More than a third of South Africa’s small and medium businesses that were connected to the internet were at risk from the MyDoom virus that clogged up the world’s networks this week.

Iraq’s governing council has ordered officials to produce documents published in a newspaper which allege Saddam Hussein bribed more than 260 prominent foreigners with oil contracts. The US-appointed governing council will meet next week to examine the papers and determine whether they warrant a formal investigation.

Nurses have become the latest group of health-care professionals to complain about their community service obligations, with their opposition sparking suggestions that the concept be extended to a range of professions outside the medical arena.

There is no evidence that a controversial toll road proposed for the Eastern Cape’s Pondoland region is linked to an intention to mine coastal dunes along the Wild Coast, says Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Valli Moosa. However, Moosa said, if necessary, he may overrule the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s go-ahead for the N2 toll road.

”Black youth is suffering tremendously because of the ANC government’s so-called policy of black economic empowerment, which — like the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither an empire, holy nor Roman — does not empower blacks.” In the first of a series of encounters with party leaders, Drew Forrest puts 10 tricky questions to Tony Leon.

Children’s rights organisations are accusing education officials of failing to act on cases of sexual abuse at schools. Luke Lamprecht, manager of the Teddy Bear Clinic in Johannesburg said that while schools are happy to report suspected cases of abuse that occur outside of the school environment ”when it happens inside the schools it’s a whole other story, there’s a big cover-up”.

The controversial Children’s Bill has been resubmitted to Parliament, but children’s rights groups say the Bill still has holes that leave children vulnerable. The Bill involves only national stipulations concerning parental rights and duties, the rights of children, surrogate motherhood, adoption and child courts.

In just 10 years arguably one of the most highly politicised generations of youth has given way to one in which apathy is unprecedented and disenchantment with politics is acute. On Thursday the Independent Electoral Commission revealed that just below half the young people eligible to register to vote had done so during the final registration drive last weekend.