The German tabloid Bild has already dubbed her “The world’s most beautiful cabinet minister” and the internet is buzzing with saucy pictures and videos from her past.

Egypt today has all the earmarks of a gathering boom. Strange then, that most Egyptians seem so miserable. “Living conditions are difficult. Everyone is suffering because of higher prices,” says a weary Gomaa Ali, a local restaurant owner.

At Ali’s tiny downtown eatery one recent day, the flies outnumbered the customers. Double-digit inflation combined with stagnant wages has eaten into his business and made the government’s talk of a surging economy seem hopelessly divorced from reality. “People have become more reluctant to eat out. If you’d come here two or three years ago, this place would be packed, and they’d have to line up to get a table,” he says, gesturing at the empty chairs and sweating in the oppressive midday heat.

Even as the government touts a litany of impressive statistics, Ali’s complaints find echoes among Egypt’s long-suffering 80 million citizens. Ambitious economic reforms launched in 2004 have won plaudits from the business community but have done little for the average Egyptian. Poverty, in fact, has increased slightly over the past three years despite an economy growing at an annual rate of about 7%. That disconnect raises questions about whether the government can sustain its reforms amid mounting labor unrest and a generalized air of complaint.

The national park that administers Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, receives at least one package a day from people around the world, containing a piece of rock and an apology.

Jasmine Foxlee, who has been analysing the phenomenon, told the Australian newspaper The Sunday Telegraph that about a quarter of them believed they had been cursed for pocketing their souvenir. They told stories that included marriage break-ups, family illnesses, and even deaths, which they attributed to their mementoes.

Since withdrawal, terrorist groups from Gaza have fired in excess of 4,000 rockets at Sderot and other Israeli towns, whose populations live in conditions comparable to the blitz. The international demands on Hamas to renounce violence and accept the existence of Israel are the logical premises of a permanent solution of two states living side by side in peace - something Hamas, a movement that believes in a pan-Islamic state, has shown no sign of accepting. Israel has already left Gaza, and has accepted the path of negotiation to a two-state solution. The IRA were brought to the negotiating table once they realised that violence had run its course. Hamas must now do the same.

While TYC chief Tsewang Rigzin said the allegations against his group were “absurd and total lie”, secretary to the Dalai Lama Tenzin Takhla termed as “baseless” China’s charges that the Dalai Lama was committing “monstrous crimes”.

Tibetans leaders said the TYC is a non-governmental organisation and never had a history of violent actions. The TYC, set up in 1970, has around 30,000 members in India, North America and Europe, Rigzin said, adding that most of its members are in India.

The mainly Muslim country is considering requiring women to obtain the written consent of their families or employers before being allowed to travel alone outside the country, state news agency Bernama said on Saturday, quoting the foreign minister.

“It is totally ridiculous and it’s a totally regressive proposal with regards to women’s right to movement,” said Norhayati Kaprawi, spokeswoman for Sisters in Islam.

The National Council for Women’s Organisations called it unfair. “This is an infringement of our rights,” council deputy president Faridah Khalid told the New Sunday Times.

The foreign and home ministries came up with the idea in response to a string of cases where women travelling alone were used by international drug syndicates to smuggle drugs across borders, Bernama said, quoting Foreign Minister Rais Yatim.

Bernama portrayed the proposal as an anti-crime measure rather than a religiously inspired idea and said it aimed to ensure that a woman’s family would “monitor her departure and serve as a preventive measure against being duped”.

Mr Brown struck a new note of contrition as he confessed in a series of interviews to making a string of mistakes in his first 10 months in Downing Street. He will attempt to regain the political initiative during the next few weeks by demonstrating that his administration is not out of touch with ordinary voters’ concerns.

Labour strategists are alarmed by the 20-point lead the Tories achieved over Labour in last week’s town hall elections. If repeated in a general election, it would be enough to put David Cameron in power with a majority of more than 100.

In a statement issued after talks at foreign minister level in London, the Quartet for Middle East peace opened the door to Egypt to find a “new approach” for Gaza, which was seized by the militant Islamic Hamas movement in June last year. The blockade, which was intended to provoke Palestinians into rejecting the Hamas leadership, has in fact proved counter-productive, and caused a humanitarian catastrophe for the majority of the 1.5 million population of the Gaza Strip.

“Principals strongly encouraged Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt to work together to formulate a new approach on Gaza that would provide security to all Gazans, end all acts of terror [and] provide for the controlled and sustained opening of the Gaza crossings for humanitarian reasons and commercial flows,” said the Quartet.

Earlier this month, the owner of a South African tourist resort refused to allow a film crew to shoot on his property because of a “whites only” policy.

Voters at a queue in 1994 elections
Black and white voted together in historic elections in 1994

This came shortly after a racist video made by students at the Free State University and the alleged killing of four black people in an informal settlement by an 18 year old white man.

All of this seems to show that racism is still alive and well in South Africa.

Albertus Pretorious, who owns the Broedestroom Vakansie-Oord resort in North West Province, stood by his whites-only admission policy.

France has been the biggest beneficiary of the CAP since its inception and Ireland has been the largest per capita recipient for most of the period since 1973.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a major gathering of trade and development officials last week that wealthier nations need to rethink old-fashioned programmes of agricultural subsidies and asked: “If we cannot scrap these relics today, in an era of high prices, then when can we?”

Speaking in Accra, Ghana, at the opening of the twelfth UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Ban warned that neither the food crisis nor the chance that some regions may be poised for a slowdown should be used by governments as an excuse to turn towards protectionism