■ South Africa
Bright condoms distributed
The South African government, criticized for its slow response to the AIDS pandemic, launched a brand of brightly wrapped condoms this week in a bid to enhance their appeal in the battle against HIV/AIDS. The condoms will be distributed for free in a country where one in nine people is infected with the HIV virus. "We are encouraging those who cannot abstain or remain faithful to one partner to use a condom consistently and correctly," Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said. Last year the government's health department distributed more than 300 million condoms, but the minister said the dull gray packaging "was seen to be far less attractive ... than those of the commercial brands."
■ United States
Jackson settled for millions
Pop star Michael Jackson, who faces a trial on child molestation charges, paid more than US$23 million to a boy and his family in the mid-1990s to settle similar accusations, CourtTv reported on Tuesday. CourtTv said it had obtained a copy of the legal agreement. A spokeswoman for Jackson said she was trying to find out if the documents shown on camera by CourtTv were "the actual agreement" in that case. She added that the release of the information seemed aimed at influencing potential jurors against the entertainer.
■ Spain
All aboard the nude cruise
It has been billed as the first naked tour of the Mediterranean, a week-long cruise for 450 people with the wearing of clothes mostly optional and sometimes banned completely. The first big-ship nudist cruise of the Mediterranean, on the 17,000-tonne Flamenco, was hailed as the biggest naked event in these waters since Aphrodite appeared in her birthday suit floating on a scallop shell. The cruise left Barcelona on Monday with a passenger list made up mostly of Spaniards, but with Britons the second-largest group. "It is just like a normal cruise, but for people who like being nude," a spokeswoman for the organizers said yesterday.
■ United Kingdom
Student auctions his virginity
A British student has put his virginity up for sale on the Internet for ?6,000 (US$11,000), a British newspaper reported yesterday. David Vardy, a 19-year-old media studies undergraduate at Bournemouth University, had 7,000 hits on eBay before the Internet auction site removed the advert, The Daily Express said. "I am always coming up with these crazy ideas," the student told the tabloid.
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