JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – A little blond-haired boy rings the school bell. Lined up behind him, his classmates yell and jostle with each other in excitement. Like any school going kids, break time is fun – it is chance to play with friends.

But the startling thing about the 30 children running onto the playground at The Key School in Johannesburg is that all are autistic … they prefer to play alone.

Solitary five year old Momo is a striking example. Her teachers say she only plays in the sand box where she likes to repeatedly pick up the sand and throw it – mostly at you.

Teacher Reinette Palmer says the sand throwing is  Momo’s preferred way of communicating – that’s she’s trying to get attention with her behavior.

Momo is a sweet looking little girl, with a pixie-like face filled with wide-eyed innocence. But she will not look me or her teachers in the eye. She seems driven to constantly move around and throw sand by something deep inside her.

Later, I meet her mother Tumi, a small, smiling 27 year old. Tumi tells me she has two other daughters, younger than Momo. Momo was only diagnosed with autism last year, but she says she knew something was wrong with her eldest child years ago when Momo kept on missing her milestones and didn’t start talking.

She says her interactions with her family have improved since she started attending the Key School a year ago, soon after her diagnosis. Tumi says before she came to The Key School, Momo’s behaviour was embarrassing. “The tantrums she threw, we couldn’t take her out in public. It was hell. People stared and made comments, she tells us.”

To help parents like Tumi and to ensure that home life with autistic children is not a constant battlefield, Reinette says she and the other teachers focus on teaching life skills. While we are at the school, we see groups of children being taught to brush their teeth, wash their faces and say their prayers. These are small milestones for most children but a big deal for many autistic kids.

Here in South Africa, autism is still misunderstood and stigmatised, says the Principal of Key School, Jenny Gous. She says there is little support for parents with autistic children too. “Very little available for people with children with autism,” she says. “Whole lot of people not getting intervention. There are seven, eight, nine, schools touching less than a thousand children.”

She tells me her school is called The Key because you never know what will unlock the potential of the children here.

A sentiment summed up by Reinette while she is sitting in the sand box with Momo. Dodging sand, smiling gently at the five year old, she says: “They’re in this world but not from this world. Our task is to bring them back to this world so they can cope.”

LONDON, England – The front page headline of Britain’s Sun newspaper tells the story: “Mucca chucks a cuppa water over Macca’s lawyer Shacka.”

McCartney's lawyer Fiona Shackleton, left, pictured after her soaking.

 For those who don’t speak British tabloid, here’s the translation: “Heather Mills throws a glass of water over Paul McCartney’s lawyer Fiona Shackleton.”

She what? She couldn’t have. Surely not.

But the pictures are compelling.

On Monday morning Fiona Shackleton arrives at London’s Royal Courts of justice with Paul McCartney. Her hair styled in its usual impressive bouffant.

Then just a few hours later she leaves with Paul McCartney, looking like she’d just taken a shower, with her clothes on.

British newspapers quote unnamed witnesses who claim Heather Mills coolly and deliberately emptied a glass over her ex-husband’s lawyer.

If true, it’s a moment of drama and comedy that provides a fitting climax to this bitter, ugly and often ridiculous celebrity breakup.

Outside the court Mills didn’t hide her loathing for Shackleton. While attacking much of the legal process that led to her being awarded more than 48 million dollars, Mills said: “Fiona Shackleton has very sadly, handled this case in the worst manner you can ever, ever imagine. She has called me many, many names before even meeting me when I was in a wheelchair.”

Shackleton is known in London’s legal community as the Steel Magnolia. She’s famous because her clients are. She represented Prince Charles in his divorce from Diana.

The before-and-after images from the McCartney settlement show another interesting difference in Fiona Shackleton’s appearance. Despite her unwanted makeover she looks happy when leaving the court.

Is she pleased with the judgement? Or does she really like her new look? It’s possible. One British media outlet noted the slicked back do has taken 20 years off her appearance.

– For full judgement on McCartney-Mills click here (PDF document)

BEIJING, China – It had to happen … sooner or later they were going to find us and stop us. This morning they did. .. Chinese police, armed with those almost toy gun-looking small caliber machine guns pulled us over, asked for passports, and told us this was the end of the road.

We were still 300 kilometers from Ngawa county in Sichuan province, where Tibetan exile groups claim Chinese security forces have killed more than 30 protesters — including monks, women and children.

I was amazed we had made this far. Far enough to see the trucks filled with heavily armed PLA soldiers heading north to Ngawa, far enough to see military helicopters in the sky. … Memorable because after a year and a half of traveling extensively throughout this country I cannot recall ever seeing a helicopter. Tibetan exile groups say hundreds of troops were flown into Ngawa by helicopter.

There’s no way to find out if any of these claims by Tibetan groups are true and it seems the Chinese authorities are determined to keep it that way.

ABECHE, Chad – A country in a state of emergency, curfews at midnight, and rumors of rebel offences — our biggest worry was our gear.

Children preparing for their journey back to their families.

Fabien decided, wisely, that our equipment was more important than our personal effects, so we left our own bags behind and rode to the airport in N’Djamena, Chad, with a four-wheel drive packed to the rafters with black gear bags.
 
The last time I was in this airport, someone was trying to take a tiny Antelope with him as hand luggage.  We didn’t have anything quite that exotic.
 
We placed all our bags on the scales and were asked a dreaded question in the broadcast world, “what isn’t critical for your trip?”
 
“Everything is critical!” Fabien replied.
 
The small Bombardier aircraft can’t take excess baggage. But it seems, none of the other passengers planned live shots in remote Eastern Chad, so we had enough slack to squeeze everything on.
 
From the air Abeche looks like a jigsaw puzzle in dust. The plane bumped on the tarmac and we descended into crushing heat.
 
Finally, after three plane rides from Nairobi and three hours of passing through a number of accreditation hoops, we got to Bakana Assalam orphanage in Abeche. The children were sitting under a thorn tree and a shelter.
 
They have just found out that they are going home. Some are too young to understand where they are off to, though.

The Red Cross volunteers were touched by their plight. But they all seemed happy to see them off to their parents.
 
But rumors, some true, some carried away in the dust, keep swirling of rebel incursions and rebel attacks. Still tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow these children will pile on a couple of buses and head due east, across this parched piece of Africa towards Darfur.

The next day, we arrive early at the orphanage to travel with the children to Adre, on the border of Sudan. They are already packing their bags getting ready for their trip home when we get there.

They have been here for more than four months and, in many ways, the town of Abeche seems to have adopted them as their own. But the volunteers are still excited to see the children go. Because they know that they need to go to their families.

We milled around the children to see how they were feeling. A whole host of women crowded around Tahir. He is just 14 months old. The Red Cross workers told us that when Zoe’s Ark went to his village they took his two brothers. But Tahir cried and refused to let them go. So the charity took him with them.

The volunteers started calling Tahir “Sarkozy,” after Nicolas Sarkozy. They say it is because Tahir looks like the French president.

Finally, the governor arrived and after the requisite speeches, we assembled the convoy to leave town.

But driving to Adre isn’t like taking a swing around town. It is a perilous trip into the badlands border region of Chad and Sudan. And as we traveled we got word that there were rebels somewhere in the vicinity. And that could mean any number of groups.

There are Sudanese rebels in this area allied with the Chadian government. There are Chadian rebels who have been looking to oust the Chadian government. There are Chadian military. And then there are just random guys with guns.

So when we get a flat tire in our vehicle, the radiator bursts on the children’s bus and we lose track of the truck carrying supplies for the children, things start to get a little nerve-wracking.

The drive should take around three hours. Five hours into the trip and we are nowhere near our destination.

Then, finally, we hit the outskirts of Adre town itself. Curious onlookers stop on their donkeys and peer over the hardened mud walls.

We head straight to the post office. Mothers ululate excitedly when we get there. But the mothers have to wait because first the men make their speeches. But then a table is brought out and the children and mothers are brought out one by one.

There are Some tearful greetings, but mostly the spirit is killed by the officialdom and the paperwork. But behind the line of onlookers, behind the rubber stamps and signatures, private moments of joy unfold between these mothers and their sons and daughters who were caught up in this international scandal not of their making.

N’DJAMENA, Chad – The Ethiopian Airlines flight banked over the River Chad as fishermen poled their dugouts against the current. The dusty capital, N’Djamena, sits on the edge of the river; Cameroon visible just across its sluggish expanse.

Fabien and I have traveled from Kenya to Chad to follow the journey of over a hundred children from Abeche, in Eastern Chad, to their homes in Adre, on the border of Sudan.

The children sparked worldwide debate and national protest when Zoe’s Ark, a French charity, claimed they were refugees from Darfur. The charity tried to spirit them away to France. But members of Zoe’s ArK were halted at the last minute by Chadian authorities and arrested.

Fighting stopped only a few weeks ago here in the capital. There are sprays of bullet holes in shops, broken glass in buildings, wooden paneling boarding up damaged entrances. And carpet sellers everywhere in the already bustling markets.The rebels came right up to the residence of President Idriss Deby. They call it the “White House.”

There is a state of emergency here and all visitors must register with the police. Residents are under midnight curfew, and Somalia-style “technicals” — improvised armed vehicles — still patrol the streets. Occasional military planes of the European peacekeeping force fly overhead and the whirl of attack helicopters drown out other sounds.

LONDON, England – It has been days since the last model worked the catwalk at London Fashion Week, but we’re still getting jitters over our extraordinary backstage access at the Julien Macdonald show - for many the culmination of this fashion season.

Alphonso Van Marsh, right, interviews
Julien Macdonald, center, and Egyptian jewelry designer Azza Fahmy.

I’m working a story about Azzy Fahmy, an Egyptian jewelry designer who very ingeniously teamed up with the famed fashion guru to get her work on London catwalks.

The collaboration, one part of Fahmy’s strategy to build her design brand internationally. His clothes. Her accessories. In a phrase: Designer Bling Bling.

We met Fahmy at her design center in Cairo as she meticulously watched over the construction of each curve and clasp of her necklaces, bracelets and rings.

I met up with her again at London Fashion Week as she and Macdonald put the finishing touches on their designs.

The energy backstage was insane: Almost like that TV show “Project Runway” brought to life. Models must be matched to Polaroid pictures displaying hair, make-up and clothes.

A statuesque human coat hanger in a gold dress who easily had three inches on me — and I’m six feet tall — strikes an almost pharaonic pose… turns out she’s just catching her balance on mammoth heels. Fahmy catches our eye as she gives a resounding “OK” sign after a scantily clad model slips into a beaded black outfit — and puts on a sparkling, hand-cut ring necklace Fahmy designed. Breathtaking.

In another room, across from the buffet table with nothing but diet cola, bottled water and vegetarian sandwiches, a hair stylist catches me looking aghast. He’s pressing a hot comb through a model’s hair - and the smoke is wafting upward.

“Its steam! Not smoke,” he says with a wink of the eye. The smell tells me otherwise.

And through all the madness, we had a chance for an interview with Fahmy and Macdonald together, reunited backstage. It was a fun moment. And the show — well, if you missed it, check out our profile on Azza Fahmy on CNN’s Marketplace Middle East, scheduled to air March 24.

LONDON, England – If the public following the inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and her lover expected a showdown in Court 73 from Mohamed Al Fayed , they certainly got one.

The billionaire father of Dodi Al Fayed, who died in a car crash with Diana, was testifying in the inquest into the couple’s death. And within minutes, the teary-eyed Egyptian called the August 1997 crash “hot murder.”

“I will not rest until I die. If I lose everything to find the truth,” Al Fayed told the court.

Al Fayed repeated his allegations that the royal ramily was responsible for the crash, that Diana was pregnant and that the couple was about to announced their engagement. Allegations a string of other witnesses have denied.

When an inquest lawyer challenged Al Fayed as to why he didn’t tell everybody as soon as he knew about Diana and Dodi”s alleged engagment, Al Fayed tersely replied, “it was one hour before they were murdered. Am I going to announce it after they were dead?”

He also added his allegation that Prince Philip — the husband of the Queen — couldn’t bear to have a Muslim be stepfather to the future king of England.

Al Fayed then let out a torrent of claims and exhortations: That members of the Royal family were racist and that he deserved a fair hearing in court because he had brought so much business into the UK.

Some of his curt answers actually drew laughter from members of the public watching the testimony via video in an adjourning room.

“Diana suffered for 20 years from this Dracula family,” Al Fayed said, to chuckles inside and outside the court.

Some of the exchanges would be funny, were it not so clear that Al Fayed is still grieving for his son — and is clearly disturbed by suggestions his version of events are “hallucinations.”

The inquest continues…

NEW YORK — I would normally be writing from London or some European city on a quick road trip for CNN.

This month I am in New York temporally covering the markets and business news

Though I was born on the East Coast of the USA, London has been my home for 18 years, so it always amazes me how different it is to cover news in America

The evidence could not be starker than in general news. This week, 24 hours after a multiple shooting, CNN had the brother of the killer on air live talking about his dead sibling. In Europe you would be lucky to have a still photo of the shooter, let alone any video of a family member after the first 24 hours.

The same principle applies in business news, though thankfully its not usually about life and death.

My first week here, we were at the new Gucci store on 5^th Avenue, less than 24 hours before the opening of the luxury brand’s largest store in the world. It was not an exclusive, so the CEO Mark Lee has to take an hour out of his schedule for us and then for each of our competitors. It may be a European brand, but he is San Francisco-born and has an American feel for news. Sure, it was all PR and we were lead around to show how “marvelous” everything was, but he did not shy away from questions about a possible U.S. recession, about the weak dollar and about opening a behemoth when many Americans are spending less.

In Europe we may have been allowed in a store for the ‘pre-launch’ party or something. However, we may have been behind ropes or only allowed access to certain parts of the floor. In addition, we certainly would be forbidden from interrupting the last minute panic all stores suffer. In the case of Gucci, builders were shushed, ladders moved and Gucci-hired photographers from Hong Kong told to get lost so their lights did not bother us.

The difference was even starker the night before Gucci. We covered a “cougar” speed dating evening. “Cougars” are older women (over 35) interested in meeting younger men. In this case, some women I think were over 45 and some of the men were certainly under 25. The twist this night; the women had to be rich, with more than $4 million in the bank. Sure, it is a bit of fluff for a Valentine’s piece, but only a handful of the ladies refused to be interviewed. One, Gail, was happy to spill all for the camera; an honest assessment of why a wealthy older woman who is in fashion would subject herself to a very public evening.

Even if this kind of event would take place in London or Paris, I know we would have few people to interview.

Americans do all seem to be waiting around for their 15 minutes, whether for good news or bad. You can certainly question that. Nevertheless, when it comes to business news, the willingness of companies to co-operate, the willingness of analysts to travel through mid-town traffic for a 15-second sound bite, the willingness of the average person to comment about anything is refreshing. I don’t look forward to March when I get back to trying to get companies to return my phone calls.