a broader political context.

Hopes of recognition for Somali land’s 15-year independence have been raised by the favourable report of an African Union mission that visited the territory last year. The report, a copy of which the Mail & Guardian has obtained, comes at a time when signs of a new flexibility in African thinking on boundary issues are emerging.

Intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils and KwaZulu-Natal finance MEC Zweli Mkhize, both members of the African National Congress’s powerful national executive committee, are among key state witnesses lined up to testify at the rape trial of the party’s deputy president, Jacob Zuma, next week.

The Pentagon faced a groundswell of protest about its treatment of detainees at Guantánamo on Thursday after it emerged that a hunger strike had been broken by force-feeding inmates and putting them in restraints. Five months after inmates at Guantánamo began the strike to protest against their indefinite detention at the US naval base only four remain on hunger strike.