Sharif Omar has been waiting two years for the bulldozers, ever since Israel’s steel and barbed wire ”security fence” carved its way between his village and its land. Last week the excavators and diggers finally arrived on the outskirts of Jayyous to lay the foundations for an expansion of the nearby Jewish settlement of Zufim, fulfilling the fears and warnings of its Palestinian neighbours.

Save the Children suspended its operations in south Darfur on Monday after two of its aid workers were killed during a roadside ambush. Abhakar el Tayeb, a medical assistant, and Yacoub Abdelnabi Ahmed, a mechanic, were shot while travelling in a convoy of three vehicles. The two, who were recruited in Sudan, were part of a mobile health clinic.

Spain’s former prime minister José María Aznar wiped all computer records at his office referring to the March 11 Madrid train bombings and the rest of his period of government, his successor, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, said on Monday. ”There was nothing, absolutely nothing … everything had been wiped,” Zapatero told a raucous session of the parliamentary commission.

Twelve pre-schoolers from Roodepoort in Gauteng have silenced sceptics by learning to read in just four weeks. The children, aged five and six, are in Grade R at King’s School and were selected to participate in a four-week programme developed by a company specialising in literacy programmes.