Staff Reporter

A United Nations human rights investigator has likened Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories to apartheid South Africa and says there should be "serious consideration" over bringing the occupation to the international court of justice. The report represents some of the most forceful criticism yet of Israel’s 40-year occupation.

"Africa’s mistake in Sudan" is how African Union peacekeepers, deployed in Sudan’s Darfur region, refer to the operation they are participating in. The correct title of the 7 000-strong peace­keeping mission is African Union Mission in Sudan (Amis), but the negative nickname it has acquired is not inaccurate; Amis has problems.

Modern advertising, like medieval plumbing, owes its continued existence to the fact that people will get used to anything if it happens often enough. There is almost no difference, whether psychological or aesthetic, between having one’s viewing interrupted by a bonbon of venality and having to cross the road to avoid being drenched by a pail of eau d’plague, slung out of a second floor window.

The word "green" appears nowhere in the written copy of the budget, but it was uttered once, when Trevor Manuel ad-libbed: "This budget isn’t very green, but that will come next year." It is significant that Manuel has put environmental affairs on his agenda. But indications are that the treasury wants the environmental affairs department to take the initiative.

As I have learned from reporting on budgets, what’s really interesting is what is left out of the minister’s budget speech or is glossed over. The two areas I always look for somewhere in the budget documentation are black economic empowerment and privatisation, writes Reg Rumney.

While this year’s budget gave significantly increased allocations to police, education and housing, it once again fell short of bold, direct interventions for the poorest in our society. One disappointment in the budget was the paltry increase in excise duties on alcohol, writes Réjane Woodroffe.

This week’s budget indicates that some progress has been made in re-aligning the posture and make-up of the South African National Defence Force and leaving behind some of the fiscal drag associated with the conventional force design of the 1998 Defence Review and the Strategic Defence Procurement programme.

Hong Kong restaurants have come up with a novel way to cut down on waste from food leftovers — threatening to fine diners who don’t eat up. A number of restaurants say they will charge them between HK$5 and HK$20 (between about R4,50 and R17,60) if customers leave any food on their plates, media reports said.

Iran is seeking to create a paradise for female tourists by turning an island on a north-western lake into a male-free zone, the press reported on Wednesday. All public transport, restaurants and facilities on the island — on the gigantic Oroumiyeh lake close to the Turkish border — will be staffed only by women.

Animal carers in Hong Kong said on Wednesday pet lovers who had bought piglets in hopes of some Year of the Pig luck may have been conned by shop owners who actually sold them rodents instead. According to the Chinese zodiac, this year is represented is represented by the pig.

A Bosnian man could lose his leg after his playful dog triggered his shotgun following a failed fox-hunting trip, a daily reported on Wednesday. Milivoje Radoja of the northern Bosnian town of Laktasi suffered the serious leg wound when his five-month-old Polish shepherd, Gara, pawed at the weapon.

Romano Prodi resigned on Wednesday night as Italy’s Prime Minister after his government had suffered an unexpected defeat in Parliament over its alliance with the United States. President Giorgio Napolitano is to open consultations on the political future of the country on Thursday.

Zimbabwe’s police on Wednesday imposed a three-month ban on political rallies and protests in several of Harare’s increasingly restive townships. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change denounced the measures as "a state of emergency" that highlighted the insecurity of president Robert Mugabe’s regime.

The government will give a million bicycles to school children throughout the country by 2015 to promote non-motorised transport (NMT), Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said on Thursday. There is a need to provide safe, affordable and reliable transport to pupils in rural and urban areas, Radebe told an international conference on NMT in Midrand on Thursday.

Old Mutual has topped the banking sector and is rated second overall in Ask Afrika’s poll of service excellence, the Orange Index. The index measures service excellence across 65 leading South African companies in 12 industries. It goes beyond simply rating the efficiency of service delivery.

Nearly a century after it was founded, Israel’s first and most famous kibbutz has voted to give up its early socialist ideals and to privatise itself. The changes at Degania, which was founded where the Sea of Galilee meets the river Jordan, were agreed by a vote and come after a one-year trial in which residents for the first time received private salaries.

The worst arms control dispute of the post-Cold War era was taking shape on Monday when Poland and the Czech Republic displayed their keenness to host facilities for the Pentagon’s missile defence shield, Russia threatened to target the central Europeans, and Germany denounced the US moves as potentially destabilising.

Nelson Mandela’s office on Tuesday dismissed an e-mail alleging that the former South African president had suffered a stroke as a hoax. "It is a hoax e-mail that has been doing the rounds for about six weeks now," Mandela spokesperson Zelda la Grange said. "Madiba is not ill."

A seller in Germany claimed to have a few locks. Another in Australia was insistent that his was the real thing, while a vendor in Glasgow said that his friend had just returned from Los Angeles and had been lucky enough to pick up a few strands. By Saturday, a seller was offering strands of the singer’s dyed black hair, while another was offering clearly fake blonde locks.