A ”plan for life” could help save the life of a teenager with suicidal thoughts or tendencies, says Roshni Parbhoo of the SA Depression and Anxiety Group. Parbhoo told the South African Press Association that teenage suicide is becoming more common in South Africa especially at this time of the year.

The Bush administration’s counter-attack against critics of the Iraq war reached a ferocious new pitch on Thursday after Dick Cheney accused Democrats of dishonesty and lacking ”backbone”. Democrats reacted furiously but George Bush stood by his vice-president, reflecting the White House view that to salvage his embattled presidency he had to defend his decision to go to war more aggressively.

Iran is facing political paralysis as its newly elected president purges government institutions, bringing accusations that he is undertaking a coup d’état. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s clearout of his opponents began last month but is more sweeping than previously understood and has reached almost every branch of government.

Those who endorse Intelligent Design — that hotchpotch of Medieval theological hysteria, Neolithic superstition and prehistoric terror — have a fairly ambivalent relationship with dinosaurs. In this respect they have a lot in common with most fauna that lived nervously and died spectacularly 80-million years ago.

Extra! Extra! Read all about who scooped the prestigious Mondi Shanduka awards for top journalism in 2004.