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.

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.

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.

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.

As we move from tsunami relief to rebuilding, it is equally critical that we work to break the cycle of poverty and create a better, more hopeful future for the peoples of the region and not recreate the circumstances that made them vulnerable to the disaster. The enormous effect of this tragedy is one of many reminders that we are all linked together by forces that are both visible and invisible.

January: President Zuma is inaugurated at the Union Buildings. He announces that the buildings will henceforth be called the Fikile Mbalula Buildings after the spirited campaign put up by the Youth League leader. Later in the month Schabir Shaik is appointed the Minister of Finance (Deputy: Brett Kebble); Mo Shaik is Minister of Intelligence; Yunus Shaik becomes the Minister of Justice … The <i>M&G</i> provides its month-by-month forecast.

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.