South Africa’s Olympic athletes did not fare too well on Friday. Among others, Janice Josephs finish seventh in the 100m hurdles; Geraldine Pillay did not qualify in the 100m sprint; triple-jump champion Khotsa Mokoena failed to come close to his personal best; and shooter Martin Senore failed to make the final eight.

The United States is to allow human rights groups to enter Guantánamo Bay for the first time since detention camps were set up 2 years ago. The Pentagon has previously barred independent observers from the military base in Cuba, where more than 600 men are detained indefinitely as part of the ”war on terror”.

Iraqi teenage sprinter Alaa Jassim’s taste of Olympic competition lasted just less than 13 seconds in Athens on Friday but she said she would not have missed it for the world. The 18-year-old lives in Baghdad and trains six days a week, although only in the evening and only when there is no bombing or shooting.

President Thabo Mbeki struck a challenging note for ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement gathered in Durban this week. He urged them to quit the rarefied, airconditioned atmosphere of the conference centre and visit the squatter camps to experience the poverty there. ”The things we discuss here must impact on the lives of billions of ordinary people out there — in Durban, Ghaza and elsewhere.”

South African men’s rowing pair of Donovan Cech and Ramon di Clemente, in the true spirit of the Olympic Games, have put their weight behind the Canadian team in an effort to get their boat reinstated for Saturday’s final. Canadian rower Chris Jarvis said his team have a letter signed by the South Africans ”stating their support for us”.

The organisers of the Athens Olympics have vainly tried to remove the Greek edition of Playboy from the newspaper stands for offending the Games with a section on the Olympian traditions of sex. ”Harder, deeper, longer,” was how the magazine paraphrased the Olympic motto ”faster, higher, stronger”.