The leaders of the world’s richest nations are on course to sign a deal in the summer on debt relief, aid and trade to help the world’s poorest nations, the British government said on Sunday. Finance ministers from the G7 developed countries agreed an action plan at the weekend.

Members of Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party were attacked by a group of opposition supporters in their offices in Johannesburg on Sunday, the party’s district chairperson said. ”They started beating us up. They told us, ‘Why do you support the president [Robert Mugabe]?”’ said the chairperson.

A seven-year-old autistic boy who went missing on Sunday in Berario, north-west Johannesburg, had still not been found on Monday morning, his father said. The editor of the Sowetan Sunday World, Thabo Leshilo, father of Ofentse Leshilo, said this is not the first time his son, who is extremely hyperactive, has gone missing.

Presidents Thabo Mbeki, Hosni Mubarak and Olusegun Obasanjo have steered clear of the controversy over Nigerian academic Dayo Oluyemi-Kusa’s assertion that South Africa and Egypt were not black enough to represent the continent on the United Nations Security Council. "The president would never get involved in commenting on something like this," said Mbeki’s spokesperson.

This is the time of year when the recurring issues of academic and financial exclusions at higher education institutions surface. This has seen some students given access and others not; and where difficult choices are made between equally pressing priorities. All this has to be done while the playing fields remain uneven.

I suppose we should continue to be afraid – very afraid. The British-American-sponsored version of democracy, that is free and fair elections across Iraq, is being celebrated with jubilation and gusto across the world through CNN, the independent international news network rivalled only by al-Jazeera. The question is, which one of these networks brings more balance to what we are receiving through the testimony of our eyes.