Pope John Paul II yesterday announced 31 new cardinals to join the ranks of those who will eventually choose his successor. In what many believe will be the last time the 83-year-old pontiff will use his powers to influence the arcane selection ritual that will follow his death, he appointed the second largest number of ”princes of the church” in history.

On October 10 it will be 100 years since Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union, determined to win the battle for the vote. Just 15 years later, British women had the suffrage for which they had shouted and sung and starved and marched. But there is one country left where women are still engaged in that struggle.

As the Zimbabwe government battles with critical banknote shortages, special courts are to be set up to deal with "economic and financial crimes. The government blames the four-month-old shortage of banknotes on hoarders and on the thriving black market for foreign currency.

The United States intelligence community used outdated, ”circumstantial” and ”fragmentary” information with ”too many uncertainties” to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda, according to the intelligence committee of the US House of Representatives.

US director Elia Kazan, who rose to the top of Hollywood and Broadway fame but became embroiled in controversy over the naming of suspected Communists during the McCarthy era, has died at the age of 94, his long-time attorney said.

Whatever one thinks of aspects of the Oppenheimer family’s Brenthurst initiative, it stimulated debate on the most important issue facing South Africa. Transformation and growth are undoubtedly linked, but growth is the horse that pulls the cart of transformation. We must take care not to put the cart before the proverbial horse.