So, Cyril Ramaphosa is to get another footnote in the history of South Africa’s economic restructuring. His resignation this week from the board of Johnnic Holdings came at the blood-soaked end of the first real knock-’em-down, drag-’em-out battle for a listed company to be played out entirely by black-owned contenders.

Ariel Sharon lived much of his life like a farmer-soldier. He was like one of the Old Testament judges of Israel. First defending his own village from attackers and marauders, then chasing his enemies, conquering and destroying their villages, then building new villages, then defending the new ones, then chasing the enemies again, in a vicious circle.

The United States and Europe formally declared an end on Thursday to two-and-a-half years of negotiations over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme and pledged to take the Iranians before the United Nations security council. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said the Iranians had crossed a threshold by their ”dangerous defiance of the entire international community”.

African leaders have barely disguised their impatience and disappointment at Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s bad faith and intransigence in dealing with the insurrection in his country’s western region of Darfur. Their misgivings led them to put off having their summit meeting in Khartoum last July.