A few months shy of her 11th birthday, Vuyelwa bore in miniature all the noble traits of her race and gender. Stately and voluminous as a chubby-cheeked Zeppelin coated with Vaseline, she sailed through clear skies of her own making, deaf to the howls and grunts of the boy-children who crouched on all fours at her feet, snapping at each other as they fought over scraps of bone.

Ghana’s soccer team have qualified for the World Cup for the very first time, and it is not only the fans that are cheering. So too are health campaigners, who hope that football fever might boost the fight against HIV/Aids. For the past three years, some of Ghana’s most promising young talents have been learning not only ball skills and match tactics, but also how to protect themselves from the HI-virus.

Adding zinc to the diets of HIV-positive children helps protect them, researchers report. The South African scientists say zinc supplements are a safe, simple and cost-effective way to reduce illnesses such as diarrhoea, a major cause of death in poor communities.

For more than 30 years, the 980 people living on the six minute, horseshoe-shaped Carteret atolls have battled the Pacific to stop salt water destroying their coconut palms and waves crashing over their houses. They failed. On November 24, a decision was made that will make the group of low-lying islands literally go down in history.