Staff Reporter

Three thousand more workers were served with retrenchment notices this week as the Congress of South African Trade Unions — Cosatu — suffered a double blow after government and business refused to accede to its demands aimed at stemming a "tidal wave" of job losses. This has raised fears that a crippling national strike is now inevitable.

For a number of decades, environmental learning has taken place as part of formal education in South Africa and many countries around the world. However, the introduction of environment as a focus for all teaching and learning processes within the Revised National Curriculum Statement has been a much-desired change in education.

What on earth were the hordes of South African observers doing in Zimbabwe? They certainly didn’t see the election we witnessed, if their reports are anything to go by. Living it up at the Meikles, no doubt, and probably shopping up a storm on their allowances. We should ask for our money back. It is true that there are none so blind as those who will not see, and the free and fair bill of health bestowed on the poll is a joke.

In South Africa, 9% of all teen deaths are suicides. In fact, only car accidents and homicide kill more young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Lourens Schlebusch of the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban is a world expert on suicide. Currently, he estimates there are at least 20 to 25 suicides per day in South Africa.

Jeff Bezos has always taken the long view so, in 2001, when the analysts were panicking and traditional retailers were crowing about the dive in the Amazon share price from a high of $110 to $11, he was the first to point out that not only had the value of the shares increased tenfold since 1997, but the real growth was yet to come.

The concept of blogging, to me, is much like the debate over public art or graffiti: either it’s meaningless vandalism from no-hopers with an urge to scribble or paint over other people’s property, or it’s a valid form of creative expression, using public spaces as a canvas. I tend to go with the idea, generally, that it’s vandalism by no-hopers making visual pollution — unless there’s a political statement being made.

And so, with nothing particular in our minds except to travel away from the city for a few hours, we found ourselves on a dirt road on the edge of the Magaliesberg, the City of Gold dimly visible through the autumn haze behind our backs. We were looking for something — a quiet spot to retreat to, perhaps, in days to come. A fantasy of life far from the madding crowd. Yeah, right.

Pope John Paul II has suffered septic shock and a heart attack, and his condition is "very serious", Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls said on Friday. "Following a urinary-tract infection, septic shock and a cardiocirculatory collapse occurred," Navarro-Valls said in a statement. The pope received the last rites on Thursday evening after suffering the heart attack.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has set up a quarantine zone along the frontier with Angola in response to fears that a recent outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus could spread across the 1 750km border. Congolese Health Minister Emile Bongeli said: "Though there are no signs of any cases in the DRC, we live with the threat of another outbreak, so we are taking precautions."

Moussa Tanoh used to import two shipments of new car parts in to Côte d’Ivoire every month but in 2004, he only managed two all year as a protracted political crisis deepened economic woes. "Nobody buys new anymore," said Tanoh, as he hauled himself up off the floor of his Mercedes spare parts shop. "Everybody goes to the black market and buys used or stolen car parts."