South African National Parks (SANParks) is reconsidering a management plan that will see between 400 and 1 000 elephant culled in the Kruger National Park annually for at least five years. At a high-level indaba held this week to discuss burgeoning elephant populations, SANParks director of conservation services, Hector Magome, said it was time to dust off a plan that was launched in 1999 but shelved amid controversy.

President Thabo Mbeki answered questions in the National Assembly on Thursday for the first time in almost a year, but he refused to allow robust exchanges on HIV/Aids, the economy and Zimbabwe to divert him from his script. Question time was still under way as the M&G went to press, but its opening half was dominated by a renewed attack on what Mbeki described as racist assumptions about rape and sexual behaviour generally.

A tale of prostitutes, old age, youthful beauty and the madness of love brought the Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez new critical acclaim on Thursday as his first novel for a decade reached book shops in the Spanish-speaking world. The book, described as a hymn to the renewing qualities of love and the rich possibilities of old age, has been lavished with praise by the critics.

A United States soldier at the centre of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal was on Thursday sentenced to eight years for sexually and physically abusing detainees. Staff Sergeant Ivan ”Chip” Frederick (38) who admitted carrying out a mock electrocution of a detainee, was also given a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and a dishonourable discharge.

As the government’s plans to increase investment in electricity generation and transport infrastructure dramatically begin to take shape, a monumental capital-raising challenge is developing. And it is becoming clear that the fiscus will have to make a substantial contribution — something Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has so far only hinted at.