Staff Reporter

At this time of the year we believe that every shoulder is to the wheel and most of you have found your teaching rhythm after the holidays. Experts advise that the first days of school are the most crucial as they set the tone for the year ahead. As always we are bringing you an edition packed with a variety of stories that will inform and empower.

Lou Reed once had this to say about the man often held to be the United States’s most intellectually rigorous rock writer: “How do you think it feels,” barked the singer in the middle of a particularly rowdy 1978 New York performance, “working for a fucking year, and you get a B-plus from an asshole in the <i>Village Voice</i>?”

Britain has launched a "reconciliation" drive to undermine support for the Taliban after Whitehall strategists concluded that a decisive military victory in Afghanistan cannot be won. Senior British officials have stopped talking about winning a war. "We do not use the word ‘win’," one said. "We can’t kill our way out of this problem."

A German brother and sister are challenging the law against incest so that they can continue their relationship free from the threat of imprisonment. Patrick Stübing, an unemployed locksmith, and his sister Susan have had four children together since starting a sexual relationship in 2000.

Meet the Greening the Future Awards’ panel of judges for 2007, including Professor Mary Metcalfe, head of education, University of the Witwatersrand; David Grant, group environmental policy manager, SAB-Miller plc; and Rosemary Noge, sustainable development manager at Gold Fields.

Dennis George, general secretary of the Federation of Unions of South Africa, speaks to Vuyo Sokupa about the union’s joint initiative with the Gauteng department of public works and transport, and the Expanded Public Works Programme.

Cosatu has always supported the principle of BEE. Our national democratic revolution cannot be completed without reversing the massive racial imbalance in the distribution of wealth we inherited from our racist past. Interestingly, the RDP does not mention the term "black economic empowerment".

Just how long beleaguered South African Football Association (Safa) CEO Raymond Hack will remain in office should be a cause for concern for football fans around the country. We simply cannot go on as we are. Appointed in March 2005, the Johannesburg lawyer has steered the organisation from one disaster to the next.

"While the recent worldwide spotlight on global warming and conservation is essential in calling the nations of the world to action, it is imperative that governments and corporations guard against the temptation of using this global focus as a political or business platform."

The United Nations’s top court on Monday cleared Serbia of genocide during the war in Bosnia, but said Belgrade did breach international law by not acting to prevent the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica. "The court finds that Serbia has not committed genocide," Rosalyn Higgins, the president of the International Court of Justice, said.

It seemed like a splendid idea: hide a coin worth $10 000 in a well-known place, and tantalise treasure hunters by offering the finder a chance to win up to another $1-million. But even the most well intentioned public relations plans sometimes come a cropper, and on Sunday Cadbury Schweppes was forced to apologise for its "tasteless" stunt.