In the classrooms of the Murambi school are the horrifying reminders of one of the worst acts of genocide in modern times. It was here in 1994, on a hilltop in southern Rwanda, that 50 000 Tutsis took refuge for two weeks without food and water before being massacred by Hutu militias.

Google has provoked the wrath of Iran’s notoriously suspicious authorities by appearing to question the country’s sovereignty over the province of Azerbaijan in an entry on its Google Video website. In a move tailor-made to wound Iranian patriotic pride and arouse a blizzard of protest, the Azeri provincial capital, Tabriz, is located ”in southern Azerbaijan, currently in the territory of Iran”.

The newly emboldened Democrats stepped up pressure on the Bush administration for a change of course in Iraq on Sunday, with two leading members of the party calling for a phased withdrawal of United States troops to begin in four to six months.

This week, a man described by the trial judge as ambitious, far-sighted and brazen — if not positively aggressive — in pursuit of his financial interests found that our legal system may grind slowly, but it sure grinds finely. The Supreme Court of Appeal handed down a judgement that in its fine attention to detail exposed Schabir Shaik, not only as a ruthless crook, but also as the person who may have destroyed the political ambitions of Jacob Zuma.