The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, dismissed three security commanders on Thursday after a Hamas mortar barrage of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, just two days after the ceasefire declaration. In response, the Israeli government called off a meeting with senior Palestinians to discuss an array of confidence-building measures.

It can probably lay claim to being the world’s messiest piece of modern art. Visitors to the Spanish artist Santiago Sierra’s exhibition in the German city of Hannover are confronted with two rooms full of mud. The project, called Haus im Schlamm, or house in the mud, involves 400 tonnes of mud, spread on the floor and walls.

The White House faced fresh accusations of a clandestine propaganda campaign on Thursday after it emerged it granted regular access to a right-wing blogger with a habit of asking President George Bush easy questions. Jeff Gannon aroused reporters’ suspicions after posing ideologically loaded questions.

The South African government is still in denial over the scale of the Aids crisis, it is alleged on Friday following revelations that the true death toll is three times the official figures. Researchers backed by the South African Medical Research Council have discovered that most Aids deaths are misclassified because of the stigma attached to the disease.

I do hope that when next the English cricket team grace our fields they leave their cherished Barmy Army behind. The Englishman abroad is seldom a pleasant sight, but when he’s a crowd of drunken rowdies intent on bringing to cricket all the taste and reserve of English soccer hooligans, then he’s better left at home. And congratulations to the managers of local stadiums for banning the dreaded vuvuzela.