United States President George Bush has charged the Pentagon with devising an expanded bombing plan for Iran that can be carried out at 24 hours’ notice. An article in the New Yorker magazine by the journalist Seymour Hersh describes the contingency bombing plan as part of a general overhaul by the Bush administration of its policy towards Iran.

”What am I working on?” asks Jeff Goldblum’s character in the opening lines from the 1986 film The Fly. ”I’m working on something that will change the world and human life as we know it!” Twenty one years after the film’s release, David Cronenberg is working on a new incarnation of the story of the scientist who gets mixed up with a fly.

It seemed like a splendid idea: hide a coin worth $10 000 in a well-known place, and tantalise treasure hunters by offering the finder a chance to win up to another $1-million. But even the most well intentioned public relations plans sometimes come a cropper, and on Sunday Cadbury Schweppes was forced to apologise for its "tasteless" stunt.

One person was killed on Mauritius and nine hurt in the French Indian Ocean department of Réunion when a tropical cyclone brushed the island at the weekend. The victims had ignored official bans on going out while Cyclone Gamede was in the vicinity. In the south of Réunion, a 520m-long bridge was swept away.