Indian bureaucrats have come up with an unusual solution to aid farmers driven to suicide after years of droughts and crop failure. With East Africa lacking experienced manpower to till the soil of fertile land, officials in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh spotted a happy coincidence. A delegation has been dispatched for talks with Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

With four days to go to an election that every poll suggests is too close to call, political scientists in the United States fear a new quirk that could threaten the country’s embattled electoral system: a tie. An exact draw is possible because the president is not chosen by popular vote, but by 538 electors in the electoral college.

A lunar eclipse. A World Series victory after 86 years for the Boston Red Sox. For the Democratic faithful, it was an unmistakable omen: John Kerry, locked for weeks in a dead heat with George Bush, now had the stars on his side.

A dramatic series of reforms aimed at transforming the funding of the welfare system is being debated in the government, with Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel suggesting for the first time that a major new tier of mandatory private retirement and health benefits should be developed. "As formal employment grows, South Africa will need to strengthen its ‘second pillar’ of contributory social insurance arrangements."

Wealthy Johannesburg suburbs won the right to seal themselves off against crime on Thursday, despite claims that this marks a return to the no-go areas of the apartheid era. The city council approved requests from dozens of communities to close their roads with barriers staffed by private guards to monitor and control access.