Staff Reporter

The Zimbabwean government’s Media and Information Commission (MIC) is refusing to renew the licence of one of the country’s biggest business newspapers, the <i>Financial Gazette</i>, demanding the paper first disclose its owners. Newspapers cannot publish unless they have a licence from the MIC.

Zimbabwe university lecturers went on strike earlier this week, and teachers’ unions say their members are on a "go-slow" and will abandon classes altogether from next Monday to press for better pay and working conditions. The university lecturers join a long list of state workers who have been boycotting work.

Senior European policy-makers are increasingly worried that the United States administration will resort to air strikes against Iran to try to destroy its suspect nuclear programme. As transatlantic friction over how to deal with the Iranian impasse intensifies, there are fears in European capitals that the nuclear crisis could come to a head this year.

The Iraqi government on Monday declared an end to major combat operations near Najaf, where United States and Iraqi forces had fought hundreds of fighters from an obscure Islamic splinter group suspected of planning attacks on the Shia clerical establishment during Tuesday’s Ashura celebrations in nearby Kerbala.

Tintoretto, the 16th-century Italian painter whose huge masterpieces adorn many of Venice’s churches and palaces, is having his first major solo exhibition for 70 years. The exhibition at Madrid’s El Prado museum comes after curators pledged money to help conserve many of the paintings when they returned to their damp and draughty homes in Venice.

A convict who escaped a prison van to pay a final visit to his dying mother ended up driving himself on a 1 600km odyssey through Dixieland in the country music star Crystal Gayle’s stolen tour bus. Christopher Gay also used an 18-wheel articulated lorry to evade capture during a five-state manhunt.

At the heart of improving quality in education is the imperative of deepening the quality and confidence of the teacher corps. But we must also have an adequate supply of well-trained teachers who are committed to reversing the perilous state of quality in our schools.

The UCT Graduate School of Business is launching a landmark programme to address a key skills shortage in middle to senior management in the South African business-process outsourcing and call-centre industry. The skills shortage has been identified in recent research studies on the local industry.

Perhaps the appointment of new Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has worked a trick for our soccer, even before his arrival in the country last week. The Brazilian was openly scathing about South Africa’s lack of development structures and since then we have seen a marked improvement in the South African Football Association’s focus on the junior national teams.

Size matters. Race matters. It’s sad, after all these years, to have to admit it, but it’s true. The size part refers to those who hold the bigger stick — in this case the famous international organisation called the United Nations, which, in turn, bows to an even bigger stick wielded by a big country called the United States.

Fighting between rival Palestinian forces erupted again on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, where 23 people have been killed in the fiercest bout of internecine bloodletting since Hamas won elections a year ago. Three Palestinians died overnight as militants from the ruling Hamas clashed with Fatah gunmen loyal to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

Another two Palestinians died on Saturday in clashes between rival factions in Gaza, bringing to 17 the death toll in three days of bitter fighting that has torpedoed talks on forming a unity government. Rival supporters of the ruling Hamas movement and the Fatah faction loyal to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas have fought running battles since Thursday night.

The safety of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal was called into question on Thursday after Georgia said it had arrested a man trying to sell weapons-grade uranium hidden under his jacket. Officials in Tiblisi said Oleg Khintsagov had been captured after smuggling the uranium into the country.

"Are You Experienced?" asked Jimi Hendrix on his 1967 breakthrough album. Four decades on, were he still alive, the man who transformed rock and roll would most likely ask: "Are you thirsty?" Thirty six years after his death, the title of Jimi Hendrix’s first album is being used for a soft drink.

By the end of the year, the market can expect a leaner, sleeker and –hopefully — considerably blacker Barloworld. The group — under attack from its largest shareholder — announced extensive unbundling, a new empowerment partner, a new interim chairperson, and its first black executive director at its annual general meeting.