Australian police are to launch an investigation after two British divers endured six hours floating in shark-infested waters off the Great Barrier Reef when they were dragged more than five nautical miles from their boat by treacherous currents. The couple, from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, were suffering from exhaustion, mild hypothermia and sunburn when they were eventually picked up.

Doctors at a United States clinic will start interviewing potential recipients for the world’s first face transplant in the next few weeks, after winning approval from the clinic’s internal review board. The medical team at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio is led by Maria Siemionow, a 55-year-old surgeon who has spent years conducting research into face transplants, including experiments on animals and human cadavers.

A leading Zimbabwean Cabinet minister vowed at the weekend to rid the country of the ”filth” of white farmers. Didymus Mutasa, the Minister for State Security and Land Reform, said all remaining white farmers must be ”cleared out”. About 400 white families are still farming in Zimbabwe, following the seizure by President Robert Mugabe’s government of more than 4 000 farms.

South Africa’s former world champion boxer Mzukisi Sikali was killed in an armed robbery at the weekend near his home in KwaNobuhle township on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth. During his career, Sikali (34) had held the world champion title in three classes: junior flyweight, junior bantamweight and flyweight.

The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) and the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu) will merge early next year to create a ”super” labour federation with about one million members. Fedusa general secretary Chez Milani and Mahlomola Skhosana, the general secretary of Nactu, confirmed the move recently.