Nelson Mandela looked tired and stiff as he walked down the steps in front of the National Gallery on Thursday to speak to the crowd, one careful step at a time. He looked old. Perhaps he will not come to London again.

More than 130 years after South Africa’s first diamond rush, hundreds of prospectors are hoping to strike it rich on the booming international market by taking picks and shovels to the rocky terrain of the country’s veld. The weather-beaten workers sort small, heavy stones with hand-cranked washers and sieving pans — the same tools used in the diamond rush of 1871.

AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) ”could arguably be in violation of the arms embargo” on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo says a new United Nations report. The report alleges that the multinational provided housing for a rebel leader and paid the rebel group ”taxes”. The rebels, Front Nationaliste et Intégrationniste, control the area around the Kilomoto gold concessions being explored by AGA.

The South African Communist Party will discuss contesting elections under its own banner at its forthcoming special congress in Durban. The party says that the discussion does not mean opposition to alliance partner, the African National Congress, despite differences of approaches on Zimbabwe and black economic empowerment.

A R1,2-million scandal dubbed ”Flatgate”, involving 22 members of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature and 40 squatters, has erupted in the province. The KwaZulu-Natal legislature’s public accounts committee is to bring the members of the legislature before the disciplinary and ethics committee to account for R400 000 they owe to the legislature in unpaid rent for government-owned flats in Ulundi.

Scantily clad women help sell cars. And there’s nothing wrong with using the odd man in a G-string to advertise shoes. But when a clothes company tried presenting a group of well-dressed women in a Last Supper style pose, their poster campaign was banned in Milan.

Silence enveloped Baghdad’s police academy on Thursday as 2000 cadets filed into classes to sit a mid-term exam of multiple-choice questions. When the exam ended American soldiers carried the papers away for marking and the cadets stood in huddles, comparing answers.

The Pope remained ”stable” in hospital on Thursday as his illness raised the question of what the Catholic church would do if he were to become permanently incapacitated — and reopened debate over whether popes should retire instead of reigning for life.

The United Nations suffered grave damage to its international reputation on Thursday after it emerged that the official who headed the oil-for-food programme for Iraq sought and obtained bribes from Saddam Hussein’s regime. Benon Sevan was rebuked for actions which were ”ethically improper and seriously undermined the integrity of the UN”.