The government’s plans to fight unemployment and poverty in the country gained momentum this week when Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana announced the establishment of a set of 21 employment agencies to fast-track the recruitment of previously unemployed youth into the labour market. The initiative aims to increase the experience and skills of young people.

A draft Bill on intergovernmental relations, setting out how national, provincial and local government must work together, is expected to be released for public comment in the next few weeks. Effective coordination of planning and budgeting is crucial, in the government’s view, to the effective provision of basic services, infrastructure and social and economic development projects at local government level.

”This is how Nero listened. His eyes are almost closed, regarding the tablecloth with a slow-burning, unblinking intensity. Once he moves his lips as if rehearsing a pronouncement, and then resumes his distrustful stakeout of the salt cellar to his left. Away from the cameras and the parades, the pre-arranged spontaneous displays of public adoration, Don King looks terribly tired”. Tom Eaton caught up with the master boxing promoter on his whirlwind tour of South Africa.

A British journalist released from Israeli custody on Thursday said that he had been held in a dungeon with excrement on the walls following his arrest on suspicion of espionage. Peter Hounam was detained on Wednesday by the Israeli security agency on suspicion that he had obtained classified information from Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli technician who was jailed after revealing Israel’s nuclear capabilities to the world.

Australia is introducing legislation to ban gay marriage, in a move which puts the prime minister, John Howard, squarely alongside President Bush on the issue that may prove crucial to their respective attempts to gain re-election. ”The commonly accepted definition of a marriage is a union of a man and a woman,” Howard said.

A violent two-month standoff between the United States military and the radical Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr edged towards resolution on Wednesday, with both sides making concessions to defuse the crisis. Under the deal, al-Sadr pledged to pull his gunmen out of the holy city of Najaf, while American troops agreed to ”suspend offensive operations”.