The president should not have the power to impose sentences because it is unconstitutional and blurs the separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive, the Johannesburg High Court ruled this week. Judge Kathy Satchwell found section 1(5) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act’s — allowing the president the power to re-sentence prisoners previously sentenced to death — offensive to the Constitution.

Selina Boyani’s Soweto shack, which she shares with four children, is a little larger than a single bed. It is dark, cramped and poorly ventilated, but it has one crucial advantage: it’s only a 10-minute walk to school for Nombulelo (17), the oldest child. That means no expensive taxi fares and no long hours spent commuting. These are important issues for a single mother supporting four children with the money she earns doing domestic work two days a week.

One of the great spectacles of Africa — the vast flocks of flamingos feeding at Lake Nakuru in Kenya — is under threat because silt from farming is choking the habitat, wildlife experts said on Thursday. The lake, home to more than 1,5-million of the birds, has shrunk drastically in the past 30 years and is at risk of disappearing, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Three soldiers from the Black Watch were killed by a suicide bomber on Thursday in the first fatal attack on British troops since their fiercely debated deployment, at America’s request, to a new base south of Baghdad. A civilian Iraqi interpreter employed by the regiment also died in the bombing at a vehicle checkpoint.

President Thabo Mbeki and sections of the African National Congress this week repeatedly lashed out at the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu),
labelling its trip to Zimbabwe last week "adventurism". But Cosatu and the South African Communist Party are refusing to buckle, insisting that there is space for a different tactical approach.

Yasser Arafat was close to death in a French hospital on Thursday night after repeatedly losing consciousness, but doctors denied reports that he was already dead. The Percy military hospital, near Paris, said Arafat was moved to the intensive care unit after his still undiagnosed condition deteriorated critically.
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