I am becoming disillusioned with democracy. Elected leaders, all around the world, seem to be getting worse and worse. In London they've just elected Boris Johnson, a bigoted buffoon, as mayor. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was recently re-elected as prime minister. This is a man who is notoriously corrupt, and who in his previous terms in power ran the government like his private business empire.

In the early 1980s, when I was at university in England, an official of the South African apartheid government came to speak to students of the debating society.

I was quite disturbed to read two opinion pieces in the SA Sunday papers, on Zimbabwe, where the authors were basically defending Mugabe. The thing is, these writers have some valid points to make - but they go on to draw unjustifiable conclusions.

As the schools open this week with the economic situation in Zimbabwe getting worse by the day TAPIWA ZIVIRA AND MELODY CHAITWA take a critical look into the state of the crucial education sector that has since been forgotten by the Robert Mugabe regime

It goes like this: Snuki Zikalala is known as an Mbeki man, and he was suspended by Mpofu, who perhaps used to be an Mbeki man but is now apparently in the Zuma camp. Mpofu was then suspended by the Board, which is believed to be loaded with Mbeki supporters, and the board has been censured by the Parliamentary committee, which is full of Zuma's people.It's all rather like one of the SABC's own soap operas -- but any script-writer who wrote this plot would be told to change it -- it's too far fetched to be believed.

As we speak people are being beaten using chains and burnt with plastic. War veterans shamelessly drip melting plastic on their victims. Homes are burnt down with children and women - the whole family - inside

The Group CEO of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Mr Dali Mpofu, suspended the head of news Mr Snuki Zikalala yesterday. Mpofu accused Zikalala of serious misconduct.

At the moment I'm reading a handy little book, made up of short introductions to the latest trends in thought and technology. Some of them I'm familiar with ('Citizen Journalism' is one of the entries for example), but many more are new, and I thought I'd share some of the most interesting, in alphabetical order.

You may not have noticed, as it has not been high on the media radar, but there's an important process underway across the continent, that has huge potential to reduce poverty and transform the lives of millions of Africans. The first step in this process took place in Kampala this week.