Jonathan Watts

China is to impose an environmental tax on heavy polluters under an ambitious clean-up strategy being finalised in Beijing.

When Sun Jun ignited a cacophony of fireworks recently, he was letting off steam as much as ushering in the Year of the Rat in the Chinese lunar calendar. For the Beijing taxi driver, two days’ holiday during the spring festival is a rare break in a work schedule that otherwise has him on the road almost every day of the year.

Foul air, filthy water and contaminated soil have led to a surge of tumours in China, where cancer is the main cause of death, the state media reported this week. Raising fears that breakneck economic growth is having a dire impact on the nation’s health, a government survey blamed pollution for a sharp rise in cancer cases.

One of the most incongruous sights of the globalised age — the Starbucks coffee shop inside Beijing’s Forbidden City — could soon be a thing of the past after a furious online campaign. In response to this demonstration of "netizen” power, the palace’s guardians have announced plans to review the presence of the coffee shop.

Put yourself in the shoes of Imelda Marcos. At the height of your power you are the wife of a president, one of the 10 richest women in the world, intimate with the world’s dictators and the owner of arguably the biggest private collection of art — and footwear — on the planet. Then try to squeeze into those sling-backs again today.

Strings of diamonds, cascades of champagne and tens of millions of dollars worth of gifts would be con-sidered ostentatious at any wedding. But in Burma, one of the poorest countries in Asia, the luxury on display in a video of the wedding laid on by the head of the junta, General Than Shwe, for his daughter, has left people up in arms.

South African football bosses have unanimously committed themselves to keeping unwelcome attitudes and influences out of the local game. "Victrocentrism" — the disturbing desire to win matches — has been identified as a major threat to local football.

The International Space Station (ISS) is missing and nobody is terribly sure where it has gone. In an extraordinary press conference at Cape Canaveral this week, Nasa admitted that the last communication from the two astronauts on board was more than 48 hours ago and was said to be: “Hey, what’s going on? You guys didn’t say you were sending a shuttle.”

The Department of Education has announced that the next and necessary phase of its futuristic policy will be introduced on a trial basis during the second half of this year. The new phase is called Incomes-Based Education and will be exactly what it sounds like. The more the learner pays, the more the learner gets taught.

In an unexpected move that caught political commentators on the back foot, President Thabo Mbeki made a surprise visit to South Africa last Wednesday. His unannounced arrival was leaked to <i>Not the Mail & Guardian</i> by a part-time hangar-sweeper at the South African Air Force base at Swartkops, outside Tshwane.

Troops loyal to South African presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma have arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo in preparation for a coup against the incumbent President, Joseph Kabila. The African National Congress Youth League is keen to find new sources of income with which to foot the bill for its "babe magnet" BMWs.

A Freedom Front Plus (FF+) motion to have all Cabinet members confined to Robben Island for a period of 10 years before they take up their appointments was defeated in Parliament this week. Griep du Pisanie of the FF+ had tabled the motion with what he termed the best of intentions.