AN ETHIOPIAN OBSESSION THAT RUNS DEEP!

By Alex Capstick - BBC News, Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia has a deep well of distance running talent.
Ethiopia is staging its first major international athletics event - the African Athletics Championships - giving sports fans a rare chance to see close up the athletes carrying the country's hopes for glory at the Beijing Olympics. The BBC's Alex Capstick went to Addis Ababa to investigate why running is Ethiopia's national obsession.
It's 0630 as runners gather in the forests overlooking Addis Ababa. There's not a breath of wind, and at an altitude of more than 3,000 metres the air is thin.
These are considered perfect training conditions for endurance runners, and virtually every day of the year thousands of them pitch up here and spend an hour or two pounding the rutted dirt tracks.
Getaneh Tessema is in charge of the group I'm with and says he chooses the area because "it is very quiet, it is not so hilly, flat, and you know running in the forest is fantastic, we like it".
Every morning in the heart of Addis Ababa knots of runners are strung out over the cracked steps of Meskel Square
He has spent the last decade on the lookout for future champions and his current group includes members of the Ethiopian marathon team.
"The runners are mostly from the countryside, and in the countryside most children they go to school on foot - like every day five, 10 kilometres, and you know, nobody knows that, but that's training.
"Ethiopians are light and are also hard-working and they like to fight - and I think that's the reason why they are so good."
Ethiopia's obsession with running can be traced back to 1960, when the barefooted Abebe Bikili was a surprise winner of the Olympic marathon in Rome.

Haile Gebrselassie is idolised in Ethiopia.
The success of Ethiopian athletes continued. Haile Gebrselassie remembers listening on his father's radio to events at the Moscow games in 1980, when Miruts Yifter won two gold medals.
"I was seven, I had a chance you know to follow his winning. I wanted to be like a Miruts Yifter and my dream was to be like him."
Haile Gebrselassie is now considered the finest distance runner of all time.
His collection of honours includes two Olympic 10,000 metre titles and multiple world records. He's idolised in Ethiopia, the busy road I'm standing on is named after him. And everybody wants to be like Haile.
"It's amazing when they follow the good steps of Haile Gebrselassie. Let them follow my good things the next generation has to improve"

The Entoto Mariam church is located in the hills above the capital. It is in another area frequented by groups of runners, and world and Olympic medals have been deposited in the church museum.
For a woman in Ethiopia, running is very difficult... she only work in house or is going to the school - everything is for men
Meseret DefarOlympic 5,000m champion
My guide tells me Ethiopia's deeply religious athletes promise to leave them here, or in other places of worship, on display for everyone to see. Among them is one won by Derartu Tulu.
She became the first black African woman to claim an Olympic title when she was first in the 10,000 metres at the Barcelona Games in 1992. Her performance proved to be an inspiration to other women in Ethiopia.
They include the reigning Olympic 5,000 metre champion Meseret Defar who I went to meet at her villa in Addis Ababa.
Like Derartu Tulu, she's been a role model to young women seeking a life outside the traditional confines of the home, although the effect hasn't been the same across the country.
"The women stay in the house," she says. "For a woman in Ethiopia, running is very difficult. In Addis Ababa, no problem, it is very good but outside, the woman only works in [the] house or is going to the school - everything is for men."
Every morning in the heart of Addis Ababa knots of runners are strung out over the cracked steps of Meskel Square.
Most of them dream of progressing to the national stadium, just a short distance away.
But first they must grab the attention of one of the top coaches.
Competition is fierce, and the deep well of running talent in Ethiopia shows no sign of drying up.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

CELLAR FATHER REFUSES TO EXPLAIN !

Mr Fritzl will undergo a series of psychiatric and psychological tests.
Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who is accused of keeping his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years, refuses to answer further questions, police say.
They said he had signed a statement admitting imprisoning and raping his daughter and fathering her seven children, but refuses to explain.
The daughter, Elisabeth, has told police she was sexually abused even before being incarcerated.
The case of the 73-year-old Josef Fritzl has drawn world media attention.
Describing the "abominable events" as linked to one individual case, Austria's Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer said he planned to launch an image campaign to restore the country's reputation abroad.

Franz Prucher, head of police in Lower Austria, said police would be investigating whether Mr Fritzl had committed any further crimes.
"We have to bring light to every aspect of the suspect's life. It is our duty to investigate the concurrent circumstances that made it possible that such crime, which shocked all of us deeply, could happen," he told a press conference in Amstetten.
Mr Fritzl faces up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted of raping his daughter, among other offences.

Physical toll of Austrian captivity
Austria examines its conscience

Officials are also considering charges of "murder through failure to act" which carries a longer sentence, in connection with the death of one of the seven children he fathered with Elisabeth.
Mr Fritzl has admitted to disposing of the body of the newborn in an incinerator shortly after the birth.
His lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, has told the BBC his client will undergo a series of psychiatric and psychological tests.
He says the tests will be crucial in determining the extent of Mr Fritzl's guilt and his penalty.
"This case certainly requires a thorough psychiatric and psychological examination. We need to establish if he can be considered responsible for his actions," Mr Mayer told BBC News.

Elisabeth and three of the children were held captive in a windowless cellar under the family home.
Mr Fritzl's alleged crimes came to light when Elisabeth's eldest daughter Kerstin, 19, became seriously ill.
Lower Austria police chief Franz Polzer describes the cellar.
She was allowed out of the cellar and admitted to hospital in Amstetten.
Police then issued an appeal to Elisabeth Fritzl to contact them about her daughter, and later picked up Mr Fritzl and Elisabeth near the hospital.
Kerstin remains in a coma, and doctors describe her condition as serious but stable.
The other children who were not confined to the cellar lived an apparently normal life with Mr Fritzl as his "grandchildren" in the upper sections of the same house.
Officials said Elisabeth, now 42, and two of the three children who had lived with her in the cellar - the 18- and five-year-old brothers - had an "astonishing" reunion with her other children on Tuesday.
They are now being cared for in a psychiatric clinic in Amstetten-Mauer. Berthold Kepplinger, the director of the clinic, said their psychological state had stabilised:
"The young people can play, they can run around, they have their personal toys, they have everything that they are used to, and a number of our team are looking after them and are caring for them."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BLAINE SETS BREATHTAKING RECORD !

Blaine failed in an earlier breath-holding record attempt in New York.
Magician David Blaine has set a world record by holding his breath for 17 minutes and four seconds on Oprah Winfrey's US TV show in Chicago.
The star was pulled from a water-filled sphere, and then said he had begun to doubt if he would achieve his goal as he considered his heart rate too high.
The previous record, which was 32 seconds shorter, was set in February.
Blaine, once buried for a week in a coffin, inhaled pure oxygen beforehand to flush carbon dioxide from his blood.
Setting the record was "a lifelong dream", he told Winfrey, which he said had been achieved by being in a meditative state throughout.
She asked him what he was thinking about during his time in the water, to which he replied: "You."

Beforehand Blaine said he was more excited than nervous about the task ahead.
The 35-year-old had been wearing a silver wetsuit when he went into the sphere, which was filled with about 8,200 litres (1,800 gallons) of water.
Two years ago he failed in an attempt to break the record for breath-holding under water, while simultaneously escaping from heavy chains.
He had started to struggle two minutes before his nine-minute goal, at the end of a seven-day stint under water in New York.
Blaine has also balanced on top of a 100ft (30m) pole, was encased in ice for two-and-a-half days, and fasted for 44 days in a box.

"SAYINGS" !

"THE IDEAL OF CALM EXISTS IN A SITTING CAT" !

______

WASHINGTON DIARY : PASTOR TROUBLE !

By Matt Frei BBC News, Washington.

Dear Obama supporters - look on the bright side!

Mr Obama said Reverend Wright's comments were offensive
Gary Hart was sunk by Monkey Business.
Bill Clinton's candidacy was almost killed off by Gennifer Flowers and his presidency derailed by Monica Lewinsky.
Barack Obama's problem is not sexual infidelity, it is spiritual fidelity towards a nutty pastor - the Democratic Party has clearly evolved...
But then so has America.

In a country where the average citizen changes his or her religious denomination at least twice, your choice of pastor says perhaps even more about you than your choice of mistress.
And for an aspiring presidential candidate at a time when America is at war and when some people quibble about patriotic flag-pins, Obama seems to have chosen disastrously.
Watching Jeremiah Wright's cross between stand up comedy, loony lefty diatribe and hellfire sermon at the National Press Club in Washington DC had the same effect as witnessing one of those really embarrassing best man's speeches at a wedding.
It leaves the guests choking on their salmon, thinking: "... and this guy is your best friend?"
The pastor's first clips about Israel and 9/11 were the old wedding video.
Barack is trying to explain why he prayed with a pastor before he prayed against him
This week the performance was revived with fresh blood - Reverend Wright, the Remake, the Director's cut.
Instead he should have gone away to a spiritual retreat in Switzerland for a year.
But of course there is no way that the man who first coined the phrase "the audacity of hope" - which Barack Obama then borrowed for the title of his second bestselling book - would have done anything as un-audacious as slip away into obscurity while his friend soldiered towards the White House.
The reverend will not be silenced.
In fact, he is probably quite irked that his Chicago Church has become better known for the young "member", as he called Obama disparagingly on Monday, than for its founding father.
Even pastors can get jealous.

Two months ago, Obama was able to rise above the fray elegantly.
He gave the man who married him to his wife Michelle and christened his two daughters the benefit of the doubt.
He described him as an eccentric, errant uncle with a loose tongue and a sound heart.
And he was able to used it as a peg to talk about his complex but poignant vision of race.
At that stage, Obama still walked on rhetorical water.
This week, he was drowning.
How ironic that the object of his fury should have been the erstwhile healer of his soul.

Barack Obama hits back after controversial comments by his former pastor
He cut the reverend loose like one of those giant octopuses that have attached themselves to your leg and threaten to drag you under.
He called the comments the pastor made in Washington on Monday - to the effect that Obama was just another dishonest politician and that successive administrations were responsible for the spread of Aids - deeply misguided, damaging and offensive.
Most tellingly he said: "His comments have shown disrespect to me."
Respect, Obama! Everyone wants it and you, it turns out, demand it.

Every campaign, however scripted, has its moments of unalloyed honesty when the candidate is stripped bare, when the veneer has gone and when all you see is raw Mensch.
That is what we got on Tuesday.
Barack Obama stopped sermonising, energising and eulogising.
Instead, he was fuming with anger.
You could almost see the steam seeping out of his tired eyes.
The public divorce from the reverend must have been painful, but it was unavoidable.
What should worry Obama supporters far more was the faltering, brittle performance in the press conference afterwards.
He stumbled, he stuttered, he stalled and he groped for the right words while Hillary was at an Indiana gas station doing shots of diesel with truck drivers.
Wielding her imaginary tankard of frothing beer, she talked about cutting the gas tax in front of a chorus of nodding white men with bulging necks.
Hang on - aren't they supposed to be the people who loathe Hillary?
But here too America is evolving.
The economy is hurting, Hillary is feeling your pain, her family name conjures up the comfortable 1990s and Barack is trying to explain why he prayed with a pastor before he prayed against him.
Indiana and North Carolina vote on Tuesday.
Barack Obama has six days left to find his old voice and reboot the magic or he will become the best nominee the Democrats never had.
And if the super-delegates freeze him out, I would not be surprised to see young people and African Americans - the voters Obama has managed to energise - stay away from the polls in droves.
This is the stuff of political tragedies.

Matt Frei is the presenter of BBC World News America which airs every weekday at 0030 BST on BBC News and at 0000 BST (1900 ET / 1600 PT) on BBC World News and BBC America (for viewers outside the UK only).

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BELARUS ORDERS OUT US DIPLOMATS!

The president of Belarus has shown defiance in the face of US pressure.
Belarus has ordered a number of US diplomats to leave the country.
The ex-Soviet republic's latest move comes amid a row over human rights violations and follows the expulsion of the US ambassador in March.
The foreign ministry summoned the most senior US diplomat, presenting him with a list of officials "declared personae non gratae and required to leave".
Jonathan Moore said he had been given a list of 10 US diplomats who had been ordered to leave within 72 hours.
"We will do everything possible so that the US diplomats leave the country within the required time limit," Mr Moore said.
The US embassy says it now has 15 diplomats in Minsk.

The diplomatic expulsions were initially ordered after Washington imposed sanctions on the country's state-controlled oil-processing and chemicals company, Belneftekhim.
The firm accounts for about a third of the country's foreign currency earnings.
Belarus said its embassy staff in Washington had been cut to six, but that the US had not cut staff enough.
The US - along with the European Union - has also restricted the travel of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko and members of his inner circle.
In his annual address to the nation on Tuesday, Mr Lukashenko expressed defiance over pressure from the US and EU to free political prisoners in order to improve ties.
"If the Americans introduce new sanctions and think we will collapse, that's rubbish," he said, adding that no political prisoners would be released.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TOURISM CRASH THREATENS BIG CATS !

Big cats living in Kenya's Maasai Mara game reserve are being threatened by a collapse in revenues from wildlife tourism, it has been claimed.
The Mara Conservancy says tourists have stayed away since the violence which followed last year's disputed election.
The group, which manages a 510 sq km area called the Mara Triangle, can no longer pay pastoralists compensation for cattle killed by lions or leopards.
This could force local people to kill the cats in order to protect livestock.
It may be only a matter of time until rangers won't be so lucky in stopping cattle owners from taking their own measures to protect cattle - William Deed, Mara Conservancy.

William Deed, from the Mara Conservancy, told the BBC that it was facing a shortfall of $50,000 (£25,000) per month.
The non-profit organisation relies on a percentage of park entrance fees paid by tourists.
Since it was founded in 2001, and the compensation scheme established, the number of lions in the reserve has doubled to 80.
But now the fund has been suspended, some Maasai have threatened to resume hunting the lions and leopards which kill their cows, goats and sheep.
"We have now had several close calls with locals hunting lions and leopards in return for the cattle that have been killed by these predators," said Mr Deed.
"Previously, the cattle compensation scheme we had in place would help placate such situations, however with no funding to pay for such a scheme the local communities are no longer seeing the benefits of living so closely with the wildlife."
He said the current situation was leading to strained relations with local communities.
The Mara Conservancy has met with local elders, but each time one of their animals is killed with no money for compensation, the "tension mounts", Mr Deed explained.
"It may be only a matter of time until rangers won't be so lucky in stopping cattle owners from taking their own measures to protect cattle," he added.
Slow recovery
Cuts in electricity are also making the job of rangers increasingly dangerous. Part of their job involves catching armed cattle rustlers who often make their escape through the Mara Triangle.
But the area now lacks power for 11 hours out of every 24, meaning that communications are often down between the main station and patrol teams.
The dire funding situation has also forced the organisation to stop night patrols.
Poachers were already profiting from the situation, said Mr Deed: groups of men had been seen using torches to hunt Thomson Gazelles at night.
Last month, the rangers have caught five poachers, including three men who killed a hippo for its meat.
Even though the worst of the violence in Kenya has subsided, Mr Deed said it would take time for the tourist trade to pick up again.
For now, he explained, the organisation was operating only on small donations from individuals across the world.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MUGABE RIVAL 'CLEAR VICTOR' - U.S.

Morgan Tsvangirai has left Zimbabwe amid fears for his safety.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was the "clear victor" of last month's poll, a top US envoy says.
Jendayi Frazer was speaking in South Africa, at the start of a tour to lobby Zimbabwe's neighbours to put pressure on President Robert Mugabe.
The results of the presidential election have not been released.
Mr Tsvangirai says he won outright but the ruling party has said no candidate gained 50% of the vote, so a run-off will be needed.
The opposition says its supporters are being attacked ahead of a possible run-off - claims denied by the government.
Mugabe is living on borrowed time - John SentamuArchbishop of York.

Profile: Jendayi Frazer

Earlier, the leaders of the Anglican church called for international action to prevent violence in Zimbabwe reaching "horrific levels".
Meanwhile, a Chinese foreign ministry official said a ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe might return to China.

Independent Zimbabwean monitors say Mr Tsvangirai gained 49% of the vote - just short of the threshold for outright victory - but more than President Mugabe.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says its leader gained 50.3% and so should be declared the winner.

ZIMBABWE'S NEIGHBOURS

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has been under fire over March's disputed elections. His neighbours have been supportive but regional differences are now emerging.

South Africa's President Mbeki is the key Zimbabwe mediator. He has refused to criticise Robert Mugabe but the ruling ANC, and trade unions have urged him to take a stronger line.

Zambian President Mwanawasa has taken the region's strongest line on Zimbabwe. His call for Africa not to let a ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe dock will outrage President Mugabe.

Angola's government has close ties to Zimbabwe's ruling party - both came to power after fighting colonial rule in the 1970s.

Botswana is not seen as an ally of Robert Mugabe. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai fled here after polls.

Namibia is a close ally of Zimbabwe - it too is planning to redistribute white-owned farms to black villagers.

Mozambique has hosted some white farmers forced from Zimbabwe and is seen as relatively sympathetic to Zimbabwe's opposition.

Tanzania's ruling party has a long history of close ties to Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and is unlikely to criticise him.

DR Congo's President Joseph Kabila is an ally of Robert Mugabe, who sent troops to help his father, Laurent Kabila, fight rebels.

Malawi is seen as neutral. But some 3m people of Malawian origin are in Zimbabwe, mostly farmworkers who have lost their jobs and were sometimes assaulted during farm invasions.

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There have been some suggestions that a government of national unity would be the best way of solving the impasse.
"We think in this situation we have a clear victor," said Ms Frazer, the senior US envoy to Africa.
"Morgan Tsvangirai won and perhaps outright, at which point you don't need a government of national unity. You have to accept the result."
But she said that any results released would not have any credibility and added that: "There may need to be a political solution, a negotiated solution."
This was a suggestion backed by Jacob Zuma, leader of South Africa's ANC.
"The two parties must be made to talk," he told the BBC.
Mr Tsvangirai has been in Mozambique, on the latest leg of his tour of African countries, trying to increase pressure on Mr Mugabe.
He is staying out of Zimbabwe, amid fears for his safety.
Archbishop of York John Sentamu said President Mugabe "is living on borrowed time".
Archbishop Sentamu, who is originally from Uganda, also urged police and soldiers not to be used for political ends - some reports suggest the security forces have led attacks on opposition supporters.
"I am saying to the police officers and the army people... you are not there to prop up a government, you are not there to be used as an arm of repression."
Ship 'recalled'
The opposition said the weapons on board the Chinese ship would be used against its supporters and that 10 had been killed so far.
This was denied by Zanu-PF spokesman Patrick Chinamasa. He said every country had the right to buy weapons.

This man says he was locked in a burning hut by ruling party militants
The US has urged China to recall the ship - the An Yue Jiang, which was not allowed to unload in South Africa - before the cargo could be transported to landlocked Zimbabwe.
The British government has also called for an international arms embargo on Zimbabwe.
Zambia's president urged African countries not to let the arms, which reportedly include three million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds, pass through their territories.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu condemned the US intervention but said she thought the ship would return, as it has not been able to dock.
"To my knowledge, the Chinese company has decided to recall the ship," she said.
However, the shipping company said it could not confirm this.
It had been reported that the ship was headed for Angola, which is a close ally of President Robert Mugabe.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says it cannot release the presidential results until a recount of 23 parliamentary results is completed.
The parliamentary results show that the ruling Zanu-PF party lost its majority for the first time since independence in 1980.
But this could change if the recount reverses the initial results.
So far, two recounts have been finished - both have confirmed the original results.
Much of the reported violence has been in rural areas which Zanu-PF has lost to the MDC in this election. The campaign for the 29 March election was relatively peaceful.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AUSTRIAN POLICE QUIZ 'SEX CAPTOR' !

Elisabeth was kept in a locked cellar with no windows for 24 years.
Austrian police are continuing to question an elderly man who admitted holding his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children.
Police said Josef Fritzl also admitted burning the body of a baby who died at the house in Amstetten, Lower Austria.
Mr Fritzl, 73, remains in custody. His daughter, now 42, and her six surviving children have been taken into care.
A lawyer for the victims said the case showed no sign of institutional failure on behalf of the Austrian authorities.
"Up until now there is no sign that there was any mistake by officials," the lawyer, Christoph Herbst, was quoted as saying by the Austrian Press Agency (APA).

Pictures of Josef Fritzl's house and cellar

"If there had been such a mistake we would obviously have to talk about it."
However, Austrian media are questioning how such grave crimes went undetected for so long.
Lured into cellar
Photos of Mr Fritzl's basement show a concealed network of tiny windowless chambers which were soundproofed.
Prosecutors say Mr Fritzl is expected to be taken into protective custody after appearing before a magistrate.
His daughter, Elisabeth, disappeared aged 18 on 28 August 1984 when, according to her testimony to police, her father lured her into the cellar, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.
She is reported to have been made to write a letter which made it look as if she had run away from Amstetten, a small town about 130km (80 miles) west of Vienna.
The head of the criminal affairs bureau in Lower Austria, Franz Polzer, said Mr Fritzl had admitted sexually abusing his daughter repeatedly during the time he imprisoned her.
Mr Polzer said Mr Fritzl told investigators Elisabeth had given birth to seven children, including twins in 1996, but one died shortly after being born and that he had thrown the body into an incinerator in the building.
The surviving children are now aged between five and 19 years.
The cellar rooms, covering an area of approximately 60 sq m (650 sq ft), were equipped for sleeping and cooking, and with sanitary facilities.

Questions have been asked as to how Mr Fritzl could keep the cellar a secret.
A reinforced concrete door was built into the wall that separated the "dungeon" from the house and electronically locked - the code known only to the suspect, who provided his captives with food and necessities, police said.
Three of the children were kept in the cellar with their mother and had never seen daylight, police told a news conference.
The other three children were adopted or fostered by the suspect, after he forced Elisabeth to write a letter saying she could not look after the baby, according to police.
His wife, Rosemarie, with whom he had seven of their own children, appears to have been unaware of the alleged crimes, police said.

KEY FACTS IN CASE

Elisabeth reappeared at home after disappearing 24 years ago
Six children she says are hers have been found and placed in care
One of the children, aged 19, is seriously ill in hospital
Elisabeth's father Josef Fritzl, 73, has been arrested on suspicion of incest and abduction
Police say Mr Fritzl confesses to imprisoning Elisabeth and fathering her seven children

Profile: Josef Fritzl
In pictures: Abuse scandal
Q&A: Austrian abuse case

The security chief for Lower Austria, Franz Prucher, said he had been down into the cellar where it was easy to understand how the abuse was not discovered.
"The cellar is very deep," he said. "There you can cry and nobody will hear, nobody. There you can cry as loud as you can, you can hear nothing."
The alleged abuse and Mr Fritzl's apparent double life came to light when the eldest of the children in the cellar, 19-year-old Kerstin, became seriously ill earlier this month and had to be taken to hospital.
Kerstin is said to be in a coma in hospital.
The media were told the other children who had been kept in the cellar were in surprising physical health, but very pale.
The BBC's Bethany Bell says the case is reminiscent of that of Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager held captive in a cellar in a house in a Vienna suburb for eight years, who ran to freedom in 2006.
Our correspondent says the people of Amstetten are in a state of shock over the events in their town, compounded by the sudden worldwide media interest.

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BBC NEWS REPORT.

TARIQ AZIZ DUE ON TRIAL IN IRAQ!

Tariq Aziz was the international face of Saddam's government for years.
Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is due on trial over the deaths of a group of merchants in 1992.
Mr Aziz, along with seven other former members of Saddam Hussein's regime, are accused of involvement in the execution of about 40 merchants in Baghdad.
The merchants were accused of hiking food prices at a time when Iraq was under international sanctions. They were executed after a speedy trial.
Mr Aziz's son, Ziad, has said that his father is innocent.

Profile: Tariq Aziz
Send us your comments

"My father told me personally that he had nothing to do with this case. At the time, my father was on an official assignment outside of Iraq," Ziad Aziz told the AFP news agency.
"None of the families of these merchants filed suits against my father," he said.
The trial will be conducted by the Iraqi High Tribunal which was set up to try former members of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Saddam Hussein himself was executed in December 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity, over the killing of 148 Shia men and boys after a 1982 assassination attempt against him.
Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, an Iraqi Kurd, will preside at the trial. He is the same judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RACISM ALIVE IN SOUTH AFRICA!

The BBC's Mohammed Allie in Cape Town looks at whether racism is still thriving in South Africa, 14 years after the end of apartheid, as President Thabo Mbeki suggested in a speech to mark Freedom Day.

Earlier this month, the owner of a South African tourist resort refused to allow a film crew to shoot on his property because of a "whites only" policy.
This came shortly after a racist video made by students at the Free State University and the alleged killing of four black people in an informal settlement by an 18 year old white man.
All of this seems to show that racism is still alive and well in South Africa.
Albertus Pretorious, who owns the Broedestroom Vakansie-Oord resort in North West Province, stood by his whites-only admission policy.
His action comes despite being fined R10 000 ($1,500) and ordered to change his policy three years ago by the Human Rights Commission.
He was fined then for evicting a white family who had brought two black children along with them to the resort.
The producers of Mr Bones 2, a sequel to South Africa's highest grossing movie, have since decided to move the location of their film shoot away from the venue, because of the owner's unrepentant attitude.
Mr Pretorious was defiant when a local newspaper enquired whether the whites-only policy was still in operation.
"Yes, it is," he answered, "I don't allow black people onto my property. I don't trust them and it's my own property, so I can decide myself who I allow."

When South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994 to officially mark the passing of the Apartheid era, many felt it also spelt the beginning of the end of discrimination in a country where classification by skin colour was still crucial to determining an individual's future.
Jody Kollapen, Chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission, describes South Africa's transition to democracy as "amazing" but says the reconciliation part of the process was emphasised at the expense of transformation.
Kollapen believes while the Truth and Reconciliation Commission exposed the excesses of Apartheid, very little was asked of whites during the reconciliation and transformation processes.
Christi van der Westhuizen, author of "White Power and the Rise and Fall of the National Party," agrees that a refusal by whites to acknowledge the impact of Apartheid on black South Africans is largely responsible for the current racial tensions.
"White denial is for me the real problem because they refuse to acknowledge the effect of Apartheid and colonialism in denying black people opportunities," she says.
"Whites should look at how to use their resources and skills so they can address the imbalances of the past."
Van der Westhuizen says government policies like affirmative action and black economic empowerment (BEE), which she believes are necessary to redress the years of oppression of blacks, have further hardened white attitudes.
"You must bear in mind that white identity post-1994 has also taken on some notion of victimhood, because they feel they suffer under BEE and affirmative action.

"There is a definite resentment among some members of the white community about having lost power. The Free State video and the shooting incident are just extreme manifestations of a continuing problem in our country," says van der Westhuizen.
Khanya Gwaza, a black first year student at the University of Cape Town believes racism is not a problem at the institution.
"We get along perfectly across the racial lines," he says, "one of my best mates is a white person so we do not really see colour as an issue."
But Simeon Linstein, a second year student, says he sees incidents of racism almost every day.
"I know for example that some white students mock black lecturers for their accent - they presume everyone should speak the way they do."
The apparent recent increase of incidents of racism is of huge concern to the Rainbow Nation.
But given that racial discrimination started in South Africa with the arrival of the first Dutch settlers in 1652, it is unrealistic to expect it to disappear just 14 years into the new democratic dawn.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHOCOLATE 'MAY CUT DIABETES RISK' !

The key ingredient is flavonoids.
Scientists are to investigate whether eating chocolate can reduce the risk of heart disease in women with diabetes.
Volunteers - postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes - will be asked to eat a bar of chocolate a day for a year.
Cocoa is rich in compounds called flavonoids, which are thought to benefit the heart.
The University of East Anglia is using a specially formulated form of chocolate which contains more flavonoids than usual.
This compensates for the fact that many flavonoids are destroyed in the process of turning cocoa into chocolate.
Soy - another source of flavonoids - has also been added to the special bars.
The scientists are testing the theory that adding flavonoids to the diet may give added protection against heart disease on top of that provided by prescription drugs.
Deaths due to heart disease among women increase rapidly after the menopause and having type 2 diabetes increases this risk by a further three-and-a-half times.
If the trial confirms the hypothesis then it could have a far-reaching impact on the advice given to at-risk women.

Lead researcher Professor Aedin Cassidy said: "Despite postmenopausal women being at a similar risk to men for developing cardiovascular disease, to date they are under-represented in clinical trials.
"We hope to show that adding flavonoids to their diets will provide additional protection from heart disease and give women the opportunity to take more control over reducing their risk of heart disease in the future."
The researchers aim to recruit 150 women under the age of 70 with type 2 diabetes who have not had a period for at least a year, and who have been taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs for at least 12 months.
Dr Iain Frame, director of research at the charity Diabetes UK, said: "We certainly don't advise people to start eating a lot of chocolate as it is very high in sugar and fat.
"We would always recommend that people with diabetes eat a diet low in fat, salt and sugar with plenty of fruit and vegetables."
"However, there are compounds found in chocolate, called flavonoids, that are thought to provide some protection from heart disease.
"A successful outcome of this research would hopefully mean being able to offer people at high risk better protection over and above that provided by conventional drugs."

For details of the trial contact Andrea Brown or Dr Peter Curtis at FLAVO@uea.ac.uk.
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BBC NEWS REPORT..

ZIMBABWE PARTIES TO CHECK RESULTS !

Representatives of Zimbabwe's presidential candidates are set to meet the electoral commission to review the results of the disputed election.
Officials say the results, which have still not been published more than four weeks after the vote, will be announced once they agree on the final figures.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said he beat President Robert Mugabe outright.
The MDC says 15 of its supporters have been killed in post-election violence.
About 200 of its supporters were arrested during a police raid in Harare on Friday.

On Sunday, a senior UN official urged both to renounce the use of violence.
Human rights commissioner Louise Arbour said she was very concerned by reports of political violence and intimidation in the aftermath of last month's elections, particularly by rural supporters of the governing Zanu-PF party.

The top US envoy to Africa, Jendayi Frazer, has said Washington is willing to seek UN sanctions against Zimbabwe if the post-election crisis continued.
Ms Frazer also urged African leaders to speak "very loudly" against the political violence which opposition and human rights groups have accused the government of instigating.
She said the US embassy had received documented evidence of more than 450 beatings, one death and about 1,000 people who had been displaced.
Ms Frazer's comments came a day after the electoral commission announced Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF had failed to regain its parliamentary majority after a partial recount of votes.
The results were unchanged in 18 of 23 seats where recounts had taken place, it said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"A LOVING HEART IS THE TRUEST WISDOM" !

______

AUSTRIAN 'HID DAUGHTER IN CELLAR' !

A 73-year-old Austrian is under arrest on suspicion of hiding his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children with her, police say.
The existence of the woman, believed missing since 1984 and now 42, emerged after a teenage child fell ill and had to be taken to hospital.
Both the woman and teenage girl are receiving medical treatment and the other children are in care.
A police investigation in Amstetten, Lower Austria Province, is continuing.
The suspect, named only as Josef F, was arrested on suspicion of incest and keeping his daughter in captivity. He has not responded to the charges against him, police say.
One of the children the man allegedly fathered died in infancy, police believe.
Three children, including the 19-year-old, were allegedly kept in the cellar with their mother while the other three reportedly grew up with their grandparents.
DNA tests will be taken to establish whether Josef F was indeed their father.
The alleged crimes came to light after the teenager, named as Kerstin F, was dropped off at the Amstetten hospital last weekend.

Police are searching the house.
Finding Kerstin seriously ill, doctors appealed for her mother, who at that time was assumed to be missing, to come forward to provide more details about her medical history.
Josef F allegedly then released the mother and two other children from the cellar, telling his wife Rosemarie that she had chosen to return home, police say.
It was not immediately clear how police were alerted.
The mother, named as Elisabeth F, has been receiving medical and psychological treatment since being discovered.
She appeared "greatly disturbed" psychologically during questioning and agreed to talk only after authorities assured her that she would no longer have to have contact with her father, and that her children would be taken care of, police added.
The six children are three boys and three girls aged between five and 20.
Police spokesman Franz Polzer told reporters they had been taken to a safe location.
"They are all in psychological care in a secure institution in a clinic here in this area," he said.
"They are being cared for individually - those between 12 and 16 years of age who grew up with their grandparents, and two boys who, when they came out yesterday with their mother, saw the daylight for the first time in their lives."
The police issued a statement giving details of the alleged abuses Elisabeth recounted to them.
She said she had been sexually abused by her father since the age of 11.

Josef allegedly lured her into the cellar of their house in Amstetten on 28 August 1984, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.
It was assumed she had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her asking them not to search for her.
"Abused continuously during the 24-year-long imprisonment", Elisabeth bore six children while a seventh, one of a set of twins, died soon after birth.
The dead baby was allegedly taken out of the cellar and burnt by Josef.
Elisabeth said Josef had provided her and three of her children, who were locked up along with her, with clothing and food.
His wife Rosemarie had allegedly not been aware of what was going on.
The discovery of another Austrian woman, who was held captive in a cellar by an abductor for more than eight years, gripped the country in 2006.
Natascha Kampusch finally escaped from her kidnapper, 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself shortly afterwards.
Ms Kampusch was abducted at the age of 10 in 1998 and held in a small, windowless cellar beneath Priklopil's garage in the commuter town of Strasshof, 25km (15 miles) outside Vienna.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Hold on. Do not be afraid. Change is coming. !

Saturday 27th April 2008,

Dear Family and Friends,

I am sitting in the shade of a big old Msasa tree writing this letter by hand because yet again the electricity is off. It is a magnificent day so typical of early winter in Zimbabwe: a wide blue sky, comforting warm sun and a refreshing gentle breeze. It's hard to concentrate on telling this tragic story of events here when so many jewels are on display just a few feet away: a blue headed lizard nodding on a lichen covered branch; lines of red soil left by white ants climbing ever higher into the tree; bright orange crane flowers and an exquisite red firefinch collecting feathers and fluff for his nest. Its a deceptive paradise where violence rages just out of sight and final election results have still not been released four weeks after people voted. Its a paradise which can only momentarily take our minds off the nightmare that has become Zimbabwe.

What a disgraceful insult these 2008 elections have become to the people of Zimbabwe who have suffered so much, lost so much and yet have remained peaceful and turned the other cheek despite the most extreme provocation and deprivation. As we stand now without a parliament, with no sworn in MP's and still not knowing who the newly elected President of Zimbabwe is, we find ourselves stuck in a frightening and barbaric No Man's Land.

Every day the reports of horror continue to emerge. Youngsters in uniform going door to door in villages at night; men with guns; beatings, house burnings and torture. People having burning, molten plastic dripped onto their backs and doctors treating patients who have been whipped with bicycle chains. The MDC reports that 10 of their supporters have been murdered, 3000 displaced from their homes and 500 hospitalized since the elections. Listed amongst the people murdered is a five year old boy, Brighton Mbwera from Manyika Village. This little boy, too young to read or write and a complete innocent in this month of hell, burnt to death in a house set on fire during the rampage of political vengeance that is tearing our country apart.

As each day has passed since the elections, Zimbabwe has drawn quieter and quieter - silenced by fear. No one knows who to trust, who they can talk to or who might be listening. One man described how he and his family eat a small plate of sadza at dusk and then go indoors and sit in silence in the dark just listening to the noises in the village. The slightest change, an unfamiliar sound, the alarming of a night bird, an unknown voice and the family immediately get outside and hide in the bush. People are living in constant fear of burnings and beatings and are ready, always, to take flight at a moments notice. This week even our own church leaders warned of genocide being a real possibility if these events are not stopped immediately.

While the voices of Zimbabweans have been silenced, the calls from outside continue to rise and for this we are deeply grateful. Ordinary men and women in South Africa, civic society leaders, churches, political leaders - a great roar of disapproval over events in Zimbabwe is reaching a crescendo. Most touching in the last few days was the voice of the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, speaking on BBC radio. Asked if he had a message for the ordinary people of Zimbabwe, Archbishop Sentamu said: "Hold on. Do Not be afraid. Change is coming."

Until next week, thanks for reading,

love cathy.

PLAYBOY CUSHION ROBBERY IN FRANCE !

A goods train in southern France has been attacked by robbers who made off with cushions bearing the Playboy logo.
The attack happened in the northern suburbs of Marseille, the regional newspaper La Provence reports.
It says the thieves blocked the track with sleepers, causing the 700m (760-yard) train to screech to a halt, and forced open a number of containers.
Apart from the Playboy cushions, police said it was not clear what else was taken. The train driver was not harmed.
The car used in the robbery was later found burnt.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MEXICO DRUG GANG CLASHES KILL 15 !

Gun battles between rival factions of a Mexican drugs cartel have left at least 15 people dead in the city of Tijuana, near the border with the US.
Police said all the dead were from the Arellano Felix cartel, which has come under pressure from a rival gang.
Two were wearing police uniforms or equipment, but are thought to have been gang members, police say.
Drug-related violence is a serious issue across Mexico. Nearly 200 people have been killed in Tijuana this year.
Investigators believe two of the dead were senior hitmen for the Arellano Felix cartel and were identified by large gold rings on their fingers.
'Saint Death'
The rings carried the icon of Saint Death, a grim reaper figure that gangsters believe protects them, police said.
Since taking office in late 2006, President Felipe Calderon has sent some 25,000 soldiers and federal police to fight the drugs cartels.
But the violence continues between drug gangs fighting to control lucrative trafficking routes.
The Arellano Felix cartel rose to prominence in Tijuana in the 1980s. Much of its activities centre on smuggling Colombian cocaine through Mexico to California.
It paid millions of dollars in bribes to local law enforcement officers and was blamed for increasing violence, including the murder of informants and rival traffickers.
The gang has been weakened by the arrest or killing of many of its top leaders, police say.
It has recently come under pressure from a rival gang from the west coast state of Sinaloa, led by Mexico's most wanted criminal, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BUSH POKES FUN AT HIS SUCCESSORS !

Mr Bush made a few jokes before conducting the US Marine band.
US President George W Bush poked fun at his potential successors during his last White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
The president said he was surprised they were not in the audience before making jokes at their expense.
Referring to Republican candidate John McCain's absence, he said: "He probably wanted to distance himself from me."
The annual dinner dates back to 1924 and is attended by media personalities, celebrities and politicians.
President Bush also put forward mock excuses on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Taking a jibe at controversies which have dogged their campaigns, he said: "Hillary Clinton couldn't get in because of sniper fire and Senator Obama's at church."
He was referring to Mrs Clinton's "mis-speak" when she erroneously claimed she faced sniper fire on a trip to Bosnia in the 1990s; and Mr Obama's pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who criticised America in fiery sermons.
The president admitted to being a "little wistful" at his final dinner, and video clips of his previous performances were broadcast.
He finished by conducting the US Marine band in a medley of patriotic marches.

Mr Bush was followed by Craig Ferguson, host of US television's the Late Late Show.
Scottish-born Mr Ferguson asked Mr Bush what he was planning to do after leaving office, suggesting: "You could look for a job with more vacation time."
The president has been criticised for the amount of time he has spent away from the White House during his presidency.
Vice-President Dick Cheney, Mr Ferguson said, "is already moving out of his residence. It takes longer than you think to pack up an entire dungeon".
The White House Correspondents' Association presented its annual awards during the dinner on Saturday in front of a crowd of VIPs, including author Salman Rushdie, singer Ashlee Simpson and actors Ben Affleck and Pamela Anderson.
Mr Bush's appearance at the event continues a tradition begun by US President Calvin Coolidge in 1924.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BROWN DEMANDS OUTCRY ON ZIMBABWE!

Mr Brown backed a moratorium on the supply of arms to Zimbabwe.
The prime minister has called on the international community to speak up against the "climate of fear" in Zimbabwe following disputed elections.
Gordon Brown condemned attacks against opposition activists and said he would press for a UN investigation into violence and human rights abuses.
Mr Brown spoke as Zimbabwe's electoral commission released more results from the recount of the parliamentary poll.
They confirmed seven seats had been retained by opposition parties.
In a statement, Mr Brown said the coming days would be "critical" to resolving the situation in Zimbabwe.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says its activists have been abducted, tortured and assaulted around the country - and at least 10 killed - since the elections.
But the police and governing Zanu-PF party deny that anyone has died in political violence.
Mr Brown said: "I am concerned by the worsening violence in Zimbabwe and the arrest of over 200 opposition figures.
"I condemn the violence against those who voted for change. Their voices must be heard.

Morgan Tsvangirai says his party won the election outright.
"The whole international community must speak up against the climate of fear in Zimbabwe."
The prime minister said he would use a United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday to press for a dedicated mission to investigate the treatment of President Robert Mugabe's opponents.

Mr Brown said Britain was backing a moratorium on the supply of arms to Zimbabwe until a democratic government is in place.
And, if a fresh vote was to be held, he vowed that the international community would insist on international monitors being present.
The MDC says its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the election outright, but Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF says there is likely to be a run-off as no candidate gained more than 50% of the vote.
Mr Brown said. "We, and others, stand ready to help rebuild Zimbabwe once democracy returns. I pledge that Britain will be in the vanguard of this effort."
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have written to Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell calling for Mr Mugabe to be stripped of the honorary knighthood he was given in 1994.
Foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: "We must revoke this honour, not only for the integrity of our own honours system, but also to send the message that the British people will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Zimbabwean people."
A cross-party group of 19 MPs have also signed a Commons motion calling for the removal of the knighthood.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ANGOLA ALLOWS ARMS SHIP TO DOCK !

Reports say the ship is carrying millions of rounds of ammunition.
Angola's government has authorised a Chinese ship carrying arms destined for Zimbabwe to dock, although it says it will not be allowed to unload weapons.
In a statement, the government said the vessel would only be allowed to deliver goods intended for Angola.
On Thursday, the Chinese authorities said they would recall the ship to China after port workers in South Africa refused to unload the weapons.
Other southern African countries had also refused to allow the ship to dock.
Leaders in the region had expressed concern that the weapons could heighten tensions in Zimbabwe.
The results of presidential elections held there nearly a month ago have still not been released.
The state news agency, Angop, said the ship, the An Yue Jiang, had been authorised to dock in the capital Luanda.

But it can only unload "merchandise destined for Angola", a government statement said.
Angola is a close ally of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
On Thursday, a Chinese foreign ministry official said the ship, which reportedly contains three million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds, might return to China.
The US had urged China to recall the An Yue Jiang, while the UK called for an international arms embargo on Zimbabwe.
Zambia's president urged African countries not to let the arms in.
But Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper condemned the country's neighbours as "myopic stooges" for refusing to let the cargo dock.
"Zimbabwe is... under attack from the former coloniser and its allies. As such, Zimbabwe probably needs to arm itself more than any other country in Africa today," the paper said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INDIA WARNS CRICKET CHEERLEADERS !

Indian police say the organisers of the new tournament transforming world cricket could be fined if cheerleaders are deemed to be dressed indecently.
The cheerleaders have been introduced into the Indian Premier League as part of moves to add glamour and entertainment to the game.
Some politicians say the cheerleaders are "vulgar and obscene".
Mumbai police say they will be checking that the cheerleaders' performances do not violate entertainment licences.
The cheerleading girls, wearing short skirts and low-cut tops, have been hired from around the world to perform during the matches which are also being heavily endorsed by leading Bollywood stars.
They include cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins.
Ram Rao Vagh, the police commissioner for New Mumbai, a suburb of Mumbai, where the home team is hosting five matches starting on Sunday, told the BBC that they were not considering any action against the cheerleaders themselves.

What's wrong with cheerleaders? I am also a family person, I do not see anything negative in it
Shah Rukh Khan
"It is difficult to enforce moral policing, we cannot define vulgarity always. It is difficult to ascertain what is vulgar and obscene," Mr Vagh said.
But he said the organisers could be fined for violating the norms of the entertainment licence they had secured for allowing performances in the stadium.
Senior officers would decide whether the cheerleaders had crossed the "lines of decency".
A spokesman for the local team, the Mumbai Indians, said they were not worried.
"Our cheerleaders are properly dressed. They are within limits of what our culture permits. So we have no problems," Javed Akhtar told the BBC.
However, the junior interior minister of western Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, said the performances of cheerleading girls at the Indian Premier League matches were "absolutely obscene".

Cheerleaders have complained of sections of the crowd jeering at them Pic: Sandipan Chatterjee/Indian Express
"We live in India where womanhood is worshipped. How can anything obscene like this be allowed?," Siddharam Mehetre told the Press Trust of India news agency.
"This thing is meant for foreigners and not for us. Mothers and daughters watch these matches on television. It does not look nice."
Many others find the indignation misplaced, coming from a city, which is home to a thriving industry of Bollywood films where dance sequences featuring women in skimpy dresses are routine.
Bollywood actor, Shah Rukh Khan, who also owns one of the teams in the competition, is one of them.
"What's wrong with cheerleaders? I am also a family person, I do not see anything negative in it," he said.
The head of India's National Commission for Women said there was nothing wrong with the cheerleaders if it "just for adding entertainment to the game".
"It has to be presented in the right manner keeping Indian values intact," said Girija Vyas.
A former Bollywood actor and a politician belonging to the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shatrughan Sinha said the cheerleaders were making a "mockery" of the game.
There have been reports in the Indian newspapers of cheerleaders complaining of sections of the crowd jeering at them and making lewd comments.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BEIJING 'TO TALK TO DALAI AIDES' !

Global leaders have put pressure on China over Tibet.

Chinese officials will hold talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives, state media say, in the first meeting since rioting broke out in Tibet last month.
Xinhua news agency quoted an official as saying a meeting would take place "in coming days".
A spokesman for the Tibetan spiritual leader welcomed the offer of talks.
Beijing has consistently blamed what it termed a "Dalai clique" for fomenting unrest in Tibetan areas of China - an allegation he has strenuously denied.
The Dalai Lama insists he has no political role and played no part in the protests.
Olympics demand
Xinhua quoted an unnamed official as saying the government had taken into account "requests repeatedly made by the Dalai side for resuming talks".
"The relevant department of the central government will have contact and consultation with Dalai's private representative in the coming days," the official said.

Pro-Tibet protests blight the Olympic torch relay.
But the official added that the Dalai Lama would need to "take credible moves to stop activities aimed at splitting China".
This included putting a stop to "plotting and inciting violence and stop disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games so as to create conditions for talks".
The Dalai Lama's spokesman, Tenzin Takla, told the BBC he had received no official notification from the Chinese government of its desire to meet.
China has held talks with the Dali Lama's representatives before, though meetings have rarely resulted in any progress.
According to Mr Takla, the last round was held in June and July last year in Beijing.
He added that the Dalai Lama had been "making efforts to reach out to the Chinese people and the Chinese leadership" since last month's protests.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country has been targeted by nationalist Chinese protesters angered by pro-Tibet rallies in Paris, welcomed the prospect of talks.

TIBET DIVIDE
China says Tibet was always part of its territory
Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before 20th century
1950: China launched a military assault
Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959
Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India

Q&A: Tibet and China
Key events in Tibet unrest

"The resumption of dialogue carries some real hope," he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the US embassy in Beijing hailed the announcement as a "very positive development".
And EU commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso, who earlier discussed Tibet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, said he was "very happy".
"If the concern of the Dalai Lama is... respect of cultural identity, religious identity and autonomy inside China, I believe there's real room for a dialogue," he said.
Rallies began in the main Tibetan city of Lhasa on 10 March, led by Buddhist monks.
Over the following week protests spread and became violent - particularly in Lhasa where ethnic Chinese were targeted and shops were burnt down.
Beijing cracked down on the protesters with force, sending in hundreds of troops to regain control of the restive areas.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE OPPOSITION RETAINS GAINS !

Mr Tsvangirai says he won presidential and parliamentary polls.
Zimbabwe's electoral commission has released seven more results from a partial recount of last month's parliamentary elections.
None of the original results were overturned, making it difficult for the ruling Zanu-PF party to overturn an opposition majority in the lower house.
Ten remain to be declared - all in opposition-held seats - and Zanu-PF now needs to win nine to regain control.
Results have still not been released from the parallel presidential poll.
The failure to do so, four weeks on from the vote, is causing mounting concern internationally.
US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said the level of government intimidation in Zimbabwe was now so high that a fair run-off would not be possible.
She said the only solution was a inclusive government, led by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Recount unfinished
The state-run Zimbabwe Herald newspaper said Zanu-PF had retained two seats and the opposition MDC four seats, while a breakaway MDC group held the seventh.
Another six have already been declared, but in 10 the recount is still unfinished a week after it was announced.

The police say they were looking for those behind political violence
The BBC's Peter Biles, in Johannesburg, says there is still no word on the presidential election, although it is possible results will be released when the parliamentary recount ends.
The MDC says its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the election outright, while independent monitors say he fell just short of the 50% threshold to avoid a run-off.
Zanu-PF also says there is likely to be a run-off, as no candidate gained more than 50% of the vote.
The results come a day after the MDC's main Harare office and the headquarters of an independent monitoring network were raided by police.
Computers and documents were seized, and more than 100 opposition activists taking refuge from the authorities at the MDC offices were arrested.
The MDC says its activists have been attacked around the country - with at least 10 killed - since the elections.
But the police and Zanu-PF say that no-one has died in political violence.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has fled Zimbabwe, fearing for his safety and is touring African countries, trying to persuade them to press President Robert Mugabe to step down.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NEW FIGHTING STOPS DR CONGO AID !

Renewed fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has forced the United Nations refugee agency to suspend aid to displaced people.
The UNHCR said hundreds more people have fled their homes because of the latest clashes in North Kivu province.
A week of clashes between the army and fighters from the FDLR of Rwandan Hutu rebels has killed 20 people after three months of relative calm, the UN says.
The army says it is planning a major offensive against the FDLR.
The UNHCR says violence in Kivu has now displaced almost 900,000 people.
The BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in Kinshasa says FDLR fighters attacked a camp where 1,500 people were sheltering on Thursday, forcing them to scatter.
They had earlier briefly abducted three policemen guarding the camp.

EASTERN CONGO ARMED GROUPS

The army
FDLR - Rwandan Hutus
CNDP - Gen Nkunda's

UNHCR officials said most of the displaced people are women and children who are sheltering in public buildings.

Some said their homes had been destroyed and their possessions looted, while some parents said they had lost touch with their children.
The FDLR includes some of those Hutus involved in the 1994 genocide, who fled to DR Congo after Tutsis took power in Rwanda.
Rwanda has long demanded that the FDLR be disarmed, saying they are the cause of the instability in the region.
The displacement in the Rutshuru area, some 70km north of the provincial capital, Goma, comes three months after the signing of an accord in Goma between the government and a different armed group, led by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda.
Gen Nkunda had also demanded that the FDLR be disarmed - he took up arms, saying he was protecting Congolese Tutsis from Hutu attacks.
A peace agreement in 2003 formally brought years of war to a close, but fighting flared up again in North Kivu that same year.
The UNHCR says there are about 1.3 m displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while 350,000 Congolese have fled to other countries.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"WE WILL ONLY UNDERSTAND

THE MIRACLE OF LIFE

FULLY

WHEN WE ALLOW THE UNEXPECTED TO HAPPEN" !

_______

FACEBOOK TO TRACK DARFUR SUSPECTS !

A group hunting war crime suspects has turned to the social networking site Facebook to try to find two Sudanese men sought for crimes in Darfur.
The War Crimes Watch List is asking Facebook users to report sightings of Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman.
The International Criminal Court indicted both men a year ago on 51 counts of crimes against humanity.
The group has also used Google Earth to pinpoint their last known whereabouts.
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman is also known as Ali Kushayb, while Mr Haroun is Sudan's Humanitarian Affairs Minister and was previously minister in charge of Darfur.
The ICC says he helped organise the Janjaweed militia accused of widespread atrocities against the region's black African population.
Mr Haroun says he "did not feel guilty".

The conflict in Darfur has led to a humanitarian crisis.
Sudan's government has denied charges it armed the Janjaweed.
The two men are on the only indictments issued by the ICC in relation to the estimated 200,000 deaths that have occurred in Darfur over the past five years.
The conflict has also led to more than 2.5 million people being displaced from their homes.
"It's a new way to send an old message," said Nick Donovan of the Aegis Trust, the organisation behind the "Wanted for War Crimes" list.
"Wanted posters can only be seen by a few hundred people at most - the internet is used by billions."
The Sudanese government has rejected the international court's jurisdiction.
James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, said: "Someone, somewhere, knows where they are. They shouldn't be allowed to live out their last days in luxury. Their future lies in a courtroom. That's what their victims deserve."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE POLICE IN ELECTION RAIDS !

The police say they were looking for those behind political violence.
Riot police in Zimbabwe have carried out raids on headquarters of independent poll monitors and the opposition MDC in the capital, Harare.
Witnesses say vote-counting material was taken from the MDC office and activists hiding there were arrested.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network chairman told the BBC that documents and computers had been seized.
The observer group says MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai gained the most votes in last month's presidential election.
Officials results have not yet been released.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says Mr Tsvangirai won the election outright, while the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) says he fell just short of the 50% threshold to avoid a run-off.
The ruling Zanu-PF party also says there is likely to be a run-off, as no candidate gained more than 50% of the vote.
'They took everyone'
Witnesses at the MDC raid said at least 100 opposition supporters who had been taking refuge from the authorities in its Harvest House headquarters had been arrested.
Computers and documents were also seized, they said.
They are trying to destroy evidence of their brutality.
Nelson Chamisa, MDCMDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the activists had fled political violence.
"They took everyone in the building, including those who had come just to seek medical care. They are trying to destroy evidence of their brutality," Mr Chamisa said.
But police said the aim of the raid was to find those responsible for arson attacks east of Harare.
Spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said police were screening those detained and anyone who had not committed any crimes would be freed.
ZESN chairman Noel Kututwa told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that the police had a search warrant to look for "subversive information likely to overthrow a constitutionally elected government".
He said that no-one had been arrested but the body's programme manager had been asked to go the police station to explain the role of the network.
ZESN was the largest observer group at the 29 March election and is considered the only reliable source of information about the polls, correspondents say.
'Myopic stooges'
The MDC says its activists have been attacked around the country - with at least 10 killed - since the elections.
Many have fled to Harare and other towns, seeking medical treatment.

ZIMBABWE'S NEIGHBOURS

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has been under fire over March's disputed elections. His neighbours have been supportive but regional differences are now emerging.

South Africa's President Mbeki is the key Zimbabwe mediator. He has refused to criticise Robert Mugabe but the ruling ANC, and trade unions have urged him to take a stronger line.

Zambian President Mwanawasa has taken the region's strongest line on Zimbabwe. His call for Africa not to let a ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe dock will outrage President Mugabe.

Angola's government has close ties to Zimbabwe's ruling party - both came to power after fighting colonial rule in the 1970s.

Botswana is not seen as an ally of Robert Mugabe. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai fled here after polls.

Namibia is a close ally of Zimbabwe - it too is planning to redistribute white-owned farms to black villagers.

Mozambique has hosted some white farmers forced from Zimbabwe and is seen as relatively sympathetic to Zimbabwe's opposition.

Tanzania's ruling party has a long history of close ties to Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and is unlikely to criticise him.

DR Congo's President Joseph Kabila is an ally of Robert Mugabe, who sent troops to help his father, Laurent Kabila, fight rebels.

Malawi is seen as neutral. But some 3m people of Malawian origin are in Zimbabwe, mostly farmworkers who have lost their jobs and were sometimes assaulted during farm invasions.
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But the police and Zanu-PF say that no-one has died in political violence.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has fled Zimbabwe, fearing for his safety and is touring African countries, trying to persuade them to press President Robert Mugabe to step down.
The electoral commission says it cannot release the presidential results until it completes a recount in 23 of the 210 constituencies.
Three recounts of the parliamentary results have been completed - all confirmed the original results.
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party lost control of parliament for the first time since independence in 1980.
But if many of the results are overturned in the recount, this could change.
Meanwhile, the Herald newspaper has condemned Zimbabwe's neighbours as "myopic stooges" for refusing to let a cargo of Chinese weapons cross their territory to landlocked Zimbabwe.
"Zimbabwe is... under attack from the former coloniser and its allies. As such, Zimbabwe probably needs to arm itself more than any other country in Africa today for the simple reason that it has been targeted for destabilisation by the traditional Western rabble rousers," the Herald said.
China's foreign ministry says the ship will now return as it cannot deliver its cargo to Zimbabwe.
But the state-owned shipping company has not confirmed this.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SARKOZY TRIES TO ASSERT AUTHORITY !

By Alasdair Sandford - BBC News, Paris.

The president admitted several times that he had made errors.
Nicolas Sarkozy's television appearance was a major chance for him to reassert his authority and to assure the French people that the government's reforms were on the right track.
It was billed less as a presidential address to the nation, than as a disgraced pupil being dragged before the rest of the school to explain his misdemeanours - and challenged as to how he intended to perform better in the future.
By the end, he had not exactly turned the tables and become head teacher, but there were moments when he made the most of his naturally combative style.
At times it was like a flashback to his victorious election campaign as he battered out his favourite themes - France does not work hard enough; the country has been living beyond its means; responsibilities as well as rights; immigration has to be controlled.
The problem was, people were looking for more than a definition of what has been wrong - this time they were looking for proof that it was being put right.
After the president's first year in office, they have been far from convinced.
He admitted - more than once - that he had made errors.

The jet set image of the president and his wife has grated with the French
He was not asked whether this included the saga of his divorce, and marriage to Carla Bruni, played out before the cameras at a time when most French people were more preoccupied with trying to make ends meet.
Indeed, the delicate question of the president's private life only came up at the end of the interview, after an hour and a half.
In recent months, the "bling-bling president" has shed his Rolex watches and jewellery since it became clear that the jet set image grated somewhat with ordinary French people.
Even so, one poll this past week suggested a majority still disapproved of Mr Sarkozy's personal style.
Manual workers and elderly people in particular have swung against him.
Above all the president was under pressure to deliver concrete answers on the number one problem cited by French people - the high cost of living.
Rising prices have been turning more and more people away from supermarkets and into discount stores.
Mr Sarkozy came to power vowing to become the "president of people's buying power", to go in search of economic growth "with his teeth", to enable people to "work more to earn more".
"Together everything is possible", ran his election slogan.
By the New Year the magician had surrendered his wand.
"What do you expect of me?" he demanded of a television interviewer. "That I empty the till when the till's already empty?"
This time he was careful not to appear powerless.
Extra hours
Mr Sarkozy gave a staunch defence of one of his flagship reforms - tax breaks on overtime to put more money in people's pockets.

Some economic reforms have been met with demonstrations
Five million workers, he said, were now able to benefit from putting in extra hours.
More competition would reduce prices, and other measures were aimed at reducing the poverty gap and getting more people into jobs, he said.
Naturally he highlighted the difficult international context, with the soaring cost of petrol, the subprime crisis, and the unfavourable exchange rate between the euro and the dollar.
Domestically, too, all problems could not be laid at Mr Sarkozy's door.
France, he said, had not balanced its books since 1974. He could not put everything right in a few months!
The television interviews given by Mr Sarkozy's predecessor Jacques Chirac were more placid, deferential affairs.
The head of state would rarely be interrupted as he poured forth his wisdom.
This time, the setting for the interview was like a metaphor for the Sarkozy presidency so far - a glitzy TV studio transplanted into the splendour of the Elysee.
Also, the questioning from five journalists provided just the right environment for a politician who needs a sparring partner to be at his best.
'Omnipresent president'
One of Mr Sarkozy's problems during his first year has been that he became so personally entwined with each reform.
The "omnipresent president" would bound around the country to sell his message as if he was still on the campaign trail.
One morning he flew to Brittany to defuse a fishermen's dispute.
Mission accomplished - apart from a brief verbal brawl with a heckler. He was off in the afternoon to Washington.
As if to add to a sense of incoherence, another word has entered the political vocabulary to describe the government's performance - "couacs", or "false notes".
In-fighting and u-turns have become commonplace.
"Stupidity", "a cacophony", and "a mess" were just three of the comments - and they came from the government's own MPs.
"Everything is back in order", said Mr Sarkozy as the interview drew to a close. He was referring to his private life.
The French people may still need some convincing that the same applies to his presidency.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.S. NEW HOME SALES AT 15YEAR-LOW !

House prices are slumping after a five year boom.
Sales of new homes in the US fell more than expected in March to their lowest level since late-1991.
Sales fell 8.5% from February to a seasonally adjusted 526,000 homes, according to the Commerce Department.
The median price of a home was down 13.3% from March 2007, which is the biggest fall since July 1970.
Sales were down in all regions of the country, with the biggest falls coming in the north-east of the country, where sales declined by 19.4%.
In other economic news, the Commerce Department said that orders for manufactured items such as fridges and washing machines from US factories fell 0.3% in March.
It means that so-called durable goods orders have fallen for three months in a row, which has not happened since 2001.
But there was some better news, with the Labor Department announcing that the number of newly laid-off workers claiming unemployment benefit fell 33,000 last week to 342,000.
The figure had been expected to rise.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

N.KOREA 'LINKED TO SYRIA REACTOR' !

Officials say the site was the target of an Israeli attack last year.
North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear reactor, US officials are to tell lawmakers in a closed session.
Unnamed officials told a number of US newspapers that the US had video footage of the Syrian facility with North Koreans inside.
Syria has repeated denials that it has any nuclear weapons programme, or any such agreement with North Korea.
The claims follows an unexplained air strike by Israel last September on a target inside Syria.
According to the Washington Post, the alleged nuclear facility was the target of the bombing.
Also on Thursday, US and North Korean officials said progress was made towards resolving an impasse over Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament deal.

The video footage - said to have been obtained by Israel - also showed striking similarities between the Syrian facility and the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, reports said.
However, the facility was not yet operational and there was no fuel for the reactor, officials said.
The White House has not commented on the reports, but Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said information on the issue could be made public "soon".
There was no Syria-North Korea co-operation whatsoever in Syria - Bashar Jaafari Syrian ambassador to UN.

Syria 'has some explaining to do'

Syria's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, denied the links.
"There was no Syria-North Korea co-operation whatsoever in Syria. We deny these rumours," he said.
North Korea has previously denied transferring nuclear technology to Syria.
It comes at the end of a two-day meeting between US and North Korean officials on Pyongyang's overdue declaration of its nuclear activities.
Reports suggest an agreement may be imminent, says the BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul.
In a landmark deal reached in February last year, Pyongyang agreed to close its main reactor and divulge the full extent of its nuclear programme by December.
However, it missed the deadline, and while it is taking steps to close its Yongbyon reactor, it has yet to produce a declaration of nuclear activities to the international community's satisfaction.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MUGABE RIVAL 'CLEAR' WINNER - U.S.

Morgan Tsvangirai has left Zimbabwe amid fears for his safety.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was the "clear" victor of last month's poll, a top US envoy says.
Jendayi Frazer was speaking in South Africa, at the start of a tour to lobby Zimbabwe's neighbours to put pressure on President Robert Mugabe.
The results of the presidential election have not been released.
Mr Tsvangirai says he won outright but the ruling party has said no candidate gained 50% of the vote, so a run-off will be needed.
The opposition says its supporters are being attacked ahead of the run-off - claims denied by the government.
Earlier, the leaders of the Anglican church called for international action to prevent violence in Zimbabwe reaching "horrific levels".
Meanwhile, a Chinese foreign ministry official said a ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe might return to China.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ALITALIA LOAN STIRS RESCUE HOPES!

Italy's next Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said that an emergency loan to Alitalia makes it more likely that the problem airline will be saved.
Mr Berlusconi, who is due to take office in about a month, said a group of firms and banks were now expected to put together a rescue package.
However, Mr Berlusconi failed to give any details of the firms involved.
Alitalia is on the verge of collapse and needed a loan of 300m euros ($475m) on Tuesday in order to keep operating.
The funds will keep Alitalia going for a couple of months while Mr Berlusconi examines options for its future.
He said that the extra time would allow a group of Italian entrepreneurs, aided by banks, professionals and airlines, to study Alitalia's accounts.
"After due diligence of three, four or five weeks, this new group will present a binding offer and take over the running of Alitalia, which will involve a painful reduction in personnel," he explained.

The latest round of problems at Alitalia were prompted by Air France KLM's decision to drop a takeover bid for the firm after opposition from unions.
Alitalia is haemorrhaging cash and it was feared that Air France's withdrawal would force the firm to seek bankruptcy protection.
Mr Prodi announced the 300m-euro financial support following a cabinet meeting.
"Silvio Berlusconi asked me to provide a more considerable bridge loan than the one we had foreseen in order to have time to put together and organise possible alternative solutions to this problem," Mr Prodi said.
The loan is likely to be investigated by the European Commission, which has been cracking down on state subsidies for the aviation industry.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RICE AT FRESH PEAK ON SUPPLY FEAR !

Rice importing countries are being hit by export bans in key producers.
Rice prices have scaled fresh heights in Asian trade amid concern that export bans by key producers will hit supply.
Rough rice for July delivery touched $24.745 per 100lb for the first time, before falling slightly.
Curbs are in place in India and Vietnam to protect domestic supply and there are fears that Thailand, the world's largest producer, could follow suit.
The global food crisis is a "silent tsunami" with an extra 100 million people facing poverty, the UN said.
"This is the new face of hunger - the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago, but now are," said the head of the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP), Josette Sheeran.

The international price of rice - a staple food for half the world - has risen about 68% since the beginning of the year.
The prices of soybeans, corn and wheat have also been marching higher and are currently near their all-time peaks.
A combination of high fuel costs, bad weather and land allocated to biofuels is constraining food supply. At the same time, producer countries are seeking to conserve food for their own people by curtailing exports.
But Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said Thailand would continue to be known as the "world's kitchen", as the government considers using abandoned government land to increase agricultural output.
Thailand's Office of Agriculture Economics projected that rice production after milling would be 20.4 million tonnes from this year's crop, with 55% for domestic consumption and the remainder for export.

Thailand produced 19.6 million tonnes last year.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

THREATS CLOSE EMBASSIES IN KABUL !

Protesters have accused Denmark and the Netherlands of insulting Islam.
The Dutch and Danish governments have evacuated their embassies in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in response to threats.
The decision followed protests against a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad reprinted by Danish newspapers and a film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
Danish intelligence officials warned of an "aggravated" terrorist threat but a spokesman in The Hague gave no details.
Staff from the Danish embassy in Algeria and the Dutch mission in Pakistan were moved some days ago.

Dutch foreign ministry spokesman Bart Rijs told the BBC News website that the 15 Dutch and 35 Afghan employees had been moved to an undisclosed place in Kabul but were still working.
"It cannot be excluded that this has some relation with the film of Mr Wilders," he said.
The Dutch MP's film was released on the internet in March, prompting formal complaints and protests in some Muslim countries which linked the film to the reprinting of a Danish cartoon of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.
Danish newspaper editors decided to reprint the cartoon, first published in 2006, after intelligence officials said they had uncovered a plot to kill one of the cartoonists behind the original 12 images.
The Danish foreign ministry said that the threat was serious and that its employees had been moved to safe locations in Kabul and Algiers.
"We have new information and we have to take that into serious consideration. We decided it would be better to move our staff, although the embassies are up and running," said spokesman Erik Laursen.
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service is said to have highlighted risks in Northern Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Afghan embassy employs five Danish citizens and a number of local people. The building in Algiers has a total staff of seven.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"WE'VE SURVIVED BY BELIEVING

OUR LIFE

IS GOING TO GET BETTER" !

_______

FIRST RESULTS IN ZIMBABWE RECOUNT !

The results of the first recounts in Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections are in, with the ruling and opposition parties retaining one seat each.
The ruling Zanu-PF party held its seat in Goromonzi West, while the opposition MDC held on to Zaka West, the Zimbabwe Election Commission said.
The MDC says the recounts are an attempt to rig the election and overturn its parliamentary majority.
Meanwhile, the UK says it will press for an arms embargo on Zimbabwe.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would propose the international embargo to prevent a shipment of weapons from reaching the country.
Seats retained
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said the recounts in two of 23 disputed constituencies had confirmed the initial results.
There is no clear winner. No-one has got 51%. Therefore we should gear ourselves for a re-run -
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga
Is it war across Zimbabwe?
Zuma refuses to criticise Mugabe
UK 'would back Zimbabwe embargo'
The ZEC says it cannot publish the official presidential result until it completes the recount of presidential and parliamentary votes.
Zanu-PF needs to overturn nine seats to reclaim its parliamentary majority.
Goromonzi West was one of only two constituencies where the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) requested a recount and, according to the commission, Zanu-PF actually picked up just one extra vote following the recount to be confirmed as the winning party.
In Zaka West, where the recount was initiated by Zanu-PF, the results of the election did not change, with all the contesting political parties saying they were satisfied with the recounting process.
"We are happy to retain the seat and we believe the same will happen in all the constituencies where recounting is taking place," Wilstaff Stemele, MDC Masvingo provincial chairman, said on Tuesday when the results were announced.
Denial?
Meanwhile, Zanu-PF has distanced itself from an article in a Zimbabwean state-owned newspaper calling for a power-sharing government.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga told the BBC that Zanu-PF was preparing for a second round in the presidential election.
The MDC says its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won March's presidential vote outright and has also rejected the idea of a unity government.
The opinion piece in The Herald says other southern African countries should act as mediators between the government and opposition, to form a unity government under President Robert Mugabe which could organise new elections and write a new constitution.
It says political tensions following last month's presidential election make it impossible to hold a free and fair run-off in the near future. It also says the West must lift economic sanctions.

ZIMBABWE'S NEIGHBOURS

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has been under fire over March's disputed elections. His neighbours have been supportive but regional differences are now emerging.

South Africa's President Mbeki is the key Zimbabwe mediator. He has refused to criticise Robert Mugabe but the ruling ANC, and trade unions have urged him to take a stronger line.

Zambian President Mwanawasa has taken the region's strongest line on Zimbabwe. His call for Africa not to let a ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe dock will outrage President Mugabe.

Angola's government has close ties to Zimbabwe's ruling party - both came to power after fighting colonial rule in the 1970s.

Botswana is not seen as an ally of Robert Mugabe. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai fled here after polls.

Namibia is a close ally of Zimbabwe - it too is planning to redistribute white-owned farms to black villagers.

Mozambique has hosted some white farmers forced from Zimbabwe and is seen as relatively sympathetic to Zimbabwe's opposition.

Tanzania's ruling party has a long history of close ties to Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and is unlikely to criticise him.

DR Congo's President Joseph Kabila is an ally of Robert Mugabe, who sent troops to help his father, Laurent Kabila, fight rebels.

Malawi is seen as neutral. But some 3m people of Malawian origin are in Zimbabwe, mostly farmworkers who have lost their jobs and were sometimes assaulted during farm invasions.

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The BBC's Peter Greste in South Africa says the paper is regarded as a mouthpiece for Zanu-PF, so articles like this can be important indicators of the way the party is thinking.
But Mr Matonga denied the article was sanctioned by the government of Zimbabwe.
"The politburo said there is not going to be a government of national unity as proposed by Morgan Tsvangirai. That was thrown out," he told the BBC.
"We are waiting for the official announcement of results to say, we're waiting for a re-run, that's a fact. MDC knows that, Zanu-PF knows that, that there is no clear winner. No-one has got 51%.
Mr Tsvangirai's MDC says a violent campaign of intimidation by Zanu-PF supporters have left 10 dead and thousands displaced - but Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa denies anyone has been killed.
Meanwhile, the leader of the governing ANC in South Africa, Jacob Zuma, is refusing to blame Mr Mugabe for the violence.
Speaking to the BBC during a visit to London, Mr Zuma said the violence in Zimbabwe was unacceptable, but he was not prepared to judge individuals.
He also refused to criticise President Thabo Mbeki's "softly softly" approach as mediator.
"We are doing something more than anybody else in reality... other people are doing absolutely nothing."
Prime Minister Brown's call for an international arms embargo on Zimbabwe comes after a Chinese ship tried to dock at several African ports to unload a cargo of arms destined for Zimbabwe.
The ship, the An Yue Jiang, has disappeared once again, but is thought to be heading up the west coast of Africa from the Cape of Good Hope.

Reports say the ship is carrying millions of rounds of ammunition.
It has been refused permission to dock in South Africa and Mozambique, and Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has urged other African leaders not to allow it to enter their territorial waters.
The Lloyds Marine Intelligence Unit (MIU) in London, which plots the location of ships around the world, says it is no longer possible to accurately establish exactly where the vessel is because readings are no longer being taken from its AIS (Automatic Identification System).
The AIS is a location beacon which every ship carries, with a range of 40-50 nautical miles.
It is possible that the An Yue Jiang is more than 50 nautical miles from the coast and is therefore not being picked up, or that the AIS has been switched off.
The Lloyds MIU says that plotting points taken of the Chinese ship on Tuesday show that it was steaming north-west up the African coast at a speed of about 250 nautical miles a day.
The US is reported to be pressuring port authorities in Angola and Namibia - staunch allies of Zimbabwe's leader - not to allow the ship to dock.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

FALLOUT FROM EGYPT FOOD PROTESTS !

Anger over rising food prices and the cost of living spilled into running street battles between crowds and police in the Egypt's northern industrial town of Mahalla on 6 and 7 April.
Police arrested hundreds of people across the country who were suspected of trying to organise a general strike on 6 April.
These Mahalla residents blame poverty and heavy-handed policing for the riots.

AMANI MOHAMMED, 35, BANANA SELLER

It was not a demonstration. People are poor, very poor, they were just expressing their anger over the rising price of food.
One kilo of rice now costs four Egyptian pounds ($0.74) and pasta costs five pounds ($0.92).
We can't live like that.
It all started when the police suddenly appeared on the streets and in the market, pointing their guns at us.
A woman got jumpy and started screaming: "Why are you here? Are you going to start a war? Aren't we poor and helpless enough? Do you want to kill us too?"
The police started shooting rubber bullets at everyone, mainly at women and children. People were running everywhere, it was like a war. God help us. What can we do?
I buy the bananas for 2.5 Egyptian pounds ($0.46) I sell them for 3.3 Egyptian pounds ($0.61).
I know it is expensive, but what can I do? Life is expensive, I can barely afford to keep myself and my daughter.
We live on fried potatoes, but even this is becoming difficult because oil is so expensive.

HASHMA SALEH, 40, NURSE

They fired bullets at us, I got one in my leg and one in my chest. 89
I couldn't breathe from the tear gas canisters they threw at us as well.
I was shot as I was coming back from work at night.
I wasn't doing anything; I wasn't demonstrating or shouting, I was just walking.
I am suffering from the price rises, big time.
I work as a nurse at a clinic and the doctor pays me one Egyptian pound ($0.19) for each patient.
I am now 40 years old and not married - I can't afford it. I can't save a penny.

MOHAMED SELIM, 54, CLOTH SELLER

What happened on 6 April should have happened a long time ago.
People can't take this poverty anymore. We have children; they need food and they need to go to school.
I couldn't afford to let my son finish school, I had to remove him from class.
I will have to remove my daughter from school soon too.
I pay 225 Egyptian pounds ($42) in rent every month and I spend 150 Egyptian pounds ($28) per week on food.
My wife doesn't work, and I don't have a fixed job. I work one day and then stay at home for a week.

MONA MOSTAFA, 50, HOUSEWIFE

My son Mohamed is 20 years old; he doesn't get into trouble.
His father abandoned us a long time ago. Mohamed works as an electrician and supports the family.
He went to work on 6 April and never came back. They took him for no reason.
I have asked about him in all the police stations. No-one has any new information.
My son works all the time to feed us. He has nothing to do with any of this.
I am going out of my mind; I just want my son back.

MOHAMED AL-SAYED, 35, FACTORY WORKER

It was an unplanned street demonstration.
We workers had nothing to do with it. We have our own way of going on strikes.
We went on strike last year and the year before and we had a series of strikes in 1975 and 1986.
We simply finish work and go on strike inside the factory until we get what we want.
We are experienced in holding peaceful, well-organised strikes.
For example, when the prime minister came afterwards and gave us a bonus of one month's salary, that wasn't what we asked for, or what we wanted.
We want whole scale pay reform. Salaries are miserable compared to living expenses - and this has to change.
The cost of food and housing has risen so much. All living costs have gone up.
Lack of transport is also a big problem; workers can queue for hours waiting for a bus to take them to work.
It is bad for everyone. Prices used to go up annually, now they go up every hour.

ELHAM MOHAMED, STREET VENDOR

It was like the war between Palestinians and Israelis.
We had stones; they had guns.
They [the government] gave the factory workers a one month bonus. They didn't give us anything.
And even for the labourers, one moth bonus is not enough.
What will they do after this month is over? Oil is just as expensive as it was, so is flour.
We are starving now.

Interviews by Lina Wardani, photographs by Wael Abbas and Lina Wardani.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CLINTON'S POLL DAY THREAT TO IRAN !

Hillary Clinton has issued a stark warning to Iran, as Democrats in Pennsylvania vote to choose between her and Barack Obama to run for president.
She said the US would attack, and could "obliterate" Iran, if it launched a nuclear strike on Israel.
Mrs Clinton has been playing up foreign affairs and leadership as she tries to make up ground in the Democratic race.
She leads polls in Pennsylvania, the largest remaining state, but analysts say her hopes depend on a big victory.
A Zogby survey released on Tuesday showed Mrs Clinton leading Mr Obama by 10%, while an InsiderAdvantage poll had her 7% ahead.
Polling stations opened at 0700 (1100 GMT), with results expected soon after they close at 2000 (2400 GMT).

As the candidates appeared on the US talk show circuit on Tuesday morning, a row erupted when Mrs Clinton was asked how she would respond if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel.
She replied that: "If I'm the president, we will attack Iran... we would be able to totally obliterate them.
"That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic," she told TV channel ABC.
In response, Mr Obama said: "Using words like 'obliterate' - it doesn't actually produce good results, and so I'm not interested in sabre-rattling."
He said only that Iran should know he would respond "forcefully" to an attack on any US ally.
The US fears Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and could use them against Israel. Iran insists its nuclear programme is solely for power generation.
Mrs Clinton's tough talking over Iran is part of her strategy, to emphasise her foreign policy experience as she fights for every last vote available in Pennsylvania, says the BBC's Jack Izzard.
With four million registered Democrats, and 158 pledged delegates to the Democratic Party's nominating convention in August, Pennsylvania is the last of the big states to hold a primary.

DEMOCRATIC DELEGATES
Barack Obama:
Pledged delegates: 1,415
Super-delegates: 233
Total: 1,648
Hillary Clinton:
Pledged delegates: 1,251
Super-delegates: 258
Total: 1,509
Source: AP estimates on 22 April

Justin Webb's blog
Wagnerian drama
Q&A: US election delegates
Pennsylvania voters' views

Although Mrs Clinton is behind in the delegate count and in the total votes cast, she has won most of the big state contests.
And the white working class voters who have formed the backbone of her support so far are a significant constituency in the state.
With the delegates split in proportion with the vote, neither candidate is expected to win sufficient pledged delegates to seal the nomination in the remaining primaries, and the two are courting 800 or so unelected "super-delegates".
Pennsylvania provides a key test for Mrs Clinton's argument - which she hopes will sway the super-delegates - that only she will be able to secure wins in critical large states come November's presidential election.
The BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, says the state's voters have the power to keep Mrs Clinton's White House dream alive by giving her a substantial victory, to do it further damage by delivering a close result, or to destroy it by handing a win to Mr Obama.

Philadelphia residents discuss the Democratic presidential hopefuls
In pictures

On TV on Tuesday, Mrs Clinton predicted victory but insisted that the margin did not matter. Instead, she said, if Mr Obama failed to win it would call into question "his ability to win the big states".
Mr Obama conceded that his rival "has to be heavily favoured to win" in Pennsylvania, but dismissed the big-state argument, saying there was "no chance" of the Democrats losing New York or California in the presidential election, no matter who the candidate was.
'Politics of fear'
Even before the subject of Iran arose, foreign affairs loomed large in the final hours of campaigning, with the Obama camp accusing Mrs Clinton of trading in the "politics of fear".
Her final campaign advert featured shots of historic world events such as Pearl Harbour and the fall of the Berlin Wall, with clips of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and Hurricane Katrina victims.
The advert concluded with the line: "You need to be ready for anything."
Mrs Clinton's chief strategist Geoff Garin said it was a positive advert.
"It states why Hillary Clinton is the right choice to be president," he said. "We're at a moment where we need a president who's got the strength and knowledge to take on very tough challenges."
But Bill Burton, from Mr Obama's team, said: "We already have a president who plays the politics of fear, and we don't need another."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.S. MAN HELD ON ISRAEL SPY CHARGE !

Mr Kadish is accused of passing on information about F-15 jets sold abroad.
US authorities have arrested a military engineer on suspicion of giving secrets involving nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missiles to Israel in the 1980s.
Ben-Ami Kadish was detained for participating in a conspiracy to disclose documents related to national defence, the justice department said.
Mr Kadish worked at the army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Centre in New Jersey from 1979 to 1985.
He is accused of giving material to an Israeli consular official whilst there.
His alleged handler has been named by justice officials as the former consul for science affairs at the Israeli Consulate General in Manhattan, reportedly the same person who dealt with Jonathan Jay Pollard, who is serving life in prison for spying for Israel.
Pollard passed thousands of documents to Israeli agents whilst working at the US defence department. He was convicted in 1987.
The Israeli government publicly admitted in 1998 that Pollard had been their agent and awarded him Israeli citizenship.

According to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, Mr Kadish borrowed several classified documents related to national defence from the army's research centre between 1980 and 1985 and took them to his home in New Jersey.
Mr Kadish would then hand over the documents at his home to the Israeli consular official, who would photograph them in the basement, it added.
One of the documents "contained information concerning nuclear weaponry and was classified as 'Restricted Data'... because the document contained atomic-related information", the complaint said.
Another, classified as "Secret" and "Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals", contained "information concerning a major weapons system - a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet that the United States had sold to another country".
Modified F-15s have been sold to Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Korea.
Documents relating to the US Patriot missile air defence, classified as "Secret", were also borrowed by Mr Kadish from the library.
The court documents also allege that Mr Kadish lied to US law enforcement officials on 21 March 2008, the day after he was told to do so by his Israeli handler during a telephone conversation.
Mr Kadish has been accused of conspiring to disclose documents related to the national defence of the US to the government of Israel and of conspiring to act as an agent of the government of Israel.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA MAY RECALL ZIMBABWE WEAPONS !

The ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe may return to China after being prevented from unloading in South Africa, a Chinese official has said.
Zambia's president has called on other African countries not to let the ship enter their waters, in case the arms escalate post-election tensions.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the weapons were ordered last year and were "perfectly normal".
But she said the ship's owners were considering bringing the ship back.
Ms Jiang said this was because it was proving impossible for Zimbabwe to receive the arms but this has not been confirmed by the Chinese shipping company.
The Chinese vessel was said to be bound for Angola but the US is reported to be pressuring port authorities there and in Namibia not to allow them to dock.
Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa said: "I hope this will be the case with all the countries because we don't want a situation which will escalate the [tension] in Zimbabwe more than what it is."
I don't understand all this hullabaloo about a lone ship
Patrick ChinamasaZimbabwe justice minister
The International Transport Workers Federation says it has asked its members across Africa not to help unload the An Yue Jiang, which is reportedly carrying three million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds.
The opposition says the weapons could be used to "wage war" on its supporters ahead of a possible run-off in the presidential vote.
This is strongly denied by the government, which has accused the opposition of exaggerating claims of recent political violence. The ship, which had been anchored off the port of Durban for four days, was forced to move on Friday after a South African court refused to allow the weapons on board to be transported across the country to landlocked Zimbabwe.

Despite reports the ship was heading for Angola, an ally of Zimbabwe's government, the director of the Institute of Angolan Ports said the vessel had not asked for permission to dock in Angola.
"This ship has not sought request to enter Angolan territorial waters and it's not authorised to enter Angolan ports," Filomeno Mendonca told local radio.
But the agent handling the ship said its next port of call would be the Angolan capital, Luanda, AFP news agency reports.
A South African military spokesman said the ship was no longer in South African waters.
Zimbabwe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said it was their right to defend themselves and buy weapons from any legitimate source.
"I don't understand all this hullabaloo about a lone ship," he told reporters.
The country has yet to publish the results of its 29 March presidential election, which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says was won outright by its candidate Morgan Tsvangirai.

Meanwhile, the southern African regional body, SADC, rejected Mr Tsvangirai's calls for South Africa's Thabo Mbeki to be replaced as the chief mediator for Zimbabwe.
"We have complete faith in President [Thabo] Mbeki," AFP quoted Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam as saying.
Mr Tsvangirai wants President Mwanawasa to take over, with some opposition supporters saying Mr Mbeki was close to Mr Mugabe.

A Chinese arms ship heads for the African coast on its mission to deliver weapons to Zimbabwe.
A recount in 23 out of 210 parliamentary seats, which had been due to end on Monday, has been delayed for an unknown period.
The MDC rejected the recount as illegal and insisted it beat President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party outright in presidential and parliamentary polls.
The leader of the governing African National Congress in South Africa - Jacob Zuma - has again criticised the delays in publishing the election results - further distancing himself from Mr Mbeki.
"It's not acceptable. It's not helping the Zimbabwean people who have gone out to ... elect the kind of party and presidential candidate they want, exercising their constitutional right," he told Reuters news agency.
He called on African leaders to take action to solve the political deadlock that has set in since last month's disputed election.

Post-election violence has displaced 3,000 people, injured 500 and left 10 dead, according to MDC secretary general Tendai Biti.
Human rights groups say they have found camps where people are being tortured for having voted "the wrong way".
But Mr Chinamasa denied that anyone had died in political violence.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said that of the 10 people reported dead, only four names had been supplied and "of these three no basis whatsoever while the fourth is still under investigation and will be concluded soon", he was reported as saying by the state-owned Herald newspaper.
Zimbabwe's church leaders are also calling for intervention to prevent the violence reaching genocidal proportions.
"If nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe from their predicament, we shall soon be witnessing genocide similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and other hot spots in Africa and elsewhere," leaders of the main denominations said in a joint statement.
"We appeal to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union and the United Nations to work towards arresting the deteriorating political and security situation in Zimbabwe," a statement said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RUSSIA JAILS US PASTOR OVER GUN !

Pastor Miles was put in a defendant's cage during his trial. A Moscow court has sentenced a US pastor to more than three years in jail for illegally importing hunting rifle ammunition into Russia.

Phillip Miles, from South Carolina, was arrested on 3 February at the home of a friend in the Urals city of Perm.
The sentence - three years and two months - takes account of the time he has already spent in custody.
Pastor Miles said he had brought the bullets to Russia as a gift for his friend, a fellow pastor.
Pastor Miles described the sentence as "severe" and his lawyer is planning an appeal.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SAUDI WOMEN 'KEPT IN CHILDHOOD'!

Women cannot make even simple decisions on children, the report says
Saudi women are being kept in perpetual childhood so male relatives can exercise "guardianship" over them, the Human Rights Watch group has said.
The New York-based group says Saudi women have to obtain permission from male relatives to work, travel, study, marry or even receive health care.
Their access to justice is also severely constrained, it says.
The group says the Saudi establishment sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive.
Saudi clerics see the guardianship of women's honour as a key to the country's social and moral order.

The report, Perpetual Minors: Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia, draws on more than 100 interviews with Saudi women.
Farida Deif, women's rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch, said: "Saudi women won't make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies."

Read the full HRW report

The report says that Saudi women are denied the legal right to make even trivial decisions for their children - women cannot open bank accounts for children, enrol them in school, obtain school files or travel with their children without written permission from the child's father.
Human Rights Watch says that Saudi women are prevented from accessing government agencies that have no established female sections unless they have a male representative.
The need to establish separate office spaces for women is a disincentive to hiring female employees, and female students are often relegated to unequal facilities with unequal academic opportunities, the report says.
Male guardianship over adult women also contributes to their risk of exposure to violence within the family as victims of violence find it difficult to seek protection or redress from the courts.
Social workers, physicians and lawyers say that it is nearly impossible to remove guardianship from male guardians who are abusive, the group says.
"It's astonishing that the Saudi government denies adult women the right to make decisions for themselves but holds them criminally responsible for their actions at puberty," said Ms Deif.
"For Saudi women, reaching adulthood brings no rights, only responsibilities."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AFRICA PLANS BIGGEST DAM PROJECT !

The existing Inga Dam is located 250km south west of Kinshasa.
A plan to build the largest and most powerful hydroelectric dam in the world is being discussed in London.
Financiers and African politicians will look at how to finance the $80bn (£40bn) cost of the Grand Inga project.
The plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo would generate twice as much energy as China's Three Gorges dam.
It is hoped it will boost Africa's electricity supply by a third, but opponents say it will not help the poorest Africans without electricity.
The World Energy Council, which is hosting the two-day meeting in London, says it will boost the continent's energy supply by up to 30%.
Power would be transmitted to other countries via a giant new distribution system to Egypt in the north, Nigeria in the west and to South Africa.
In order that construction can start as planned in 2014, the World Energy Council is calling for finance for a feasibility study to be done as soon as possible.
The Grand Inga project would be built on the Congo river alongside two existing hydroelectric plants and is expected to begin operating between 2020 and 2025.
The plans include a 205m-high dam, 15km-long reservoir and a plant with a capacity to produce 320 terawatt hours of electricity annually.
The idea for the project was first conceived in the 1980s, but political turmoil in the DR Congo meant that the plans could not proceed.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DANISH MP JOGS WITH FACEBOOK FANS!

Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has gone jogging with about 100 people he met through the social networking website Facebook.
The 7km (four-mile) jog took place on Friday at his summer residence, Marienborg, just north of Copenhagen.
One of his Danish Liberal Party aides, Soeren Lauridsen, said Mr Rasmussen was enthusiastic about Facebook as a way of connecting with ordinary Danes.
The PM is the site's 10th most popular person, Mr Lauridsen told the BBC.
"He has 12,000 supporters now on Facebook - he's only just behind [California Governor] Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he's the Europe Facebook champion," Mr Lauridsen said.
Slower pace
Mr Rasmussen organised the mass jog to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his leadership of the Danish Liberal Party - known as Venstre.
It is only the second time he has done so - the first was last November, during Denmark's election campaign.
He went at a slower pace than usual, so that people could chat on the way, Mr Lauridsen told the BBC News website.
Security officers joined the prime minister on the jog - but kept a low profile, he said.
About 85% of Mr Rasmussen's Facebook friends are in the 18-34 age group, and "for him it's a way to reach a lot of people who are not specifically political", Mr Lauridsen added.
The prime minister insists on responding in person to friends' comments on Facebook, the aide said. "I'm not doing this work for him," he added.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

FIGHT ERUPTS IN JERUSALEM CHURCH !

Different denominations often vie over access to parts of the site.
Israeli police had to break up a fist fight that erupted between Greek and Armenian Orthodox clergymen at one of Christianity's holiest sites.
The scuffles broke out at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Orthodox Palm Sunday.
Brawls are not uncommon at the church, which is uneasily shared by various Christian denominations.
In this case, witnesses say an Armenian priest forcibly ejected a Greek priest from an area near the tomb of Jesus.
They say the attacker felt the Greek priest had spent too long at the tomb.
When police arrived to break up the fight, some were reportedly beaten back by worshippers using palm fronds.

Worshippers reportedly tried to fend off police using palm fronds
Two Armenians were detained by police, prompting supporters to stage a rally in protest outside the police station.
Rivalry between the six different churches which grudgingly share the Holy Sepulchre dates back to the aftermath of the crusades, and to the great schism between Eastern and Western Christianity in the 11th Century.
Each denomination controls, and jealously guards, its own section of the labyrinthine site.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"YOUR MIND WILL ANSWER MOST

QUESTIONS

IF YOU LEARN TO RELAX AND WAIT FOR THE

ANSWER"!

_______

BOND CAR PLUNGES INTO LAKE GARDA !

The latest Bond epic is being filmed at scenic Lake Garda.
Enlarge Image

A stunt driver has crashed the car used by movie secret agent James Bond into Italy's Lake Garda during filming of 007's latest movie, Quantum of Solace.
The driver was delivering the iconic Aston Martin DBS to the film scene in heavy rain when he lost control around one of the lake's narrow curves.
The driver was quickly rescued and taken to hospital with minor injuries.
Italian TV showed the car, reportedly the only one available for use in the film, being winched out of the lake.
Filming for the movie - starring Daniel Craig as the latest Bond - has already taken the crew to England, Panama, Chile and Mexico.
The newest film in the long-running 007 franchise is to be released later this year.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WOMAN DRIVER MAKES RACING HISTORY !

Patrick won on her 50th IndyCar race.
Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history after claiming the Indy Japan 300 race at the Twin Ring Motegi racetrack on Sunday.
The 26-year-old, in her 50th IndyCar race, finished 5.8594 seconds ahead of Helio Castroneves in Japan.
"It's been a long time coming - this is fabulous," said Patrick.
Patrick made her name in American motorsport by finishing fourth in the Indy500 in 2005, and came seventh in the overall standings last season.
"It was a fuel strategy race, but my team called it perfectly for me," added Patrick, who drives for the Andretti Green Racing team.
"I knew I was on the same strategy as Helio and when I passed him for the lead, I couldn't believe it.
It's so good to see a woman who is on the grid in her own right and there to win
Signorina Tifosa"I knew there was a good reason for coming to Japan. I want to thank my team, the fans and everyone who supported me.
"I've been asked so many times when and if I could win my first race and finally, no more of those questions."
Patrick took the lead from Castroneves on the 198th lap of the 200-lap race after starting in the third row.
"I think Danica is such a fantastic person and I'm thrilled for her that the monkey is finally off of her back," said Michael Andretti, co-owner of Andretti Green Racing.
"We have all believed in her and she proved today that she is a winner. Frankly, I think this is the first of many."

BBC SPORTS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Machinations !
19th April 2008.

Dear Family and Friends,

Behind every tree, under every bush and around every corner, it seems there is a British enemy waiting to invade Zimbabwe."We must maintain the utmost vigilance in the face of vicious British machinations," Mr Mugabe warned as he spoke at his celebration of Zimbabwe's 28th anniversary of Independence.

No one that I've spoken to this week had even the vaguest clue of what a machination is. A few thought it had something to do with machinery or engines, others that it was a mispronunciation of the word imagination. Still others wondered if these mysterious machinations had anything to do with the Chinese ship steaming around looking for somewhere to unload its cargo of death destined for Harare. The ship loaded with 3 million bullets, 1500 rocket propelled grenades and 3000 mortar shells. So we sat on the edge of our chairs this Independence day wondering just exactly where the British are hiding and what their unknown vicious something-or-other means to our daily lives.

Nearly thirty years after Independence the threats and warnings of British plots haven't just worn thin, they've worn out altogether. It is generally agreed that at most there are perhaps thirty thousand white people left in Zimbabwe - a miniscule percentage in a population of approximately 11 million people. It's way past time for our leaders to stop blaming someone else and accept responsibility for their own deeds and machinations such as those portrayed on the front page of one weekly independent newspaper:

"Hundreds flee Zanu PF Rampage.""Murder, torture, terror."

It's three weeks since Zimbabwe voted and we are exhausted, frustrated and frightened. As each day passes there is less and less food to buy, more and more reports of people beaten and hiding and still no final election results.Zimbabweans want food and jobs not grenades and bullets. We want our voices to be heard and our votes to be respected. When the South African Transport workers union refused to unload the Chinese cargo ship in Durban this week they showed the way and we thank them for this. Zimbabwe is not at war, it is hungry.

Until next week, thanks for reading,

love cathy

NY TOWER PLANS FOUND IN RUBBISH !

The Freedom Tower will be the tallest building in New York.
A homeless man has found confidential blueprints for New York's new Freedom Tower dumped in a city rubbish bin.
Mike Fleming handed the documents - marked "Secure Document - Confidential" in to the New York Post newspaper.
The Freedom Tower is being built at Ground Zero, to replace the World Trade Centre towers destroyed on 9/11.
A spokeswoman apologised for the security breach and said that anyone found responsible would be liable for "serious disciplinary action".

Mr Fleming said he was concerned that the documents might fall into the wrong hands.
"I was outraged, because this is priceless," he told the New York Post.
"This could have ended up on eBay or gotten to al-Qaeda."
The blueprints reveal details of the new building's floor plans, along with the specifications of its concrete walls and its heating and ventilation systems.
Steve Yang, an architect who spoke to the New York Post, said that the plans would have been helpful for a terrorist planning an attack.
"An expert in explosives, demolition or biological weapons certainly could glean enough here to develop a game plan," he said.
However, Candace McAdams, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, said that the plans were "not very detailed" and available to anyone bidding on contracts.
The Port Authority will now conduct an inquiry to find out how the breach occurred.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOYUZ SPACECRAFT LANDS OFF-TARGET!

South Korea's Yi So-yeon spent 11 days at the International Space Station.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft has returned to Earth, but came down more than 400km (250 miles) away from its planned touchdown point, say Russian officials.
The crew are safe, but were subjected to severe G-forces during re-entry, said a spokesman for Mission Control according to AP news agency.
He said they were being examined on site by medical staff.
On board are Yi So-yeon, South Korea's first astronaut, Yuri Malenchenko from Russia and American Peggy Whitson.
The Russian TMA-11 landing capsule touched down some 420km away from its planned landing point in the Kazakh steppe, and some 20 minutes later than scheduled.

Peggy Whitson holds the US record for the most time spent in space.
The three crew are said to be safe, say space officials.
However, they are undergoing medical examinations after being subjected to G-forces up to 10 times those present on Earth, said spokesman Valery Lyndin.
Officials said the craft followed a so-called "ballistic re-entry" - a plunge with an uncontrollable, steep trajectory.
Ms Yi had spent 11 days conducting tests at the International Space Station.
Ms Whitson now holds the record for the cumulative length of time spent in space by an American at 377 days, the US space agency Nasa said earlier.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EU TIGHTENS ANTI-TERRORISM LAWS!

By Oana Lungescu - BBC News, Brussels.

Gilles de Kerchove says the internet is being used to radicalise people.
European Union ministers have agreed to punish incitement to terrorism through the internet.
At a meeting in Luxembourg, EU justice and interior ministers tightened existing laws.
Public provocation to commit terrorist attacks, as well as recruiting and training people for terrorism will be punishable offences throughout the EU.
The ministers also agreed on an action plan to prevent terrorist groups from getting explosives.
EU officials said the decision to punish propaganda, recruitment and training for terrorism through the internet filled an important gap in European legislation.

Early warning system
They described the internet as a virtual training camp for militants, used to inspire and mobilise local groups.
Earlier this month, the EU anti-terrorism co-ordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, said the threat of terrorism in Europe had not diminished and about 5,000 internet sites were being used to radicalise young people.
National courts will now be able to ask internet service providers to remove such sites.
Britain, Spain and Italy already punish public incitement to terrorism.
But under pressure from Nordic countries and civil rights campaigners, ministers made clear that the new provisions may not be used to restrict freedom of expression.
In a separate move to combat terrorism, they agreed to establish an early-warning system on stolen explosives and detonators by the end of the year.
They also resolved to create a database giving police permanent access to information on incidents involving explosive devices.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE LAUNCHES BALLOT RECOUNT !

The recount may lead to a run-off between presidential candidates.
Election officials in Zimbabwe have started recounting some of the votes cast in disputed polls held last month.
The recount in 23 of 210 constituencies could overturn the parliamentary result which saw Zanu-PF lose its majority.
Results of the presidential poll, which the opposition MDC says it also won, have not been released. It is thought the recount may lead to a run-off vote.
Meanwhile, a Chinese ship carrying arms to Zimbabwe has left a South African port after workers would not unload it.
The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, is adamant he won the presidential election outright.
His party has said Mr Tsvangirai will not contest a run-off unless certain conditions are met - such as a secure environment, with thorough international monitoring.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says it cannot release the results until it investigates anomalies.
The MDC's secretary general, Tendai Biti, said the party would not accept any recount in respect of parliamentary seats "because ballot boxes have been stuffed".
"Those ballot boxes have become pregnant and reproduced," he said.
On Friday, the high court rejected an application by the MDC to stop a partial recount taking place this weekend.
"I find no merit in the application," said Justice Antonia Guvava. "Accordingly, the application is dismissed with costs."


Arms ship 'on the move'
Why Mugabe is deaf to the West
Spreading fear in Zimbabwe

The ruling paved the way for all presidential, parliamentary, senate and council votes cast in 23 out of 210 constituencies to be recounted.
A change in the parliamentary result by nine seats could see President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party regain its lost majority in the assembly.
The BBC's Will Ross said the independent electoral commission's decision to withhold the results and then recount the ballot papers has led to widespread suspicion of bias, especially as Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF complained about the initial count.
On Friday, Mr Mugabe gave his first speech since the disputed elections.
Thousands of people gathered at the Gwanzura Stadium in Highfield, a suburb of Harare, to hear Mr Mugabe speak at a rally celebrating the anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence from Britain and the end of white minority rule.
The 84-year-old played a key role in the 1970s war of independence and took power as Zimbabwe's first prime minister in 1980 on a wave of popular support.
Mr Mugabe took to the stage to rapturous applause to celebrate what he described as the day on which the "nation finally shook off the chains of British racist settler colonialism".

HAVE YOUR SAY
I predict that the situation will end up like Kenya. Mugabe will be encouraged by the African Union to form a national unity government
Frank Hartry, South Africa
Send us your comments

In his speech Mr Mugabe denounced both the opposition MDC and Britain and called on Zimbabweans "to maintain utmost vigilance in the face of vicious British machinations and the machinations of our other detractors, who are allies of Britain".
Meanwhile, Chinese cargo ship the An Yue Jiang was forced to move after a South African court refused to allow the weapons destined for Zimbabwe which are on board to be transported across the country.
Dock workers had refused to unload the weapons shipment from the vessel, which had been anchored off the port of Durban for four days.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union had said it did "not agree with the position of the government not to intervene".
Reports say the An Yue Jiang is carrying three million rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades and 2,500 mortar rounds.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUAKE RATTLES AMERICAN MIDWEST!

The earthquake left damage strewn across pavements.
An earthquake struck the American Midwest before dawn on Friday, causing tremors from Ohio to Missouri.
The quake, with a magnitude of 5.2, was centred six miles (11km) from the town of West Salem in south-east Illinois.
The quake shook skyscrapers in central Chicago, and rocked homes in Cincinnati, Ohio, but there were no reports of injuries.
The fault zone where the tremor was centred has produced quakes in the past, but mostly very minor ones.
"It shook our house, where it woke me up," said David Behm of Philo, Illinois.
"Windows were rattling, and you could hear it. The house was shaking inches. For people in central Illinois, this is a big deal. It's not like California."
The Chicago Tribune reported that a 300-foot tower at O'Hare International Airport swayed, with one air traffic controller saying it felt like "being on the end of a fishing pole".
The US Geological Survey says the last major quake in Illinois was in 1968 when a tremor of 5.3 magnitude struck.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EU WARNS OVER 'RISKY' CHINA TOYS !

By Oana Lungescu - BBC News, Brussels.

Millions of Chinese-made toys were removed from EU and US shelves.
China is the main source of dangerous goods in Europe, according to a safety report by the European Commission.
Toys were identified as the product most likely to pose a danger to European consumers.
The report said that there had been a 50% increase in the number of dangerous products removed from European markets.
EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva said that did not mean Europe was being flooded with risky items, rather that the system for finding them was better.
Eighty percent of all toys sold in the EU are made in China.
Ms Kuneva told reporters that pressure on Beijing had begun to have an effect.
"I believe that the Chinese government has realised the importance of product safety and of protecting the 'made-in-China' brand," she said.
Millions of Chinese-made toys were recalled in 2007 by both the EU and the US, prompting the European Commission to raise the prospect of a ban if Beijing failed to show it was working to tackle the problem.
The commission said that 1,605 products considered to be risky had been found in 2007 - a 53% rise on the previous year's number. The majority were toys, vehicles and electrical goods.
Ms Kuneva said the EU's rapid alert system to spot dangerous goods was working better than every before.
Under the system, set up in 2004, a dangerous product identified in one EU member country triggers an alert throughout Europe.
Ms Kuneva is due to visit Beijing in June and will host a summit on product safety with China and the US in November.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"FOR FAST-ACTING RELIEF;

TRY SLOWING DOWN" !

______

SIX JAILED FOR SUPPORTING TERROR !

Six men convicted of supporting terrorism through speeches at a London mosque have been handed jail terms.
Among them is Muslim preacher Abu Izzadeen, who was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.
The speeches, on 9 November 2004, came as US and British forces fought fierce battles in Falluja, Iraq.
The sentencing was delayed after one of the guilty men, who had jumped bail for 10 days, turned himself in.
Shah Jalal Hussain, 25, surrendered at Kingston Crown Court after he went missing when the jury began deliberations on 8 April, prompting the court to issue a warrant for his arrest.
He was convicted of terrorist fundraising and breaking his bail conditions and jailed for two years and three months.

The defendants were all members of an extreme Islamist group known as Al-Muhajiroun, which has since been banned.
Abu Izzadeen, 32, from east London, was tried under his real name, Omar Brooks. He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for fundraising and four-and-a-half years for inciting terrorism overseas. His sentences will run concurrently.
Izzadeen made the news in 2006 when he heckled then Home Secretary John Reid during a speech in London's East End.
In November 2004, Izzadeen was recorded voicing his support for al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and calling for a jihad-style war against coalition forces occupying Iraq.
Judge Nicolas Price told the defendants that, while freedom of speech was a central tenet of democracy, they had "abused" those rights in promoting terrorism.
He said Izzadeen and fellow Muslim convert Simon Keeler, 36, were "leading lights" of terrorism fund-raising and support.
Keeler, 36, received the same sentence as Izzadeen - two and a half years for terrorism fund-raising and four and a half for inciting terror overseas.
Judge Price singled out Izzadeen, calling him "arrogant, contemptuous and utterly devoid of any sign of remorse".
He also questioned Izzadeen's motives, saying: "I am left in no doubt that your speeches were used by you as self-aggrandisement and not as an expression of sincerely held religious views."

Abdul Saleem, 32, was sentenced to three years and nine months for inciting terrorism overseas and Ibrahim Hassan, 25, was jailed for two years and nine months on the same charge.
Both men were cleared of fund-raising for terrorists.
Abdul Muhid, 25, was found guilty of fund-raising for terrorists, and sentenced to two years in jail.
The allegations at the heart of the trial concerned events on the evening of 9 November 2004 when Hussain and others were said to have targeted rising anger among Muslims over the Iraq war.
Kingston Crown Court heard that speeches and calls for funds were made both inside and outside the London Central Mosque at Regent's Park, despite the opposition of the institution's authorities.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA POLICE TEAR-GAS BANNED SECT !

Policemen are on patrol in anticipation of chaos ahead of a Mungiki funeral.
Police in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have fired tear gas at women belonging to the outlawed Mungiki sect.
They had been trying to deliver a petition to new Prime Minister Raila Odinga about their grievances.
The Mungiki called off a week of deadly protests on Thursday after Mr Odinga appealed for dialogue as he was sworn in to head a coalition cabinet.
"Let us stop killing one another," he said, promising to take steps to unite Kenyans after the post-poll crisis.
We have been to hell and back. We must preserve the sanctity of our nation and remain united -
Prime Minister Raila Odinga

Odinga's chance to shape Kenya

The Mungiki, mainly drawn from President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu ethnic group, run transport rackets in the capital and are likened to Kenya's version of the mafia.
Ethnic tensions were behind much of the chaos that erupted after December's disputed presidential poll.
Some 1,500 people died and 600,000 fled their homes in the violence.
Mr Odinga and Mr Kibaki signed a deal in February which prescribed an equal share of power.
"We have been to hell and back. We must preserve the sanctity of our nation and remain united but our unity cannot be based on words and goodwill alone," Mr Odinga said on Thursday.

Mr Odinga is a known as a hands-on man.
The women say the petition was being delivered to his party's headquarters in response to Mr Odinga's speech.
Earlier, Mungiki spokesman Njuguna Gitau Njuguna said the group wanted to give Mr Odinga time to address its grievances, which include the release of its jailed leader Maina Njgenga.
The violence this week, which has killed 14 people, was sparked by the death of the Mr Njgenga's wife, who was found beheaded last weekend.
The BBC's Noel Mwakugu in Nairobi says dozens of policemen are patrolling the streets of Nairobi in anticipation of chaos ahead of her burial.
On Thursday night, police spokesman Eric Kiraithe warned that they would apprehend anybody who attempted to hijack the funeral to commit a breach of peace.
"We have information that people wanted by police for serious crimes have planned to assemble during the burial to further illegal activities anyone who attempts this will be arrested," Mr Kiraithe said.
The Mungiki is angered by the police action and want a special unit set to counter their activities to be disbanded.
Last year, more than 100 suspected sect members were killed in a police crackdown after a series of grisly beheadings blamed on Mungiki.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE PARTY 'WAS OFFERED DEAL' !

Zimbabwe's opposition leader says his party came close to an agreement with the ruling Zanu-PF to remove President Robert Mugabe from power.
Morgan Tsvangirai said his MDC party was approached by presidential envoys about a possible unity government the day after the disputed election.
The talks broke down after a few days, Mr Tsvangirai told the BBC.
On Friday President Mugabe is expected to make his first major speech since last month's elections.
He will speak at celebrations in the capital Harare to mark 28 years since independence from Britain and the end of white minority rule.
Meanwhile, South Africa has said it will not stop a shipment of weapons from China being transported across its territory to Zimbabwe.
Reports say a Chinese cargo ship anchored off the South African port of Durban is carrying 3m rounds of ammunition and 1,500 rockets.

In an interview with the BBC's Alan Little, Mr Tsvangirai said the MDC had been "absolutely" prepared to give Zanu-PF officials, including Mr Mugabe, guarantees that they would not be prosecuted by the proposed government of national unity.

Hundreds of opposition supporters have been displaced in Zimbabwe
"We were prepared to consider the issue of an inclusive government including some members of Zanu PF," he said.
"In fact they were suggesting how many and they were talking about a panel from which we were going to choose."
The unity government talks failed when it became clear there were "others in the establishment who did not want to accept that".
The MDC leader also hinted that, if he comes to power, he could put Mr Mugabe on trial for his attempts to "suppress the people" who voted against him, despite previously saying there should be no "witch hunt" against the president.
He told the BBC he had to "revisit" this policy and that Mr Mugabe could be tried by "the national courts" or a proposed "justice and truth commission".
Mr Tsvangirai remains adamant he won the 29 March presidential election outright.
But the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says it cannot release the results until it investigates anomalies - a partial recount takes place this weekend.

Earlier, the MDC leader had told a news conference in Johannesburg that South African President Thabo Mbeki "needs to be relieved of his duties" as a mediator in the crisis.
Mr Mbeki should be replaced by Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, Mr Tsvangirai said.
Mr Mugabe had "unleashed an orgy of violence against the people", Mr Tsvangirai said.
"As I speak, our people are being murdered, homes burned, children molested, women raped," he said.
Mr Tsvangirai also said he planned to return to Zimbabwe from his current base in Botswana but would not give a timeframe.
"I am not in exile. I am going back to Zimbabwe. I have not run away from the people. I am with them in the struggle," he said.
Arms shipment
Despite increasing concerns of violence in Zimbabwe, South African officials have said they can do nothing to prevent a Chinese shipment of arms from being delivered to the land-locked country.

The An Yue Jiang is reportedly laden with ammunition, mortars and rockets.
The An Yue Jiang, which is anchored just outside Durban harbour, is reportedly carrying nearly three million rounds of ammunition, about 3,500 mortars, and 1,500 rockets destined for Harare.
The South African newspaper Beeld said it had a copy of the ship's cargo inventory which was finalised three day's after Zimbabwe's disputed election.
Mr Tsvangirai described the import of arms rather than food for needy Zimbabweans as "disgusting".
"It only shows the warped nature of the priorities of this regime: that they are more preoccupied with the defence-power project than anything else," he said.
South African officials have told the BBC they cannot interfere in a trade deal between two nations but only ensure proper procedures were followed.

President Mbeki has defended his "quiet diplomacy" policy on Zimbabwe at the UN in New York, saying dialogue was essential.
It is clear from the correspondence that Tsvangirai along with Brown are seeking regime change in Zimbabwe
Patrick Chinamasa,Zimbabwe Justice Minister
On Thursday, South Africa, the G8 group of major industrialised countries, the European Union and the US urged Zimbabwe's electoral commission to release the presidential election results.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Zimbabwe had become an "abomination".
"It's time for Africa to step up," she said. "Where is the concern from the African Union and from Zimbabwe's neighbours about what is going on in Zimbabwe?"
Zimbabwe's government has meanwhile stepped up its campaign against Mr Tsvangirai, with Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa accusing him of working with Britain to bring about "regime change".
The state-controlled Herald newspaper accused Mr Tsvangirai of approaching the UK government to discuss possible military intervention.
The Herald said it had details of a letter from UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to Mr Tsvangirai assuring him London would impose more sanctions on Zimbabwe.
"It is clear from the correspondence that Tsvangirai along with Brown are seeking regime change in Zimbabwe... This is treasonous," Mr Chinamasa is quoted as saying.
The UK embassy in Harare said the correspondence was "a forgery". Mr Tsvangirai also rejected the treason allegations, describing Mr Chinamasa as an "injustice minister" because he had lost his seat.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

S. AFRICA'S ZIMBABWE ROLE ATTACKED !

Zimbabwe's government has accused Mr Tsvangirai of treason.
Zimbabwe's opposition has called on South African President Thabo Mbeki to stand down as a mediator in the wake of the elections crisis.
Opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Mr Mbeki, who the MDC has accused of failing to pressure President Robert Mugabe, should be "relieved of duty".
Mr Tsvangirai also said the UN should consider an international crimes court to try rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe's government earlier accused Mr Tsvangirai of treason.
Mr Tsvangirai says he won the recent presidential election outright. The results have not been published.
He told a news conference in Johannesburg: "We want to thank President Mbeki for all of his efforts but President Mbeki needs to be relieved of his duties."

Hundreds of opposition supporters have been displaced in Zimbabwe.
Mr Tsvangirai said he had called on the regional Southern African Development Community, under the chairmanship of Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, to lead a new mediation effort.
"I have made a specific request to President Mwanawasa to say that he needs to lead a new initiative... that will expand beyond President Mbeki," Mr Tsvangirai said.
He said Mr Mugabe had "unleashed an orgy of violence against the people".
Mr Tsvangirai suggested a UN crimes court similar to those in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"As I speak, our people are being murdered, homes burned, children molested, women raped," he said.
Mr Tsvangirai has previously said there should be no "witch hunt" against Mr Mugabe.
President Mbeki had defended his record on Zimbabwe at the UN in New York on Wednesday.
Mr Mbeki met President Mugabe last Saturday and afterwards said there was "no crisis" in Zimbabwe. He defended those remarks in New York, saying dialogue was essential.
"The solution to the problem of Zimbabwe lies in the hands of the people of Zimbabwe," he said.
Earlier on Thursday, South Africa urged Zimbabwe's electoral commission to release the results of last month's presidential election.
South African spokesman Themba Maseko told the BBC there was a fear the situation in Zimbabwe could deteriorate because the results had not been released.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says it cannot release the results until it investigates anomalies - a partial recount takes place this weekend.
Mr Tsvangirai said: "The regime is conditioning people to believe there's a run-off. There's no run-off because we won this election decisively."
The call for election results to be published was echoed on Thursday by the G8 group of major industrialised countries, the European Union and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said Zimbabwe had become an "abomination".
"It's time for Africa to step up," Ms Rice said. "Where is the concern from the African Union and from Zimbabwe's neighbours about what is going on in Zimbabwe?"
'Regime change'
Zimbabwe's government has meanwhile stepped up its campaign against Mr Tsvangirai.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa alleged he was working with Britain to bring about "regime change".

Thabo Mbeki has defended his role on Zimbabwe.
The state-controlled Herald newspaper accused Mr Tsvangirai of approaching the UK government to discuss possible military intervention.
The Herald also said it had details of a letter from UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to Mr Tsvangirai assuring him that Britain had lobbied southern African leaders to hold an urgent summit on Zimbabwe and that London would impose more sanctions.
"It is clear from the correspondence that Tsvangirai along with Brown are seeking regime change in Zimbabwe, and on the part of Tsvangirai. This is treasonous," Mr Chinamasa is quoted as saying.
Mr Tsvangirai said the allegations were "outrageous".
"We are determined to have democratic change through democratic means," he said.
Meanwhile, South African officials have confirmed to the BBC that a Chinese ship anchored off the port of Durban does contain arms destined for Zimbabwe.
The officials said South Africa could not interfere in a trade deal between two nations but only ensure proper procedures were followed.
Sanctions imposed by Western countries on Zimbabwe forbid the sale of weapons to the country.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INNOCENT PHOTOGRAPHER OR TERRORIST?

By Tom Geoghegan BBC News Magazine.

Misplaced fears about terror, privacy and child protection are preventing amateur photographers from enjoying their hobby, say campaigners.
Phil Smith thought ex-EastEnder Letitia Dean turning on the Christmas lights in Ipswich would make a good snap for his collection.
The 49-year-old started by firing off a few shots of the warm-up act on stage. But before the main attraction showed up, Mr Smith was challenged by a police officer who asked if he had a licence for the camera.
After explaining he didn't need one, he was taken down a side-street for a formal "stop and search", then asked to delete the photos and ordered not take any more. So he slunk home with his camera.
"People were still taking photos with mobile phones and pocket cameras, so maybe it was because mine looked like a professional camera with a flash on top," he says.
"I wasn't very pleased because I was taken through the crowd and through the barriers at the front and people were probably thinking 'I wonder what he was doing.'
"To be pulled out of a crowd is very daunting and I wasn't aware of my rights.
"It's a sad state of affairs today if an amateur photographer can't stand in the street taking photographs."
But he's not the only snapper to fall foul of the authorities while innocently pursuing a hobby or working.

Austin Mitchell MP has tabled a motion in the Commons that has drawn on cross-party support from 150 other MPs, calling on the Home Office and the police to educate officers about photographers' rights.
Mr Mitchell, himself a keen photographer, was challenged twice, once by a lock-keeper while photographing a barge on the Leeds to Liverpool canal and once on the beach at Cleethorpes.
"There's a general alarm about terrorism and about paedophiles, two heady cocktails, and police and PCSOs [police community support officers] and wardens and authorities generally seem to be worried about this."
Photographers have every right to take photos in a public place, he says, and it's crazy for officials to challenge them when there are so many security cameras around and so many people now have cameras on phones. But it's usually inexperienced officers responsible.
"If a decision is made to crack down on photographers, it should be made at the top. It's a general officiousness and a desire to interfere with people going about their legitimate business."

Steve Carroll was another hapless victim of this growing suspicion. Police seized the film from his camera while he was out taking snaps in a Hull shopping centre. They later returned it but a police investigation found they had acted correctly because he appeared to be taking photographs covertly.

Be aware of people taking photos - the Met's latest campaign.
Enlarge Image

And photography enthusiast Adam Jones has started an online petition on the Downing Street website urging the prime minister to clarify the law. It has gained hundreds of supporters.
He says it has become increasingly difficult to take photos in public places because of terrorism fears.
Holidaymakers to some overseas destinations will be familiar with this sort of attitude - travel guides frequently caution readers that innocently posing for a snapshot outside a government building could lead to some stern questions from local law enforcers.
But in Britain this sort of attitude is new. So what is the law?
"If you are a normal person going about your business and you see something you want to take a picture of, then you are fine unless you're taking picture of something inherently private," says Hanna Basha, partner at solicitors Carter-Ruck. "But if it's the London Marathon or something, you're fine."

There are also restrictions around some public buildings, like those involved in national defence.
Child protection has been an issue for years, says Stewart Gibson of the Bureau of Freelance Photographers, but what's happened recently is a rather odd interpretation of privacy and heightened fears about terrorism.
"They [police, park wardens, security guards] seem to think you can't take pictures of people in public places. It's reached a point where everyone in the photographic world has become so concerned we're mounting campaigns and trying to publicise this."
It seems to be increasing, he says.
"There's a great deal of paranoia around but the police are on alert for anything that vaguely resembles terrorism. It's difficult because the more professional a photographer, paradoxically, the more likely they are to be stopped or questioned.
"If people were using photos for terrorism purposes they would be using the smallest camera possible."

The National Union of Journalists has staged a demo to highlight how media photographers are wrongly challenged by police.
In May last year, Thames Valley Police overturned a caution issued to photographer Andy Handley of the MK News in Milton Keynes, after he took pictures at the scene of a road accident.
Guidelines agreed between senior police and the media were adopted by all forces in England and Wales last year. They state that police have no power to prevent the media taking photos.
They state that "once images are recorded, [the police] have no power to delete or confiscate them without a court order, even if [the police] think they contain damaging or useful evidence."
And in the case of Phil Smith, an official complaint about the Christmas lights incident helped sort matters out. Not only did he receive a written apology from Suffolk Police, but also a visit from an inspector, who explained that the officer, a special constable, had acted wrongly.
And there was one consolation for Mr Smith as he trudged home while lamenting the shots of Letitia Dean that never were - she didn't turn up anyway.

BBC NEWS REPOERT.

ELDERLY U.S. PAIR MURDERED HOMELESS !

Two elderly women have been convicted over the murder of two homeless men in an attempt to collect $2.8m (£1.4m) in life assurance.
Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, befriended the men from around Los Angeles, put them up in flats and took out insurance policies.
The two men were then drugged and killed in staged road accidents.
Golay was convicted of murder and Rutterschmidt of conspiracy to murder. Both face life in prison.
Kenneth McDavid, 50, was found dead in the Westwood area of Los Angeles in June 2005. Paul Vados, 73, died in Hollywood in 1999.
The women, who had been friends for 20 years, were arrested in May 2006.
The judge ordered lawyers for the defence and prosecution to restate their arguments on Thursday on murder charges pending against Rutterschmidt.

During the four-week trial, deputy district attorney Truc Do had told the jury: "The victim would always be run over - crushed to death - in an alley with no witnesses... it always looked like it was a hit-and-run accident."
They made a profit on the lives of men who were homeless and destitute
Deputy district attorney Truc Do
He said the women had found the men in a homeless shelter at a Hollywood church, provided them with apartments and supported them for two years - while taking out multiple life insurance policies on them.
Mr Do said the two-year timescale was important, as it was the length of time it would take to make the insurance policies incontestable.
Mr Do said the men were "forgotten" people, so no relatives were likely to come forward to contest the insurance policies taken out by Golay and Rutterschmidt.
"They made a profit on the lives of men who were homeless and destitute," he said
Prosecutors played jurors excerpts from a secretly recorded conversation between the two women shortly after their arrest.
Rutterschmidt is heard telling Golay: "You were greedy. That's the problem."
Golay replies: "Be quiet. Don't say anything."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"THE AWARENESS OF OUR STRENGTH

MAKES US MODEST" !

_______

GAFFES DOMINATE DEMOCRATIC DEBATE!

US Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have held their final debate before next week's key primary in Pennsylvania.
Senator Clinton criticised her rival's recent remark that working-class voters clung to guns and religion in difficult times, calling it "offensive".
Senator Obama said the comments had been taken out of context.
Both expressed confidence that either of them could beat Republican John McCain in November's election.
But both declined to confirm whether they would ask the other to be their vice-presidential running mate.
Asked whether Mr Obama could win the presidential election, Mrs Clinton said emphatically: "Yes, yes, yes."
Mr Obama, asked the same question about Mrs Clinton's electability, responded: "Absolutely and I've said so before."
Both rivals criticised John McCain's economic plans, pledging not to raise taxes on those earning less than $200,000 a year.
The candidates' 21st debate since the beginning of the campaign came days before 158 crucial delegates will be up for grabs in Pennsylvania.
The 90-minute debate in Philadelphia gave the candidates a chance to make their case to Pennsylvania's Democratic voters.
But if Barack Obama had hoped this debate would concentrate on policy, he was disappointed, says the BBC's Jamie Coomarasamy in Philadelphia.
The first 45 minutes focused on recent gaffes, our correspondent says.
Mr Obama said he mangled his description of the mood in economically struggling small towns.

The candidates agreed they could both beat the Republican John McCain.
"The problem that we have in our politics, which is fairly typical, is that you take one person's statement, if it's not properly phrased, and you just beat it to death, and that's what Senator Clinton's been doing," said the Illinois senator.
For her part, Mrs Clinton apologised for the first time for inaccurately saying she came under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996.
Critics said she had exaggerated the dangerousness of the situation.
In another recent embarrassment, Mrs Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, was forced to resign after it emerged that he had attended a meeting with Colombian officials to promote a US trade pact with the country.
Mrs Clinton has publicly opposed the policy.
Since the Democratic hopefuls last faced-off in a debate seven weeks ago, Mr Obama has come in for more criticism other than the row over his comments about small-town Americans.
He has also faced calls to distance himself from Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of his church, after clips of Mr Wright's fiery sermons were shown on the internet.
Because of the proportional system the Democrats use to distribute delegates, neither candidate will end the night with much of an advantage over the other.
Polls suggest Mrs Clinton will win the popular vote, but this is unlikely to result in a significant increase in her delegate count.
The latest count of pledged delegates to the party's national convention in August, according to the Associated Press, gives Mr Obama the support of 1,638 delegates and Mrs Clinton 1,502.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WITNESS: SPREADING FEAR IN ZIMBABWE !

Charles, a Zimbabwean human rights expert, has told the BBC how he saw for himself the victims of beatings and torture that have been reported since the elections.
He said he accompanied a friend to a hospital in Harare, where people were being treated, and what he saw and heard makes him fear for the future of the country.
These people had been transported to Harare to get treatment, some of them from communities about 200km from Harare.
They had been beaten up, burned, some had ribs broken. Some of them had big wounds like they had been exposed to physical torture or been exposed to heat of some kind.

There have been reports of skirmishes around the capital.
I've been involved in this sort of work a long time and at one point suffered the same kind of physical abuse in 2001. Back then, I was brought to the same hospital for treatment so it was shocking for me. Over the last five or six years I haven't seen anything like that.
I thought - I've been here before. We are back to that very difficult period where violence has become the order of the day.
If you look at 1999 and 2000, it was mainly in the rural areas, and that seems to be true this time as well. It is a "re-education" process for the rural electorate. A lot of people might not have access to media to know what is happening. It is a terrible situation out there.

I had the chance to meet a woman who had run away from a rural area where she had been identified as an MDC activist. She was telling stories about groups beating up people. There is a lot of fear. People are worried about when they are going to get a knock on the door and what is going to happen to them.
I think playing around with people's consciences will plunge the country into unprecedented chaos
The people in the hospital had different stories.One man said the Zanu-PF youth and militias had gone to a MDC agent and got a list of all the MDC supporters in the village, then they went on a campaign of visiting houses and assaulting people.
Others were told there was a meeting in the village they had to attend. Then people were being called in individually and beaten up.
One young girl I saw at the hospital said they came to her door and asked for mother. She said her mother was not there, because she was hiding, but they broke into the house and found her mother and punished the girl for lying.
I think it is a well-orchestrated move that involves the intelligence services and state institutions.

The nation deserves to know what the results of the presidential elections are. It is going to be a difficult job trying to rebuild Zimbabwe, but I think people would rather start now.
The country is still waiting for official poll results.
Zimbabwe needs to re-establish relations with the rest of the world, let us get on with the job.
There is a reasonable chance that the people who have had the ballot boxes have rigged them.
I think playing around with people's consciences will plunge the country into unprecedented chaos - especially in the context of the economic problems that people are facing - they don't have food, the education sector is crumbling, the health sector is crumbling, transport is crumbling.
It is very dangerous and likely to plunge the country into chaos.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EUROVISION SONG SPARKS FRENCH ROW!

The French song is one of 43 Eurovision entries this year.
A French MP has said he is outraged that the song chosen to represent the nation in the Eurovision song contest has English lyrics.
Jacques Myard, of the UMP party, has urged the company that runs most of France's TV networks to reconsider.
Sebastien Tellier's entry, entitled Divine, combines both English and French lyrics with electro music.
France's culture minister has defended the song, saying the country should fully support his bid for victory.

SELECTED LYRICS
I'm looking for a band today/ I see the Chivers anyway/ Through my eyes/ Oh oh oh I'm/ I'm alone in life to say/ I love the Chivers anyway/ 'Cause Chivers look divine/ Look away/ They try to find the Milky Way/ They love to drink it every day/ No no no you/ You and I, it's like you said/ I'm not a Chivers anyway/ You look fine

A total of 43 countries are taking part in a contest that draws some 200 million viewers from Europe and beyond.
"Sebastien Tellier has great talent, he has a real international dimension," Christine Albanel told Agence France Presse.
HAVE YOUR SAY
I think the French politician's reaction is way too much. It is only a song contest, not an attack on French culture - Jess, Paris.
But she also admitted: "I do think it is a shame that it isn't a French song."
Mr Myard told the BBC that allowing an English song to represent France was a fiasco: "The French language is the tool of a huge industry in terms of cultural influence and if we French give up our language, what do you think the others will say?"
Mr Myard, himself a fluent English speaker, said it was not appropriate that, in a European contest, France should "monkey another's culture".

EUROVISION FACTS
One of the longest-established TV shows, first broadcast in 1956
Most winning songs are performed in English
Abba are the most successful winners
Norway has come last 10 times
Ireland has won seven times

"I think that even in a song, especially in this Euro contest, we have to sing in French," he added.
Mr Tellier, whose album is called Sexuality, defended his choice, saying he needed to use the English language to achieve his artistic goals.
"To explain the vision of French people of sexuality and of life and so, to be understood, I need to sing in English," he said.
According to the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation, which is hosting this year's event, countries are completely free to choose the language of their lyrics.
Last year's entry from Cyprus, an official added, was sung in French.
Statistically, however, entries sung in English are more likely to go on to win the competition, according to Eurovision.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHITE HOUSE THOUSANDS GREET POPE!

The Pope and Mr Bush have both agreements and differences. Thousands of guests have welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the White House for his meeting with President George W Bush.
The Pope was greeted with a singing of Happy Birthday on the day he turned 81.
Mr Bush said the Pope's message that "God is love" was needed to "save man from falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism".
Pope Benedict said he had come as a friend of the US and urged Americans to use their faith to inspire "reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue".
This was the first visit by a pope to the White House in almost 30 years.
There were huge cheers as the Pope and Mr Bush took the podium for the national anthems of the Holy See and the US.
I am confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration
Pope Benedict XVI

Pope's tour: Reporter's diary
Latinos welcome Pope's words
Profile: Pope Benedict XVI

The Pope was treated to two Happy Birthdays, the first an impromptu rendition before a more formal chorus later. Famed soprano Kathleen Battle also sang The Lord's Prayer.
Mr Bush quoted St Augustine in greeting the Pope with the words "peace be with you".
He said the US was honoured that the Pope was spending his "special day" with Americans.
Mr Bush said the US was "fully modern but guided by ancient and eternal truths".
Mr Bush added: "In a world where some evoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that God is love."
Such a message would "save man from falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism," he said.

POPE'S ITINERARY
15 Apr: Arrives at Andrews Air Force Base
16 Apr: White House luncheon; talks with Mr Bush. Parade. Prayer service in Washington (evening)
17 Apr: Washington Mass; addresses Catholic University; interfaith meeting
18 Apr: Addresses UN
19 Apr: New York Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral
20 Apr: Ground Zero visit; Yankee Stadium Mass

Mr Bush added: "In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism."
The Pope responded by saying he came as "a friend of the US".
He praised Americans for their "concern for the greater human family" and hoped this would "continue to find expression in support for the patient efforts of international diplomacy to resolve conflicts".
The Pope added: "I am confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more humane and free society."
He concluded: "God bless America".
Common ground
The pontiff has now left the White House for a public parade in Washington in his Popemobile.
In the private talks, the Pope was expected to bring up with President Bush the dangers of family break-ups caused by mass migration of people from Latin America seeking jobs and new lives in the US.

Other areas of disagreement have been the death penalty and the US trade embargo on Cuba.
However, there is also much common ground, including expanding religious tolerance and curbing extremism, and on areas including Africa and Lebanon.
Both leaders also oppose embryonic stem cell research.
The issue of sex abuse among clergy was also expected to be a topic of discussion but White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it was not "necessarily on the president's top priorities".
BBC Rome correspondent David Willey, who is travelling with the pontiff, says that on his flight to the US, the Pope said he was "deeply ashamed" by the child abuse scandal.
"It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound."
In recent years, the US Catholic Church, which has around 65 million followers, has paid $2bn (£1bn) to settle clergy sexual abuse cases.

Our correspondent says Mr Bush wanted Pope Benedict to attend a gala birthday dinner at the White House, but this was declined in favour of the private luncheon party.
The White House will proceed with its gala dinner on Wednesday evening, although the Pope will attend a prayer service in Washington instead.
The Pope will then celebrate a Mass for 48,000 people in Washington on Thursday and another later at Yankee Stadium in New York. He will also address the UN General Assembly.
On Sunday he will visit the site of the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHY MUGABE IS DEAF TO THE WEST!

By Peter Greste - BBC News, Johannesburg.

On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council will convene in New York for a special session chaired by South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki.
They are meeting to discuss ways of improving co-operation between the African Union and the United Nations.
The issue has never been more timely.
South Africa's president has been the point-man for the region's, and the world's, diplomatic efforts to resolve Zimbabwe's increasingly desperate crisis.
He has also staked his legacy on success in Zimbabwe.
He argues that the rest of the world should butt out and let Africans resolve the problems in an African way.
Western finger-wagging, he says, simply does not help.
Although Zimbabwe is not officially on the agenda, diplomats from the United States and Britain are determined to make it so.
And in a not-so-subtle attempt to catch the Security Council's eye, one organisation is planning to fly a 3,000-sq-ft (280-sq-m) banner above the UN on Wednesday morning, calling on Mr Mbeki to convince Zimbabwe's leader Robert Mugabe to respect the will of his people.
The banner, with some 120,000 signatures, is likely to be the latest in a loud chorus of international demands to "do something" about democracy in Zimbabwe.
More harm than good
Over the weekend, it was UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown's turn, declaring: "We can't wait any longer for the announcement of these results."
The US said it had "credible reports of violence and intimidation" against opposition supporters and called on the government to end the attacks.

Gordon Brown has called for the election results to be released.
Zimbabwe is an easy target for Western governments.
The image of Robert Mugabe as an arrogant dictator is straightforward and easy to condemn.
Doing so polishes politicians' credentials as democrats defending human rights, without having to worry about losing things like oil.
But the bitter lesson of the past decade has been that in being openly critical, the West has done more harm than good in Zimbabwe.
Starting with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and his then International Development Secretary Clare Short more than a decade ago, British criticism has played into President Mugabe's view of black Africa under siege by white colonialists.
Rather than increasing pressure for him to go, the criticism has given Mr Mugabe fuel for his rhetorical fire.

Lessons of history
In 1997, Ms Short wrote a now infamous letter to Zimbabwe's Agriculture Minister, Kumbirai Kangai. She was responding to President Mugabe's demand that Britain fulfill its Lancaster House agreement to pay for land redistribution from white farmers to poor black Zimbabweans.
"I should make it clear," she said, "that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe."
"We are a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we were colonised, not colonisers."
It hardly matters now whether that letter really did send Mr Mugabe into a rage that became focused on the white farmers who were to lose their properties in the land invasions that began in 2000.
But it showed a basic misunderstanding of Zimbabwe's recent colonial history that still taints the West's approach to the country.
After Zimbabwe's liberation war of the 1970s to overthrow Ian Smith's minority government, the white community reached an unspoken compact with President Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.
If they stayed out of politics, they would be left alone.
But when the issue over land flared up, they began to support the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in a move that Mr Mugabe came to regard as a continuation of the war by other means.
It became easy to cast the MDC as poodles of London and Washington, particularly as it accepted support from both.
Now, every utterance from either capital confirms a view of the West as one that still cannot accept the idea that Africans should be allowed to shape their own destinies.
That is what Mr Mbeki meant when he said on Sunday that "there is no crisis".

Regional solidarity
One of his negotiating team, Sydney Mufamadi, said he understood the anxiety about the delay in releasing election results.
But he added: "Those of us that have a responsibility to make sure a resolution is found, also have a responsibility to say that we have not reached a dead end because we know what processes can still be activated to remove the blockage."

The need to keep control of this crisis within African hands may also explain why the region's leaders have been so reluctant to openly criticise Mr Mugabe.
In this, they are oddly out of step with public opinion.
If the newspaper columns are any indication, neighbouring states firmly believe that Zimbabwe's 84-year-old leader should go as soon as possible.
But the cost to the dignity of leaders like Mr Mbeki to be seen to be heeding their former colonial masters is too much to bear.
Southern African countries are painfully aware of the impact of Zimbabwe's collapse.
They are hosting some three million Zimbabweans and these are states that can barely afford to feed themselves.
Yet African solidarity still seems to be the defining theme of regional diplomacy.
The leaders of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) spent more than 12 hours in a summit that finally ended at 0500 on Sunday - more than 11 hours later than scheduled.
Sources suggest there was a fierce debate over whether the situation constituted a "crisis" or not, and about whether there should be some kind of government of national unity.
The final communique said there was no crisis, and blandly called on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the results "as expeditiously as possible".
This is not to suggest that the West should sit on its hands.
But if history is anything to go by, UN pressure may only make it harder to resolve the crisis.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"ALL TIME-MANGEMENT BEGINS WITH PLANNING "!

_____

U.S. IN $200m FOOD CRISIS RESPONSE!

Riots against rising food prices have spread around the world in recent days.
US President George W Bush has ordered the release of $200m in emergency aid to alleviate food shortages in Africa and other parts of the world.
The White House said the money would be used to meet unanticipated needs for food aid.
Rising food prices have sparked recent riots in several countries, including Haiti, the Philippines and Egypt.
The World Bank has said a doubling of food prices in three years could push 100m more people into poverty.
"This additional food aid will address the impact of rising commodity prices on US emergency food aid programmes and be used to meet unanticipated food aid needs in Africa and elsewhere," the White House said in a statement.
The announcement followed a call by the World Bank's Development Committee and the International Monetary Fund for rising food prices to be addressed at the highest political level.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday that the rapidly escalating crisis called for short term emergency measures to prevent people in many parts of the world from starving.
The UN's World Food Programme has launched an emergency appeal for $500m, saying the money is needed by 1 May to avoid food rationing.
Prices have risen sharply in recent months, driven by poor crop-growing weather in certain countries, increased demand and a reduced production area resulting from an increase in the use of land to grow crops for transport fuels.
World Bank head Robert Zoellick had on Sunday proposed a "new deal" action plan for a long-term boost to agricultural production.
Emergency help would include an additional $10m to Haiti, where several people were killed in food riots last week, and a doubling of agricultural loans to African farmers.
The US provided more than $2.1 billion in food aid in 2007.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DEADLY BOMBING HIT IRAQI CITIES!

A car bomb has killed at least 38 people and injured 64 in the central Iraqi city of Baquba, police officials report.
The bomb exploded outside a restaurant opposite the court appeal building in the city, which is 60 miles (100km) north of Baghdad.
Shortly afterwards police said a bomb in the city of Ramadi, further west, had killed 13 people.
That also targeted a restaurant. About 14 people were reported injured.

Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, has been an insurgent stronghold, where militants linked to al-Qaeda are said to have regrouped after being driven away from Baghdad.
The city has recently been the scene of intensive US and Iraqi operations targeting the militants.
The bomb there exploded just before noon, when the area was crowded with people visiting government offices and eating lunch at the restaurant, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.
A police officer said the casualties included women and children.
There were so many wounded that ambulances were struggling to get them all to hospital, medical sources said.
The attack in Ramadi occurred in or outside a kebab restaurant, police said. It was reportedly carried out by a suicide attacker.
Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, was once the heart of the insurgency.
In contrast to Diyala, the region has seen a sharp decline in violence as Sunni tribal leaders have joined forces with American and Iraqi government forces against al-Qaeda.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HANDCUFFED MAN STEALS POLICE CAR!

Despite being handcuffed, Mr Nolan managed to get away.
Police in the Australian city of Brisbane were left stranded and embarrassed after a handcuffed suspect drove off in their patrol car.
The two officers had arrested 29-year-old Mark Robert Nolan in connection with a series of burglaries.
They put him in their unmarked vehicle and went round the back to look for some further evidence.
Mr Nolan waited until they had gone, climbed into the driver's seat, started the engine and drove off.
Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Ian Stewart said that the two officers had been investigating the contents of a bag in Mr Nolan's possession.
"During that time, it appears Nolan has got into the front of the police car and turned the police car on and driven off," he said.
Mr Nolan had been handcuffed with his hands in front of his body, he said.
The car was later found but Mr Nolan was nowhere to be seen.
Queensland police promised a "thorough investigation" into what happened.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE BRACED FOR STRIKE ACTION !

Police fanned out around the country on Monday ahead of the planned strike. Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change has called a general strike, with tight security even though no demonstrations are planned.
It comes after the High Court ruled against an MDC demand for the release of presidential election results.
The opposition says Morgan Tsvangirai beat President Robert Mugabe in the vote and one of its poll agents has since been killed by Zanu-PF militia.
Police accuse the MDC of "agitating for violence" by calling for the strike.
Rather than street protests, opposition officials have called for a "mass stay-in until the results are released," MDC Vice-President Thokhozani Khupe was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
Police warned that "those who breach the peace will be dealt with severely and firmly".
But with four out of five Zimbabweans jobless, widespread fear of the security forces, and rallies banned, it is not clear how much impact the strike will have, says the BBC's southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles.

On Monday, the High Court judge said the outcome of 29 March presidential polls could not be published until reports of anomalies in some seats had been investigated.
MDC officials and their homes have allegedly been attacked since the polls.
Electoral officials had said they could not release the result until after a recount of the vote in some seats.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told the BBC the High Court ruling in the capital, Harare, was "absolutely ridiculous and incredible".
It comes amid reports of increasing violence around the country.
Some 200 MDC elections agents and activists have been assaulted - one fatally - by ruling party activists attempting to intimidate them before any run-off vote for president, Mr Chamisa said.
About 1,000 people have reportedly been displaced by political violence in the eastern Manicaland province.

Amid the ongoing tension, Mr Tsvangirai is currently basing himself in neighbouring Botswana.
Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF welcomed Monday's ruling, denying the court was biased towards the ruling party.
Independent tallies suggested Mr Tsvangirai won the poll, but took less than 50% of the vote, meaning he would have to face a run-off.
But the MDC says it would not take part in a run-off, saying a further election would mean increased violence - the first round was relatively peaceful.
The electoral commission says a recount of presidential and parliamentary results in 23 constituencies will start on Saturday.
Zanu-PF wanted a recount in 22 constituencies, while an MDC recount request in one seat has also been granted.
Zanu-PF has lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in Mr Mugabe's 28-year rule.
But it could be recovered if the ruling party is awarded just nine of the 23 seats subject to a recount.
Southern African leaders called for the election results to be announced "expeditiously" during a summit at the weekend in Zambia.
But it did not urge Mr Mugabe to step aside, as the MDC had wished.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MADE IN CHINA !

By Finlo Rohrer - BBC News Magazine.

In the run-up to the Olympics some opponents of China's regime are boycotting not just the games but all Chinese products. There have been many boycotts before, but with its dominance in manufacturing, those vowing not to buy Chinese face an especially tough challenge.
Sitting on the bus wending your way to work and wherever you are, you probably have a bit of China with you.

Listening to your iPod. Made in China. Fiddling with your key ring. Made in China. Label on the inside of your underpants irritating you a little bit. It more than likely says "Made in China".
If you walk down the high street and every garment's made in China, what do you do? Do you go naked?
Tim SpencerBoycotter

When there was a boycott of South African products during the Apartheid era or of France by irritated Americans in the run-up to the Iraq war, those were political statements that might have meant a little privation for those involved. But they weren't on the same scale as China.
Opponents of China talk of its treatment of Tibet, its appalling record on human rights, jailing of dissidents, and even its attitude towards animal welfare when calling for a boycott. The Friends of Tibet group has called for such action, but it's impossible to know how many people are engaged in boycotting.
China's defenders suggest it is becoming more open and receptive to basic rights. And there are plenty of people who, while criticising China, regard the idea of a boycott as counter-productive. There are those who feel boycotts are too crude a device, affecting the lowest-paid labourers rather than just the regime. There is also a view that, particularly when it comes to China, constructive engagement is a better option than a boycott.

Those who do choose to boycott can be a resolute bunch. Tricia Hall spends a lot of time in charity shops. A trip to the High Street means a slew of questions and baffled stares from shop assistants. "Where was it made?" "Dunno, doesn't it say?"
"When they are labelled it is easy enough," says Mrs Hall. "We are very careful. But they have a very large grip on the market. "We do avoid the High Street. You can't trust them any more. I certainly don't go to the cheap shops."
Mrs Hall and her husband have boycotted Chinese products for a decade because of human and animal rights issues. Life has been easier for them as they are not big consumers.
But for those who with an electronic bent, for instance, things are more difficult.
John Yelland is struggling to print things out. He decided to start a boycott after seeing a video of dogs being mistreated in China. Now he can't find a new printer because they all seem to be made in China, or from Chinese components.
"I would rather pay a few quid more for the same product. You have got to be extremely careful. A lot of products don't specify where they were made. They might say made in Bedfordshire when the product is shipped in from China."

Chinese factories are making cars based on British designs
It's the "component problem". Let's say you buy a television from a big name brand in Korea or Japan. It may be assembled in the home nation, it may even have been assembled in Europe.
But it's hard to imagine that of the dozens of different components inside it, some haven't come from China. Whether it's chips, LEDs or humble wires, there's a lot of stuff that could potentially not be from the place it was assembled.
"It's very difficult to go down to every single transistor or circuit board in every device," says Stuff magazine editor Fraser Macdonald.
A boycott of Chinese products really meets its match in the field of consumer electronics.
There is some production still in Europe, particularly of expensive equipment, says Rob Follis, a public relations consultant for consumer electronics firms, but it is dwindling in the face of outsourcing to China.

Avoiding Chinese toys is difficult for boycotters.
Follis has clients like hi-fi maker Arcam which manufactures mainly in Britain, and headphones firm Sennheiser, which manufactures in the Republic of Ireland and Europe, but they are no longer the rule.
Clothes don't have the same hidden mix of components as electronics, but China is coming to dominate the market in a way that makes life hard for the boycotters. Dalha Tsering of the Tibetan Community in Britain group doesn't always find it easy.
"I avoid buying anything made in China, from children's toys to shoes to all sorts of electronic equipment. Sometimes it is very, very difficult because the price is very, very different. I usually buy Italian for shoes."

Alternative retailers like Ethical Threads or People Tree don't have any dealings with China. And for anyone spending a bit of money there's clothes made in Britain, and in Italy, as well as slightly cheaper options from the likes of Portugal and Eastern Europe.
Tim Spencer, from Wimborne in Dorset, has only been boycotting for a little over a week, since watching a TV documentary about China. But he can already see problems on the horizon. What happens when he needs to go clothes shopping?
"If you walk down the High Street and every garment's made in China, what do you do? Do you go naked?"
And when the next child's birthday rolls round in November there could really be problems. Because one area of manufacturing where China dominates the world market like a colossus is toys.
There are big brands like Playmobil and Lego, whose production bases are in Europe. But they are the exception rather than the rule.
Alan Milne, of Equitoy, the Association for Toy Importers, says it is impossible to put a precise figure on the level of Chinese toys imported, with EU trade rules complicating the matter. But it was estimated last year that of all the toys sold in the UK, 85% are made in China.
Recent years have seen a steady stream of big names taking their production to China. British firm Hornby and the Swedish wooden train set maker Brio are among the recent departures.
Avoiding China is hard in the globalised world trade system. Something of Shanghai or Shenzen is in so much of what we own. Even the most hardened boycotter may inadvertently be buying the "wrong" thing.
I started trying to avoid Chinese products upon hearing about the business of muscling in on the (already dubious) cheap labour, particularly clothing, markets of their struggling neighbouring countries. It's not that hard to avoid obvious purchases and a great way of curbing what is beginning to prove an unsustainable rate of consumer spending.Catherine, Manchester, UK.

Several years ago I tried to avoid buying clothes I though might be made in poor conditions, but as a plus size student I found it very difficult and eventually gave up. I thought more clothing products were made outside of China than in China but after checking all my clothes labels I'm wearing today, only one item was not made in China (two products didn't say), so I'm surprised. I'm not actually boycotting Chinese made products myself but have respect for those who are and wish them luck. I hear kettles are very hard to find.Emily, Liverpool, Merseyside.

I noticed this trend three years ago while shopping for a new pair of sandals in America; not a single pair was made outside China. I try not to buy Chinese whenever possible, and I figured there must be other people like me who would be prepared to pay more for things if they only knew where to look. To address this need, I am starting a website called notchinese.com which will enable ethical consumers to choose products from non-Chinese manufacturers.Guy, Oxford, England.

I would support those who boycott China for a good reason - e.g. if they've seen how bad things are in the country. But there's a fine line between believing strongly in something, and simply being self-righteous. I suspect many boycotters belong to the latter group and do not even know why they are boycotting China.Andy Wu, Cambridge.

Along with thousands of other people, mainly women, my wife lost her job to foreign competition. She was a sample technician for a large supplier of ladies underwear, which supplied the largest clothing retailer in Britain. I would love to avoid anything that had effectively created a loss of jobs here, but unfortunately I and my wife find that a near impossibility, but its not for want of trying.A Royston, Stockport.

Boycotting chinese made goods it not going to work and playing "hard ball" with them won't either. Engaging them in an open discussing is probably the only constructive way to move forward on the issues of human rights and tibet. Both of these are complicated issues that can't be solved over night or with the wave of a hand. People need to be realistic and understand that these things take time and a few generations from now am sure things will be much better for everyone.Nicola, London.

People always have something to preach or complain about, the majority of them are either being hypocritical or do not have a real understanding of the problems. In this particular issue, boycotting is really an insignificant action to instill a bit of self-righteousness in oneself or to feel a little less guilt about what they have (or even what they are). China as a country has been through too many struggles to care whether a few consumers are boycotting them or not.Olivia, London.

It is possible to buy goods made in other countries. I have been avoiding Chinese goods for years, but it takes time and trouble to find out the country of origin. If it is cheap, the chances are that it is Chinese , so look for proof that it is not. I recently bought a helmet from a Korean manufacturer and only after getting home found the "Made in China" label covered by the lining. Tim Betteridge, London

Not only is it well nigh impossible to avoid buying Chinese, but it is very unlikely to have any effect, except making the boycoters' life difficult, so why bother? Is it just a sort of "holier than thou" demonstration? If we want to influence China, we have to talk to them - kindly - putting aside our own selfish pride and sometimes uninformed opinions. Nobody is willing to listen to criticism from someone who is abusive, hypocritical and/or doesn't know what they are talking about. Jan, Swindon

Why don't you argue that the existence of China has helped stabilise the world economy by lowering the production cost on almost everything? Without it, people's everyday expenses will go rocket high. Rich people can certainly afford few pounds more on non-China made stuff; how about there are millions who cannot. You will face starvation if you want things all made over here, because there will be plenty of strikes going on, demanding more money, more holiday, you name it.
The guy who starting boycotts China after just a TV documentary, I feel so sad for him. It seems that he is the one who has no opinion of his own; maybe another different documentary will change his mind again. I certainly can make a documentary by just filming outside the pubs on a Saturday night, and then show to Chinese people, and I am quite sure they will be scared. I think they will also start to wonder if it is a good idea to send their kids to the UK for education. People always say that there are two sides on every story; it seems to me that BBC only has one side when the word China comes alone. Miao Hao, St Andrews, Scotland

In this age where politicians lack the integrity to do the right thing, a consumer boycott is the most effective way of making your opinions count! As for China - their greed will hopefully force them to turn the corner.Mark, London

The ability of consumers to demonstrate their dislike of a countrys politics by not funding their economy should be encouraged. Much like food products having to list their ingredients, consumer durables should list which countries had input into their manufacture and to what degree. Money is the real superpower, and this could be the new global democracy. Jason, London.

If I am a Chinese national, I will boycott English, French, German and US products. To support thugs, arsonists and murderers and claim violation of human rights has got to be height of hypocrisy. Goh Lip, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

I've been boycotting Chinese products for about six months now, in response not only to China's abysmal human rights record, but also in reaction to US companies outsourcing American manufacturing jobs. It's hard, but not impossible. There are a few good sites online that give the names of products still manufactured in the US, including clothing, toys, and electronics like televisions, washer/dryers, etc. I'm sure that there are similar sites for the UK. By buying products from US manufacturers, I feel that I'm using my money to support my country's economy and fair labor practices. We consumers have a lot of power in our wallets, if we choose to use it.Cristin, New York, NY

There are two big problems I identify in the China boycott movement. Firstly, China is regarded as the "in" and "fashionable" country of the Western world's elite. If big corporations adopt attitudes of, "China is good for business, so who cares about its human rights record?", it becomes difficult to do anything. Secondly, the biggest problem in the anti-China movement is that its aims don't fulfil the SMART acronym: - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. The political correctness movement against apartheid succeeded because it had the very specific aim of legislation being passed to allow people to vote in South Africa regardless of race. We aren't really sure what we want with China and we aren't sure how to determine when we have succeeded.Graeme Phillips, London, UK

I have long ago boycotted China – since the mid-1980s. I lived in the US and it was quite easy to boycott because the origin of everything has to be stamped on the product. In the UK this is not so easy. There is no law that says goods have to tell you where they were made. However, you can usually tell from the price. That darling little number that cost you five quid most likely came from China. The Olympics only highlights the injustices that China masks to the rest of the world. Social consciences need to be turned on for more than just for the summer of 2008. While my lonely pound doesn’t make much of a dent in China’s GNP I am doing something – what are you doing?UKBelle, Essex, UK
bbc news report.

EXIT POLLS PLACE BERLUSCONI AHEAD !

Veteran centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, 71, has a narrow lead in Italy's general election, exit polls suggest.
The election was held three years ahead of schedule, following the collapse of Romano Prodi's centre-left coalition.
The new government will be Italy's 62nd since World War II. Tricky coalition talks are expected in the coming days.
The government faces the task of reviving Italy's ailing economy. Zero growth is forecast for the coming year.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BUILDING BAN FOR BEIJING OLYMPICS !

Beijing is notoriously polluted, the haze often obscuring buildings.
All building sites in Beijing will be shut three weeks before the start of the Olympic Games, as the city tries to clear its skies of pollution.
Digging, pouring of concrete and outdoor spray-painting will also be banned under plans announced by the Environmental Protection Bureau.
The move follows mounting concern that athletes may suffer from Beijing's noxious atmosphere.
Olympic chiefs have already voiced concern over the issue.
President of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge had previously warned that he would postpone certain endurance events if pollution levels were excessive.
'Everything possible'
When Beijing bid for the Olympic Games in 2001 it promised to provide a clean environment for the athletes by August 2008, when the Games open.
But the BBC's James Reynolds, in Beijing, says the air in the city is often astonishingly bad and the city authorities have found this promise tough to keep.
Our correspondent says there are days when it is hard to see more than a few blocks away.
So on 20 July all construction sites in Beijing will be shut down - as well as cement manufacturers and concrete mixing plants.
And 19 businesses have been told to cut their emissions by 30%.
Officials say they will announce steps to take cars off the city's roads and have pledged to do "everything possible" to honour their promise to provide a clean atmosphere.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE ELECTION RULING AWAITED !

The contents of Zimbabwe's ballot boxes are still a matter of dispute.A judge in Zimbabwe is due to rule on whether the country's electoral commission should be forced to release the presidential election results.
Southern African leaders have urged authorities to announce the results of the poll, held more than two weeks ago.
The opposition MDC party, which says it won the vote fairly, believes the government wants to rig the outcome.
But there could be a further delay as the government has ordered votes in certain constituencies to be recounted.
"They had custody of the ballot boxes for two weeks and they must have stuffed them with their votes," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.
Zimbabwean government spokesman Bright Matonga said: "There is a court process that we follow. What we are doing is within the law."

The MDC says its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the presidential election outright, beating President Robert Mugabe. Independent tallies suggested Mr Tsvangirai won, but took less than 50% of the vote, meaning he would have to face a run-off.

But there has been no official announcement, and the MDC has petitioned the High Court to force the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to release the figures.
The judge considering the case, Tendai Uchena, said last week he hoped to make a ruling on Monday.
However, the ZEC says it is going ahead next Saturday with a recount of presidential and parliamentary results in 23 constituencies where it claims there have been irregularities.
The recount in 22 seats was requested by the ruling Zanu-PF party. A recount in one constituency requested by the MDC will also take place.
The parliamentary election saw Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF lose its majority.
But the majority could be recovered if Zanu-PF is awarded just nine of the 23 seats subject to a recount.

The speaker of the South African parliament, Baleka Mbete, has denounced the failure to publish the results of the presidential election as a case of "democracy gone wrong".
"As parliamentarians we cannot remain silent when we witness sufferings and violation of human rights. We can also not remain silent about the situation in Zimbabwe," she said.

President Mugabe has held power since Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.
Miss Mbete is a political ally of Jacob Zuma, who is tipped to succeed Thabo Mbeki as South African president, and who last week himself criticised the delays in Zimbabwe.
Mr Mbeki has been accused of failing to exert enough pressure on Mr Mugabe.
After a summit of southern African leaders at the weekend, the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) called for the election results to be announced speedily.
But it did not urge Mr Mugabe to step aside, as the MDC had wished.
MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti described the summit outcome as a "major improvement".
But he called on Mr Mbeki to show "more vigour, more openness and a complete abandonment of the policy of quiet diplomacy".
Under President Mugabe, a drawn-out economic collapse in Zimbabwe has seen hyper-inflation, massive unemployment and the departure of hundreds of thousands of people.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"A MAN CANNOT BE COMFORTABLE

WITHOUT HIS OWN APPROVAL" !

______

NEPAL'S MAOISTS EXTEND POLL LEAD !

Nepal's Maoist party has increased its lead as more results are declared from the country's landmark elections.
The former guerrillas have won 40 out of 79 seats declared, well ahead of all other parties, and far more than many analysts had expected.
Partial results suggest a similar lead elsewhere, polling officials said.
The polls, for an assembly tasked with writing a new constitution, are the first to test the Maoists at the ballot box after their 10-year insurgency.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kathmandu says it is not just the fact that the Maoists are ahead that has caused amazement, but the scale of their lead.

Maoist leader Prachandra said he was committed to multiparty democracy.
The Maoists have so far won more than three times as many seats as the traditionally powerful Nepali Congress, which is currently in third place.
Many key Maoist leaders have won seats, mostly with very large majorities.
Several senior politicians have lost, including the nephew and daughter of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and the leader of the traditional second party, the Communist UML, as well as a veteran royalist Prime Minister, Surya Bahadur Thapa, who came third in his seat.
The new assembly is expected to confirm an agreement made in December between the ruling government alliance and former rebels to abolish the 240-year-old monarchy.
The Maoists' leader, known by his nom-de-guerre, Prachandra, called the results a "victory" as he celebrated his win on Saturday in the capital, Kathmandu.

Q&A: Nepal elections

"We are fully committed to the peace process and multiparty democracy and to rebuild this country," he said.
Maoist supporters have been holding victory processions, with red vermillion powder smeared on their faces and red hammer-and-sickle flags in their hands.
The election for the 601-seat assembly is a key element in the peace deal that ended the Maoists' decade-long insurgency.
Although the Maoists have not yet renounced violence, they will almost certainly now have to adjust from being a party of revolt to being a party at the heart of government, our correspondent says.
Many Nepalis say they voted for the former rebels because they want the new faces that the older parties do not offer, or because the Maoists' actions have, in many cases, raised the wages they earn.

Results for the 240 constituencies chosen by the first-past-the-post system are expected over the next 10 days, although another 335 seats to be elected by proportional representation are not expected to be decided for several weeks.
The interim government is to appoint the remaining 26 seats.
While the Maoists were widely accused of electoral intimidation and threats ahead of the vote, the figures so far make it clear that even without that kind of fear factor, voters are still giving them a huge mandate, our correspondent says.
Nepal held its first polls since 1999 following the Maoists' decision to end their armed struggle in 2006.
King Gyanendra seized absolute power in 2005 but was forced to give up his authoritarian rule the following year after weeks of pro-democracy protests.
He has since lost all his powers and his command of the army.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LEGAL FIGHT OVER ZIMBABWE RECOUNT !

President Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF lost its parliamentary majority
Zimbabwe's opposition says it will mount a legal challenge to the election commission's order for a ballot recount in last month's contested polls.
Votes from 23 constituencies will be recounted on Saturday, local media say.
A change in the parliamentary result by nine seats could see President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party regain its lost majority in the assembly.
A key minister said the army would not be used against the people, despite opposition claims of intimidation.
Two weeks after the elections, official results of the presidential race have not been released.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it won the presidency and has accused President Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, of a de facto coup and campaign of violence ahead of a possible run-off vote.
But Information Minister Sikhoanyiso Ndlovu told the Sunday Mail that "the army will not fight against Zimbabweans because it is there to protect them".
He said there was "no military junta" in the country, soldiers were in their barracks and were not fully needed in "such a peaceful environment".
MDC lawyer Selby Hwacha said the party planned to fight in court the recount announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).

Opposition leaders fear a vote recount would be fixed.
"We will see how they play it out, but we will challenge it," he said.
Accepting a recount would be "accepting rigged results," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters news agency.
"They had custody of the ballot boxes for two weeks and they must have stuffed them with their votes."
ZEC chairman George Chiweshe said the results from 22 districts had been disputed by the ruling Zanu-PF party, while the MDC contested the count in one constituency.
The recount will be of all presidential, parliamentary, senate and council votes cast in the 29 March elections in the affected constituencies.
Regional pressure
The developments followed a call from southern African leaders for the still unpublished presidential poll results to be speedily announced.
After a summit in Zambia aimed at breaking the deadlock in Zimbabwe, Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders also urged all parties to accept the election results and asked South African President Thabo Mbeki to continue his role as SADC's "facilitator on Zimbabwe".
Mr Mugabe declined an invitation to the summit of the 14-nation body, sending a delegation of ministers instead.
MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti described the summit outcome as a "major improvement".

Zimbabwe's ailing economy means food queues are common.
But he called on Mr Mbeki to show "more vigour, more openness and a complete abandonment of the policy of quiet diplomacy".
According to results released so far, Zanu-PF has lost its majority in the House of Assembly for the first time since independence in 1980, winning 97 seats against the MDC's 99 in the 210-seat chamber. A smaller MDC faction has 10 seats.
In the Senate, or upper house, Zanu-PF and the combined opposition have 30 seats each.
The opposition says its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won more than the 50% of the vote necessary to avoid a second round in the presidential contest, citing returns posted outside polling stations.
Under President Mugabe, a drawn-out economic collapse in Zimbabwe has seen hyper-inflation, massive unemployment and the departure of hundreds of thousands of people.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TO GO GREEN IS GLORIOUS !

From Tibetan monks to human rights activists, recent events have shown that China can still be a dangerous place to be vocal. But when it comes to environmental lobbying, there are signs the system may be changing, reports Mukul Devichand.
In the shadow of the Great Wall of China, I watch men in blue overalls hack at the soil of the forest floor and carefully plant new saplings.
They are trying to restore this depleted ancient woodland to the high international standards of the Forest Stewardship Council.
Sustainable forests like this are a symbol of how things are slowly being changed by the new kids on the political block in China: green activists.
Charismatic campaigner Wen Bo has lobbied against deforestation, which he says has caused violent dust storms and floods - and a host of other effects.
He is not like most Chinese politicos, with a stylish haircut and a fleece jacket rather than a Mao suit. But what really sets him apart is the language he uses.
"We are not passively being governed, being ruled by the government," he told me. "We have our rights."
This is electric stuff in the world's biggest one-party state. Some outsiders hope that movements like his will give birth to a civil society - and even democracy - in repressive China.
They hope that China's reaction to the epic environmental consequences of its growth - with a quarter of drinking water contaminated - will allow people power to break free and put a brake on pollution.
But on a visit to Beijing to meet activists and experts on the environmental movement, I found it hard to gauge the size and effectiveness of this new green political space.
None of the environmentalists I spoke to risk lobbying for democracy or challenging the political system overtly.

Wen Bo: Intelligence agents sometimes pose as green volunteers.
"That would be like throwing an egg against a stone," says Wen Bo.
Instead they work together with officials who will listen. The activists say their ideas, such as "public participation," fit into a Communist Party framework.
It seems to be working somewhat on paper, with the central government recently upgrading the main environmental agency to a ministry.
Official statistics say there are now over 2,000 "green" NGOs. One unofficial study says there are up to two million informal groups of students, farmers or other activists. Several campaigns have received positive coverage in the state-controlled media.
But Wen Bo told me intelligence agents sometimes pose as green volunteers to keep an eye on what's going on.
And it's still not unusual to see activists arrested - one was recently charged with subversion. So is green politics making any real difference?
A Chinese Erin Brockovich
Zhang Jingjing, who works at a centre that helps pollution victims get legal aid, has been called the Erin Brockovich of China because of some famous victories in class action cases.

Zhang Jingjing: The main problem is the judiciary.
In 2005 she worked with the centre's boss, Wang Canfa, to help residents of a village in Fujian Province successfully sue a factory for compensation.
The factory was poisoning local crops with chromium - the same chemical Ms Brockovich fought in California.
But Ms Zhang sees limits to China's "green political space" because of the clout polluters have with local governments and judges.
In a country focussed on economic growth, factories and developers allow local officials to boost their area's GDP figures. The officials in turn pressurise judges.
"We have no independent judiciary, that is our problem," she says.
Because local officials and judges often side with polluters, the greens see central government as their ally. It's an internal power struggle in China that outsiders rarely see.

So although the activists do challenge the government, they themselves say it would be premature to call them a democracy movement.
Instead they are seeking much more basic mechanisms of accountability, like planning law and public hearings, which still don't exist in China.
What's more, many Chinese green activists don't see their own system as the sole cause of the problem. Instead, they blame the West.
I met Xiao Wei, the popstar whose message of love and green harmony inspired several of the 30-something activists I'd met, back when they were teenagers.
Given his soft style and hippy lyrics, I expected him to rail against the consumerism of today's China, with its 10-lane highways and enormous shopping malls.
Instead he said: "Everybody has the right to pursue a good life, to buy a big house or a car if they want to."
He pointed out that China is still a developing country and that much of the pollution is actually caused by factories which make products for the West. The waste generated by "Made in China" products is left for Chinese people to deal with.
Chinese environmental groups call this "the outsourcing of harm".
The basic dilemma for China is that polluting factories mean cheap exports, and potentially more jobs for the 300 million still living on less than $1 a day.
Chinese green groups often face the taunt that they put nature above the needs of the poor.
But Lo Sze Ping, the young director of Greenpeace's Beijing branch, thinks this very dilemma will force China's ecologists to come up with creative technological solutions.
"Imagine if China could produce solar panels just like China is producing DVD players now," he says.
"It would genuinely kick-start an energy revolution, not just in China but for the world."
Mukul Devichand's report for Analysis on Radio 4 can be heard at 2130 British Summer Time on Sunday 13 April.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Hunting us down !
Sunday 13th April 2008.

Dear Family and Friends,

I received a call early one morning this week from a friend in a small country town. Speaking quickly and quietly for fear of being overheard, he told me of the frightening events that were going on all around him. Eight double cab vehicles had arrived in the town. Armed men in civilian clothes alighted. They had lists of names of people who had been involved in the election campaign for the opposition MDC in the area.

"They are hunting us down," he said. "Each and every one of us is being sought out, beaten and punished for supporting the MDC." Some have had their homes burnt down, large numbers of people have been beaten and a local opposition organizer said :" it is terrible, there are injured people everywhere."

Later another call came, this time the story was of events on one of the few remaining commercial farms. Again the eye witness account was of armed men. There were youths too, many scores of them and they were clearly high on drugs and drink. The drumming, singing, shouting and intimidation carried only one message: there will be no change in Zimbabwe.

Scores of stories like this are coming in from all over the country. Armed men, drugged youths, lists of opposition supporters and activists, and a wave of fear sweeping over our country. None are being spared : men, women, children. Beating, burning, threatening and intimidating is the result of the brave voices of Zimbabweans across the country who voted for change.

While this goes on the economic and domestic situation for families everywhere has reached absolutely critical levels. In the fortnight since the elections food supplies in the shops have dropped to almost nothing. One major supermarket in my home town this weekend had lines and lines of scouring powder but no basics at all - no rice, pasta, flour, cereals, tin, jars or in fact anything edible. All fresh produce from milk and eggs to vegetables and meat has become virtually unobtainable as thugs and mobs close down farms, terrify workers and rob the nations shelves of the last few mouthfuls of food. A friend who helps feed children whose parents have died of AIDS, waited for almost 5 hours at the local Grain Marketing Board Depot while every single bag of the precious staple grain was loaded onto army trucks. She left empty handed and had also failed to find any beans, fish or even soya to buy for vulnerable children hungry and alone.

The reaction of our neighbours to the terror and tragedy unravelling Zimbabwe is beyond all understanding. South African president Thabo Mbeki emerged from an hour long meeting with Mr Mugabe saying: "There is no crisis in Zimbabwe." Fourteen African heads of state met for 12 hours in Zambia and emerged saying: "election results must be released expeditiously.

"Of course we don't know what went on behind closed doors but it seems like quiet diplomacy has again been the convenient smoke screen for Africa's Big Men. It is no comfort whatsoever to us mums who can't find enough food for our families. It is no comfort to frightened men whispering on crackly telephone lines about men with guns on an opposition witch hunt. It is no comfort to farmers trying to grow food but faced with drugged, drunken youths who want what they've got.

Zimbabweans voted for change a fortnight ago, the MDC announced that it had been achieved but day by day that change is being painfully, brutally stripped away.

Until next week,
love cathy.

DEAL TO END KENYAN CRISIS AGREED !

A deal has been agreed between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to form a cabinet - ending a long-running political crisis.
The new cabinet would be announced on Sunday, political sources said.
The crisis was sparked by controversial presidential election results in December, triggering violence in which some 1,500 people died.
A power-sharing deal was agreed in February but had been hampered by a row over the division of cabinet posts.

The deal was struck after hours of closed-door talks at the Sagana State Lodge, about 100 km (60 miles) north-east of the capital, Nairobi.
A political source close to one of the leaders told AFP news agency: "The two leaders held talks [Saturday] and agreed on a new coalition cabinet that will be unveiled around lunch time [Sunday]."

KENYA PARLIAMENT
Orange Democratic Movement (Odinga) MPs: 102
Party of National Unity (Kibaki) MPs: 46
Pro-ODM MPs: 5
Pro-PNU MPs: 61
Vacant seats: 6

Difficult tasks await MPs
Q&A: Power-sharing pact

A Western diplomat confirmed to the agency a deal had been signalled and that the leaders wanted a cabinet in place "before parliament resumes on Tuesday".
The BBC's Adam Mynott in Nairobi says there have been apparent solutions before, so sceptics will refuse to accept that there has been a genuine breakthrough until they see firm evidence.
Talks seemed to have broken down this week as Mr Odinga held out for the 50-50 split in cabinet posts he said he was promised by the accord to end the post-poll violence.
In addition to those who died, another 600,000 were displaced in January and February.
Many thousands have yet to return to their homes.
Mr Odinga will become prime minister but there were no immediate reports on the make-up of the cabinet.
The cabinet will work on framing a new constitution that will tackle long-standing grievances over land, wealth and power.
The two leaders had come under intense international pressure to achieve a breakthrough following the February deal that was brokered by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

10 THINGS !

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Ian Fleming never met the woman upon whom he based Miss Moneypenny.
More details

2. Each year 40,000 people pay homage at the California garage where the founders of Hewlett Packard started out.
More details

3. White people make up 90% of the UK's population.
More details

4. Most popular musical instrument in schools? The violin.
More details

5. Morgan Tsvangirai's surname is pronounced chang-girr-IGH.
More details

6. Much of the time it takes to fully train as an RAF pilot is taken up with solo flights.
More details

7. Fabio Capello rings his mother every day.

8. Rice was once considered so important in Japan that it was worshipped as a god.
More details

9. 4.4m apples are thrown away daily in the UK.

10. Belugas are the only white whales.
BBC NEWS MAGAZINE !

OBAMA RUE 'BITTER' VOTER REMARK !

Barack Obama was criticised after his speech was published on the internet
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has said remarks about "bitter" working-class people "clinging to guns or religion" were ill-chosen.
After a storm of criticism from his rivals, Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain, Mr Obama said he "didn't say it as well as I should have".
He made the contentious remarks at a fundraiser in San Francisco on Sunday.
The Illinois senator is ahead of Mrs Clinton in terms of delegates won in the Democratic primaries so far.
Mrs Clinton is hoping to reduce his lead when Pennsylvania holds its key primary election on 22 April.
However, the majority of polls published last week suggested Mrs Clinton's lead in the state had narrowed to the low single digits.
Mr Obama was accused of taking a condescending view of small-town voters after he was filmed at the private fundraising gathering last weekend, during which he said he understood why residents of some hard-pressed communities grew angry.
"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," he said.
"And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," he added.
Mrs Clinton suggested voters in Pennsylvania did not "need a president who looks down on them".
At a rally in Indiana on Saturday, Mr Obama conceded his description had been clumsy and not conveyed its intended meaning.
He said he believed many voters were indeed bitter about the economy and that he had meant to say that "when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on".
"So people - they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community," he said, adding that it was not a bad thing.
"The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us."
The latest count of pledged delegates to the party's national convention in August, according to the Associated Press, gives Mr Obama the support of 1,638 delegates and Mrs Clinton 1,502.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SUMMIT BIDS TO END MUGABE EMPASSE!

Mr Mbeki and Mr Mugabe appeared cordial as they met in Harare.
Mbeki meets Mugabe

An emergency regional summit has opened in Zambia aimed at ending deadlock over Zimbabwe's presidential elections.
However, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is not at the summit - he said he had other business to attend to.
Zambia's president opened the forum, saying it could not turn a blind eye to Zimbabwe, but that Mr Mugabe was not "in the dock".
South African President Thabo Mbeki met Mr Mugabe earlier on Saturday and said there was "no crisis" in Zimbabwe.
Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party lost its House of Assembly majority for the first time since 1980 in the 29 March poll, but no results have yet been released from the presidential race.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he won the vote, and hopes leaders will pressure Mr Mugabe to step down.
Opening the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Lusaka, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said it could not "stand by and do nothing when one of its members is experiencing political and economic pain".
"It would be wrong to turn a blind eye," he said, but added that the summit was "not intended to put President Mugabe in the dock".

SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY
Founded: 1980
Member countries: Angola, Botswana, DR Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Aims: Development, economic growth, regional integration, common political values and systems, promote peace and security
Role in Zimbabwe: Appointed South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate in 2007 - new election law agreed but MDC later said talks had failed; sent election monitors for recent polls.

South Africa's key role
Brown warning to Mugabe
Harare diary: Seeking good omens

Mr Mwanawasa called on Zanu-PF and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to "seize the opportunity to turn over a new leaf".
He said there was "concern" in the SADC that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission had not announced presidential poll results, which had "given rise to a climate of tension" and "left the international community in the dark".
Correspondents say the summit can achieve little without Mr Mugabe there, which is why Mr Mbeki stopped in Harare first.
Mr Mbeki called for patience over the unreleased results.
"If nobody wins a clear majority the law provides for a second run. If that happens I would not describe it as a crisis. It's a normal electoral process," he said.
Mr Mbeki has led mediation efforts between the two Zimbabwean sides since last year, but his "quiet diplomacy" approach has been criticised by some as ineffective.
The BBC's Peter Greste, in Johannesburg, says that rather than risking a public rebuke from his colleagues in Zambia, President Mugabe is sending a delegation of government ministers.
The state-run Herald newspaper quoted Foreign Affairs Secretary Joey Bimha as calling the summit "unnecessary" because the votes were still being counted.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, part of Zimbabwe's delegation to the summit, told AFP news agency that his country would not accept Mr Tsvangirai's participation in the meeting.
Ahead of the summit, the MDC urged the African leaders to "speak strongly and decisively against the dictatorship".
MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti said Zimbabwe was "at a crossroads" and the summit was a "critical meeting" for his country and the region.

The summit comes amid growing pressure on Mr Mugabe to release the results of the presidential poll.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his most scathing comments yet on Mr Mugabe. Zimbabwe's police warned political parties against "creating mayhem""I cannot understand why it is taking so long to announce the result of the presidential elections," Mr Brown said in a statement released late on Friday.
"I am appalled by the signs that the regime is once again resorting to intimidation and violence."
Mr Mugabe responded on Saturday by saying: "I know Brown, he's a little tiny dot... on this world."
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for the SADC leaders to push for "a peaceful and just solution" and warned that Zimbabwe was standing "on the brink".
Zimbabwean police have banned political rallies "with immediate effect", amid growing tension over the disputed election.
The MDC has called for a strike starting on Tuesday to pressure the authorities.
Mr Tsvangirai has been touring southern Africa, urging leaders to put pressure on Mr Mugabe to step down.
He says he won the vote outright and has refused to take part in any run-off with Mr Mugabe.
Mr Tsvangirai has accused Mr Mugabe of mobilising Zimbabwean security forces and pro-Zanu-PF forces to intimidate MDC voters.
He also accuses Mr Mugabe of interfering with the work of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Mr Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BROWN SENDS OUT WARNING TO MUGABE!

Gordon Brown spoke ahead of a regional summit in Zambia.
Brown's comments

Gordon Brown has warned Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe that he is "appalled" at the latest developments in the country.
Zimbabwean police have banned political rallies amid growing tension over the disputed presidential election.
The prime minister said the world was running out of patience with President Mugabe, with results still not released almost two weeks after the election.
Mr Brown was speaking ahead of a regional summit in Zambia to discuss the crisis.
He said: "The Zimbabwean people have demonstrated their commitment to democracy. We, and the leaders of the region, strongly share this commitment.
"I cannot understand why it is taking so long to announce the result of the presidential elections.
"I am appalled by the signs that the regime is once again resorting to intimidation and violence."
Mr Brown added: "We will be vigilant. The international community will remain careful to do nothing to undermine efforts to secure an outcome that reflects the democratic will of the people of Zimbabwe.
"But the international community's patience with the regime is wearing thin".
Members of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) will meet in the Zambian capital Lusaka on Saturday, but it is not clear whether President Mugabe will be attending.
Last weekend Mr Brown held private talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki, spending more than two hours trying to persuade him to use his influence to end the crisis.
In Zimbabwe, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - which claims to have won the election - has called for a strike starting on Tuesday to put pressure on the authorities.
The ban on political rallies comes two days before a planned demonstration by the MDC in the capital Harare.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE BANS POLITICAL RALLIES!

Zimbabwe's police warned political parties against "creating mayhem". Zimbabwean police have banned political rallies "with immediate effect", amid growing tension over the country's disputed presidential election.
The decision came amid confusion over whether President Robert Mugabe would attend a regional summit on the crisis, in Zambia at the weekend.
The results of the election, held 13 days ago, have yet to be released.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has called for a strike starting on Tuesday to pressure the authorities.
Mugabe has deployed the military in the provinces, in the districts... In other words, he is creating a new electoral environment that is neither free nor fair - Morgan TsvangiraiMovement for Democratic Change leader.
"We call upon transporters, workers, vendors and everyone to stay at home. The power is in our hands. Zimbabweans have been taken for granted for too long. We demand that the presidential election results be announced now," it said in a statement.
The MDC's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai has said he will not take part in any second, run-off presidential poll with Mr Mugabe.
"Mugabe has deployed the military in the provinces, in the districts. People are being beaten up," he told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme.
"In other words, he is creating a new electoral environment that is neither free nor fair.
"Secondly, he has been interfering in the work of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission by arresting Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials, by interfering with its work, and also by manipulating the result."
The MDC has said Mr Tsvangirai won more than 50% of the vote, and has launched proceedings in the High Court to force the election result's publication. A judgement is expected on Monday.

The ban on political rallies across the country comes two days before a planned demonstration by the MDC in the capital Harare.
No official reason has yet been given by the government for the ban, but state radio suggested that the police did not have sufficient manpower.

Harare diary: Seeking good omens
South Africa's key role

State radio quoted police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena as saying most of its officers were still guarding ballot boxes from the presidential election.
But the BBC's Peter Biles in Johannesburg says the MDC will see the ban on rallies as further evidence to back up its claims that there has been an increasing militarisation of Zimbabwean society since the elections.
"All political parties are warned against creating mayhem, as we know there are many people who wish Zimbabwe to lose its peace," Senior Assistant Police Commissioner Faustino Mazango told the Associated Press news agency.
"Those who want to provoke a breach of peace, whoever they are and whatever office they hold, will be dealt with severely."
Mr Mazango accused the MDC of "spoiling for a fight", saying it had sent 350 activists to several bases to "ignite violence" and warned them to return home.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa responded: "We cannot accept a declaration of a police state. People have just voted for change, for democracy and what do they get? This is unacceptable."
Summit snub?
Saturday will see members of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) convene in the Zambian capital Lusaka for talks about Zimbabwe's post-election deadlock.
But in an apparent snub to the SADC and Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, Zimbabwean state radio said President Mugabe would be represented by three ministers.
Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga had earlier said the summit had been "called without consultation with the Zimbabwean government".
But Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that Mr Mugabe would, after all, attend the SADC meeting.
"It's normal that when such a meeting is convened all heads of state attend," he said.
He added that it was important to remember that the grouping had a policy of non-interference.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INDIA'S ACID VICTIMS DEMAND JUSTICE!

By Sunita Thakur - Delhi .

A day in February 2006 is imprinted as vividly on Renu's mind as her body. In the quiet, narrow lane outside her east Delhi home, she had been bathing the family buffaloes when her father's tenant, a mug in hand, came towards her.
She thought he wanted water but he greeted her instead with threats and a shower of acid.
Her sister Rajni, who came rushing out when she heard the screams, remembers how Renu's "clothes were melting off her body as though they were plastic".
The acid attack was so lethal that it killed the half-bathed buffaloes and has left Renu blind and disfigured for the rest of her life.
In an ironic role reversal, Renu who had been the mother to her four younger brothers and sisters since their mother died 11 years ago, has now become entirely dependent on them.

In Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, the number of acid attacks have been rising - and there are some facts now beyond dispute.
The largest numbers of victims come from the poorest backgrounds and are women who have rejected their husbands, employers or would-be boyfriends.
The attack is not committed in a fit of anger or "passion" as is popularly believed but is premeditated and intended to kill or maim.

Acid attacks on women are a problem in South Asia.
The attacker's message in no uncertain terms is that if you can't be mine, you won't be any one else's either.
Mamata's story goes back 12 years, to when she was 14.
Her crime was that she refused to stay with a husband who had decided to marry again.
Over several months, while she stayed with her parents, he coaxed, threatened and tried to persuade her, but to no avail.
One day catching up with her as she headed for work, he suggested she come and sit for a while in the quiet, secluded park en route.
Then as she made to leave he grabbed her hands and threw acid over her face and arms, leaving her permanently scarred.
Twelve years on, she tries to live as normal a life as she can, though in a society where looks are everything, especially for women, getting a job, even as a domestic help, can be difficult.
Expensive surgery
One school teacher, scarred by acid, had to quit her job because the children found her frightening.
Most employers will not accept acid victims back, punishing them for a crime committed by someone else.
The National Commission of Women has of late begun to look into the possibility of a medical scheme for acid victims.
The numerous surgeries and skin grafts take decades to do and cost several thousand pounds which the victims are mostly unable to afford.
Renu's family, for instance, was hardly poor but the medical and legal fees have reduced them to just that.

Mamata was attacked by her husband when she spurned him.
Cases of acid attack are regularly reported in the newspapers, but the government institutions and even NGOs are only just beginning to wake-up to the issue.
So as yet there are no countrywide figures for acid victims, let alone insurance or rehabilitation schemes for them.
However, a pressure group, the Campaign and Struggle Against Acid Attacks (CSAAAW), has been launched in the southern Indian state of Karnataka to increase awareness.
The group has put together a list of more than 56 victims in the state alone.
And while some might see this as evidence that it is just a Karnataka issue, the growing numbers reported by the media point to the fact that too many others are silent victims all over the country.
For many like Mamata, injustice continues in the courts - her husband is still out on bail, the father of two children, while she has nothing but her scars.
VAll too often cases are seen as non-criminal offences and the offenders are let off with a lighter sentence.
Many offenders seek bail and delay cases for decades.
According to Anubha Rastogi of the Human Rights Network, which has joined hands with the Karnataka Campaign, stiffer punishments and a change in mind-set even with the legal fraternity are urgent needs.
"Where a case of acid attacks is being heard and the judge turns around and says - if she had agreed to him [the attacker's request] this would not have happened - I do not expect any justice."
The group is also demanding a ban on sale of acid at shops.
But some say the real problem lies somewhere else.
When will men in Indian society begin to accept that women are individuals with rights and choices, they ask?
Until that happens, Mamata can only pray for justice from the Indian legal system. Or Renu, whose attacker has been given a life sentence, can continue to demand an eye for an eye.
But the truth remains that women are horribly vulnerable.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

CAMEROON MAKES WAY FOR A KING !

By Will Ross - BBC West Africa correspondent,

Whilst attention has been focused on Robert Mugabe's attempt to stay in power in Zimbabwe, elsewhere in Africa another president is quietly making moves to lengthen his time in office.
The Cameroonian president, Paul Biya, has been in power for 26 years, but members of parliament voted on Thursday to scrap presidential term limits and enable him to run for the presidency again in 2011 and stay in power until 2018 (or beyond) when he will be 85.
Once before parliament, the bill to remove presidential term limits was always likely to be approved - the governing party has an overwhelming majority in parliament.
The main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front, SDF, has just 15 of the 180 and decided to boycott the debate.
When asked whether it would not be better to take part and put forward a case against amending the constitution, the leader of the SDF parliamentarians, Joseph Banadzem, told the BBC: "The whole issue is a complete fraud. We do not want to legitimise it by taking part."
Mr Banadzem predicts more disorder and violence in Cameroon.
"The amendment is paving the way for very difficult times in Cameroon.
"Instead of working in the efforts of the general public, the regime is only concerned about one individual - President Paul Biya - and the effort to prolong his stay in office," he said adding that most Cameroonians oppose the change to the constitution.
There is at least one lonely voice of disapproval amongst the governing Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM).

There have been deadly protests against the third-term issue
Paul Abine Ayah, an outspoken CPDM MP, slammed the bill predicting it would set the country back 200 years.
He said money was being paid to party members to encourage them to approve the bill.
The effort to extend President Biya's time in office is widely unpopular amongst Cameroonians many of whom feel the politicians are not doing enough to tackle the widespread poverty.
In February, some 100 demonstrators were killed by the military and police during rioting.
Although they were protesting against the high cost of living, their action was also fuelled by the speculation that presidential term limits were to be removed.
In his end of year state address, Mr Biya said having presidential term limits was unconstitutional and added that there were popular calls for him to stay in power.
It is no longer mere speculation - but the violent response from the security forces is likely to dissuade many Cameroonians from mounting any further protests.
President Biya, who came to power in 1982, revised the constitution 12 years ago, extending the presidential term of office from five to seven years.

Mr Museveni successfully changed the constitution to allow him to run again.
One of his achievements has been to oversee relative stability in a country comprising more than 200 tribes.
However past elections in Cameroon have been marred by allegations of fraud and vote rigging and it would be fair to say that Cameroonians have become increasingly disillusioned with the political process.
But the 75-year-old is by no means the first African president to tweak the constitution in order to stay in power.
In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni, moved past the 20 years in office landmark after parliament scrapped the two-term limit on the presidency in 2005.
The move was controversial, especially after MPs queued up to receive around $3,000 in what was regarded as an attempt to bribe them to approve the move.
After term limits were removed in Chad, President Idriss Deby, a former army chief who seized power before winning two elections, said the change was not meant to benefit him personally.
In Malawi and in Zambia, former leaders Bakili Muluzi and Frederick Chiluba respectively tried and failed to change their constitutions to get a third term in office.
Nigeria's former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, also tried it but law makers stood firm and rejected the plan.
While all eyes are currently focused on Mr Mugabe and Zimbabwe, Cameroon receives far less attention - despite a very poor human rights record and a reputation for being one of the most corrupt countries on the continent.
Observers point out that an increasingly entrenched elite which seems out of touch with the population is a recipe for instability.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MEP's CALL FOR EU OLYMPIC BOYCOTT!

By Oana Lungescu - BBC News, Brussels.

MEPs want EU leaders to take a tougher stance over the Olympics. The European Parliament has adopted a resolution urging EU leaders to boycott the Beijing Olympics' opening ceremony. MEPs want China to begin a dialogue with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama by August. The resolution firmly condemns "the brutal repression" by China in last month's crackdown on Tibetan protests. It also calls for a UN inquiry into the events. Although non-binding, it will increase pressure on EU leaders to take a tougher stance towards China.

The resolution further calls on Beijing to respect its commitments to human and minority rights.
It comes as UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confirmed he will not attend the opening of the Olympics on 8 August. Euro-MPs clapped as the resolution was carried with a large majority.
It urges EU leaders to adopt a united stance on Tibet, including the option of boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

The assembly cannot decide EU foreign policy, but together with human rights campaigners, it is exerting strong pressure on EU governments to take a tougher line towards China, one of Europe's main trading partners. And that collective pressure seems to be working as, one by one, the leaders of the biggest EU countries indicate they might stay away.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she never intended to go to Beijing. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who will chair the EU during the Olympic Games, has suggested he might consider boycotting the event unless China opens a dialogue with the Dalai Lama to find a political solution to the unrest.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHILD DEATH RAISES TOUGH QUESTIONS!

By Gary Duffy - BBC News, Sao Paulo.

In a country such as Brazil, which lives with high levels of crime and violence, it usually takes a particularly shocking event to have an impact across the country.

Some experts believe extensive media coverage has led to copycat cases. The tragic death of five-year-old Isabella de Oliveira Nardoni is one such case.
For days the crime has been grabbing headlines in all the main Brazilian papers, leading the front pages of the weekly news magazines, and taking up hours of television reports.
It initially appeared that the little girl was thrown to her death from the sixth floor apartment in Sao Paulo belonging to her father and stepmother, where she had been spending the weekend.
However, preliminary tests indicated that she may also have been strangled beforehand, and suffered other injuries.
Blood was found in the apartment and there was a hole in the wire safety netting that covered the window. She died just a few minutes after being discovered.

"The unacceptable death of Isabella," proclaimed the headline on a report from the weekly news magazine Istoe.
"Extroverted, lively and gracious, Isabella de Oliveira Nardoni, aged five, was the centre of attention at family reunions," it said.
The case has prompted Brazilians to reflect on the kind of cruelty that adults seem capable of inflicting on children
Isabella wanted to be a ballerina, the magazine reported.
"How did someone commit an inexplicable act like this?" asked the magazine Epoca.
Her father Alexandre, 29, says he believes that his daughter was killed by an intruder, while he was helping his wife bring their other children from their car in the garage in the basement of the building.
However, both he and his wife Anna Carolina Jatoba have been held by police for questioning over the death.
Whoever was responsible for Isabella's death, the case has prompted Brazilians to reflect on the kind of cruelty that adults seem capable of inflicting on children.
Only last month police here filed charges against 49-year-old businesswoman Silvia Calabresi, who is accused of torturing a 12-year-old girl.
When police in the city of Goiania found the girl she was handcuffed to a staircase and showing signs of torture and ill-treatment.
Ms Calabresi later said in a television interview that she didn't think she was torturing the child but was "educating" her.

Brazil is not alone in dealing with the consequences of extreme acts of violence against the most vulnerable members of society, and there are indications of some worrying trends.
Research carried out by the University of Sao Paulo showed that domestic violence against children had risen by 75% in the first years of this century.
Professor Ivonise Fernandes da Motta of the Department of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sao Paulo, says this increase may be explained by the greater awareness in society, and a willingness to report what has happened to the authorities.
She also highlights the speed and sometimes sensationalist nature of reports in the media as a reason why society is much more conscious of this kind of crime. Even so, she says, such cruelty still has the capacity to shock Brazilian society.
"We have indications that this is increasing and there is a danger that situations like this will become more common. The risk is that if we become used to this type of event I think we lose a very valuable part of our humanity," she warned.
One expert from a referral centre of Victims of Violence in the Institute of Sedes Sapientae in Sao Paulo says the greater awareness may have led to others copying particular acts of cruelty.
The violence is of different types and becoming more specific and more sophisticated, says general co-ordinator Dalka Chaves de Almeida Ferrari.
"If a crime happens of a particular type in another place and it is exposed in the media, then in one or two weeks something similar will happen here," she says.
"I think that this communication - which is much more direct today - ends up freeing people who wish to participate in some violence, that have a wish to do something.
"Related to the case of this girl [Isabella] you see how many similar cases have emerged," she said.

In one case since Isabella's death a baby was thrown out of a window in a house in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, and is being treated in hospital.
But it is also the cases which do not always make the headlines which worry those who work in this area.
"I think violence which ends up in death always shocks, but I think the violence that is more psychological, which happens every day and decreases the self-esteem of children or uses physical discipline still needs to change a lot in Brazil," says Dalka de Almeida Ferrari.
While the exact circumstances of Isabella de Oliveira Nardoni's death remain uncertain, part of the enormous tragedy of her story is that it is far from unique.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"ALL GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS REQUIRE TIME" !

______

ZIMBABWE RIVALS TO ATTEND SUMMIT !

President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai are to attend an emergency summit of regional leaders to discuss Zimbabwe's recent election.
Saturday's talks in Zambia were called amid the failure of Zimbabwe's election commission to publish results of the presidential election held 12 days ago.
The opposition has refused to take part in any second round run-off vote.
Mr Tsvangirai is in Botswana, where a minister quoted him as saying he had left a tense Zimbabwe to ask for help.

Harare diary: Seeking good omens

At a news conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Thursday, the Movement for Democratic Change said the delay of results amounted to "a constitutional coup d'etat".
MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said: "We won the presidential election hands down, without the need for a run-off, so we will not participate in a run-off."

Mr Biti also accused ruling Zanu-PF-backed militias of unleashing a campaign of violence across the country to intimidate rural voters ahead of a possible run-off.
He said Mr Mugabe was a "caretaker president", adding: "So we are therefore concerned that an illegitimate government is now in place in Zimbabwe."
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, who chairs the 14-nation Sadc grouping, has called the weekend's emergency meeting.

ELECTION RESULTS SO FAR

Presidential results:
None so far
Winner needs more than 50% to avoid run-off
Senate results:
Zanu-PF: 30
MDC: 24
MDC breakaway: 6

Zimbabwe's Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said they were happy to brief Sadc, but added: "There is no crisis in Zimbabwe that warrants a special meeting on Zimbabwe."
Mr Tsvangirai wants other southern Africa leaders to put pressure on the Zimbabwean government to announce the results of the 29 March presidential election.
US President George W Bush on Thursday said Zimbabwe's authorities had to release the results "as soon as possible", the White House said.
A spokesman for Mr Bush said he made the call in a telephone conversation with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.
Independent and ruling party projections say Mr Tsvangirai did not win the 50% vote share needed to win outright.
But the MDC said on Thursday it had now obtained broader results which suggested it had taken more than the 50.3% share, which the party previously estimated it had won.
Legal challenge
South Africa dismissed any suggestion it would ask Mr Mugabe to step down.
Its deputy foreign minister said in Pretoria: "We are not a government who can ask other presidents to step down."

The MDC says there is no need for a presidential run-off.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper reports the ruling Zanu-PF has increased the number of constituency results it is contesting from 16 to 21.
In the House of Assembly, Zanu-PF has lost its majority for the first time since independence, with 97 seats against the MDC's 99 in the 210-seat chamber. A smaller MDC faction has 10 seats.
The MDC is still hoping legal action in the High Court will lead to the immediate release of the presidential results. A ruling is due on Monday.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"IT'S A FUNNY THING ABOUT LIFE,

IF YOU REFUSE TO ACCEPT ANYTHING BUT THE BEST,

__

YOU VERY OFTEN GET IT! "

_________

GOOGLE AND YAHOO TO SHARE WEB ADS !

Yahoo says the experiment may not lead to a "lasting relationship". Yahoo and Google, the world's two biggest search engines, have announced a two week experiment that will see them share advertising space.
During the pilot, Google will be able to place ads alongside 3% of search results on Yahoo's website.
Analysts say the move is designed to frustrate Microsoft, which has offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6bn (£22.6bn), or extract a higher offer.
Microsoft said any lasting deal would not be in the consumers' interests.
"Any definitive agreement between Yahoo and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google's hands. This would make the market far less competitive," Brad Smith, Microsoft's General Counsel said.
But Yahoo said the testing did not necessarily mean that "any further commercial relationship with Google will result".
Investors reacted positively to the announcement with Yahoo shares rising 7%.
"Yahoo has made a really clever move here," Cowen and Co analyst Jim Friedland said.
"It looked like Microsoft had all the cards, Yahoo is at least now able to use this for leverage to get Microsoft to pay more," he said.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer on Saturday gave Yahoo three weeks to agree to the company's offer or risk having the offer lowered.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BUSH 'MAY BACK IRAQ PULLOUT HALT' !

President George W Bush will give his recommendations on Iraq on Thursday. The White House has left little doubt that President George W Bush will back the top US military leader's call for suspending troop withdrawals from Iraq.
Gen David Petraeus recommended a pause in withdrawals after July while giving testimony to US congressional panels.
A White House spokeswoman said Mr Bush, due to give his verdict on Thursday, was the type of leader "who listens to his commanders on the ground".
Gen Petraeus told Congress progress had been made but many challenges remained.
Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee on his second day of congressional hearings, he repeated his opinion that troop withdrawals be suspended after July for a period of reassessment.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino refused to give specifics but said Mr Bush would give "his decision, his recommendations" on the US course in Iraq after talking to senior members of Congress.
She said it was possible that Mr Bush would also discuss potential reductions in the length of tours of duty in Iraq.
Ike Skelton, the top Democrat on the committee, said the effort dedicated to Iraq was putting US security at risk because US forces were overstretched.
Congressman Skelton pointed to the threat that the next attack on the US might come from Afghanistan and said more resources should be directed to that conflict.
US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker told the House Armed Services Committee that the US had reason to sustain its large commitment to and investment in Iraq.
He said that progress in Iraq had been "substantial but also reversible".
Congressman Duncan Hunter, the senior Republican on the panel, said prospects were more promising than last year, adding: "No-one can deny that the security situation in Iraq has improved."

On Tuesday, the first of two days of hearings, Gen Petraeus and Mr Crocker testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee.
They also came face to face with the three senators vying to succeed George W Bush as president this November.

Graph of US troops and military deaths

John McCain, the Republicans' choice as candidate, was positive about the situation in Iraq while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the rivals for the Democratic candidacy, pressed for withdrawal.
Gen Petraeus told senators that security was better than the situation at the time of his last report to Congress in September and significantly better than before the start of the US troop surge at the beginning of last year.

Gen Petraeus said the situation in Iraq was still unsatisfactory. But while there had been real progress, it was "fragile and is reversible", he said. The planned "drawdown" of about 20,000 troops should continue to July but afterwards there should be a 45-day "period of consolidation and evaluation", he said.
He could not say how many US troops would be in Iraq at the end of the year. The US currently has 160,000 troops in Iraq.
When Gen Petraeus was asked about the recent Iraqi-led operation against militias in Basra, the US commander said it had not been "adequately planned or prepared".
Iraq sent thousands of troops to Basra in a failed attempt to force the Shia Mehdi Army militia into submission. Hundreds died in heavy fighting.
Ambassador Crocker said the US and Iraq were negotiating a long-term agreement on their relations that would cover the US troop presence.
He insisted the deal did not envisage permanent US bases in Iraq and that it would not tie the hands of the next administration.

Click here to return
BBC NEWS REPORT.

BLAME TRADED OVER KENYA DEADLOCK !

By Adam Mynott - BBC News, Nairobi.

Negotiations between the rivals appear to have broken down. There is a much-used saying about Kenya's accord and reconciliation process: "Three steps forward, two steps back." Sometimes it looks more like three steps forward, four steps back.
Certainly the process of forming a grand coalition government, as outlined in the agreement signed by President Mwai Kibaki, the leader of the ruling PNU, and his political rival, Raila Odinga, who heads the opposition ODM, has been slow going.
It now appears to have come to a complete halt.
The two men agreed to put together a unity administration to rescue Kenya from an orgy of killing and violence which claimed more than 1,000 lives and drove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in January and February.

Reaching that agreement was very hard going and it needed the finely tuned diplomatic skills of the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to pull it off.
Putting the accord into effect has proved equally difficult.

Fresh unrest broke out amid the deadlock. President Kibaki met Mr Odinga frequently in the fortnight running up to Thursday 3 April.
Both parties had an idea of how the administration should be divided in order to represent an equal share-out of power.
Mr Odinga already felt he had conceded much by abandoning his claim on the presidency, which he claims was stolen from him by vote-rigging in December.
But he says he was prepared to enter negotiations on the make-up of a government prepared to make concessions.
President Kibaki and the PNU said they would act in the interests of Kenya's people, who had shown much patience while the leaders tried to sort out the country's political future.

Negotiations were difficult.
Cabinet portfolios were traded and both the ODM and PNU announced on Thursday 3 April that agreement had been reached.
Mr Odinga said he was prepared to let the PNU have the key cabinet posts of finance and security but wanted, in exchange, foreign affairs, energy, cabinet affairs, local government and transport.
A meeting was scheduled for Sunday 6 April that, it was hoped, would seal the deal.

KENYA PARLIAMENT
ODM MPs: 102
PNU MPs: 46
Pro-ODM MPs: 5
Pro-PNU MPs: 61
Vacant seats: 6
Difficult tasks await MPs
Q&A: Power-sharing pact

Send us your comments

But on Saturday, President Kibaki's office circulated a document which the ODM claims took in virtually none of the points agreed two days earlier.
This precipitated an inexorable process of blame, claim and counter-claim, which culminated in both leaders making public statements, aired on nationwide television, claiming they had been let down by each other.
The ODM argues that the PNU has never shown any signs of wanting to engage with the real meaning of power-sharing.
Mr Kibaki and his followers deny this is true, but whatever the facts, the president had manoeuvred himself into a difficult position.
In January, soon after being sworn in as president, he had named a partial administration of 17 cabinet members from among his followers.
This left 17 empty cabinet seats, but they were, with exception of the health portfolio, a collection of minor cabinet posts.
So when it came to announcing a new cabinet of national unity with an equal distribution of power, President Kibaki was faced with the prospect of having to sack some of his closest allies from cabinet seats he had given them just weeks earlier.
Both men have said they want to sort out their differences and move the process forward.
Both men have had calls from the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who visited Kenya a few weeks ago, urging them to act on behalf of the country and its people.
But politicians in Kenya do not have much of a track record when it comes to putting the people first.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZUMA CONDEMNS ZIMBABWE POLL DELAY !

Mr Zuma says Zimbabwe has become an international issue. South Africa's governing party leader Jacob Zuma has criticised the delay in publishing the results of presidential elections held in Zimbabwe 11 days ago.
Mr Zuma's comments are in stark contrast to those of South Africa's president who said the situation was "manageable" and a question of waiting.
Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who met Mr Zuma on Tuesday, has been travelling around the region.
He is urging leaders to help prevent Zimbabwe from descending into chaos.
He has already met the president of Botswana - and plans to go on to Zambia and Mozambique. There is also talk the Movement for Demcoratic Change (MDC) leader may meet Mr Mbeki when he returns from a trip abroad.

South Africa's key role

Mr Tsvangirai's party says its activists have been attacked in a campaign of "massive violence" around the country since the polls - although is unconfirmed by reporters.
Invasions
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's state television says that war veterans have occupied 11 farms in the north-east of the country, Reuters news agency reports.

'We are under siege'

The farm invasions were ignited by reports that some white farmers were returning to their former properties anticipating the opposition MDC 's victory.
"We managed to remove all the invaders from the occupied farms after realising that they were now committing crimes such as looting farm equipment, produce and threatening to kill the farm owners," police assistant commissioner Mhekia Tanyanyiwa said.
"As of now the situation is under control and the affected white farmers are safe," he said.
A BBC contributor in Masvingo says police on Tuesday fought running battles with farm invaders who had looted farm equipment and produce.
The MDC is still hoping that legal action in the High Court will lead to the immediate release of results.

Campaigning was largely peaceful during last month's elections.
Mr Zuma said the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) should have announced the results by now.
"I think keeping the nation in suspense, and as you know, the Zimbabwean issue has become an international issue - it is almost keeping the international community in suspense - I don't think it augurs very well," the African National Congress leader said.
Mr Zuma beat President Thabo Mbeki to the leadership of the governing ANC last year, and is favourite to become president new year.
Last weekend, Mr Mbeki, who led mediation efforts last year between President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and MDC, said it was "time to wait".
On Monday, Mr Zuma met Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, when he visited Johannesburg for the day.
The MDC is trying to persuade Zimbabwe's neighbours to take a more public stand, and demand to know the outcome of the presidential election.
Meanwhile the state-owned Herald newspaper is reporting that Mr Tsvangirai has "begged" for the vice-presidency in a national unity government. The MDC reject this as "rubbish".
Independent and ruling party projections say Mr Tsvangirai gained most votes but not the 50% needed to win outright.
The MDC says he gained 50.3% of the vote, but Zanu-PF has demanded a recount of the vote.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'HUGE VIOLENCE' IN ZIMBABWE POLL !

Zimbabwe's opposition says its activists have been attacked in a campaign of "massive violence" around the country since recent elections.
"Militias are being rearmed, Zanu-PF supporters are being rearmed," said MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti.
This year's election campaign has been relatively peaceful until now.
Meanwhile, a judge has agreed to hear an opposition request that the results of last month's presidential election be released, as an urgent matter.
"The case should proceed," said Justice Tendai Uchena in Harare's High Court.
He then began hearing the actual arguments of the case, reports Reuters news agency.
The opposition says the violence is meant to intimidate rural voters ahead of a possible run-off poll.
Independent and ruling party projections say opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai gained most votes but not the 50% needed to win outright.
His Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says he gained 50.3% of the vote and so should be declared the winner.
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF has demanded a recount of the vote, while police have arrested at least seven election officials, accused of under-counting votes cast for Zimbabwe's long-time leader.
'Houses burnt'
The reports of violence coincide with the invasion of white-owned farms by so-called "war veterans".
Some 60 farmers have fled their homes, according to Commercial Farmers' Union President Trevor Gifford.
"The situation is very severe. The evictions are continuing right round the country," he told Reuters news agency.
He said that one of those affected was black.
"His workers' houses have all been burnt and he's been accused of voting for the opposition MDC."
Mr Biti said there had been a "complete militarization of Zimbabwean society since the 29th of March 2008 [election day]".
He also condemned the "deafening silence" of the African Union over the crisis in Zimbabwe.
"Don't wait for dead bodies on the streets of Harare. Intervene now," he urged.
At least 80 Zimbabwean opposition activists have been assaulted by pro-government militants in different parts of the country, the opposition says.
The alleged assaults took place in the eastern province of Manicaland and Matabeleland in the west.

One ex-army officer told a BBC contributor in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo that he had fled his home after being attacked for supporting independent presidential candidate Simba Makoni in the election.
"These guys [war veterans] have started violence and it will continue until the re-run," he said.
He said that at least 20 other opposition supporters had been assaulted in the Nyamandlovu district north of Bulawayo.
Mr Makoni's campaign officials say their supporters have also been attacked in three other districts of Matabeleland.
In Manicaland, opposition parliamentary candidate Misheck Kagurabadza said that about 60 families had fled their homes after being harassed by so-called "war veterans" who had invaded nearby white-owned farms.
"People are being beaten for supporting the MDC," said the MP-elect for the Mutasa South constituency, just north of Mutare.
One of his election agents was seriously assaulted, he said.
The reports have not been independently confirmed, although they have been reported to the police.
The invasion of white-owned farms came as President Mugabe called on the black population to ensure white farmers did not reverse his land redistribution programme.
"Land must remain in our hands. The land is ours, it must not be allowed to slip back into the hands of whites," the state-owned Herald newspaper quoted him as saying on Monday.

President Mugabe has urged Zimbabweans to fight for their land.
The widespread invasion of white-owned farms from 2000 coincided with a campaign of intimidation against opposition supporters in rural areas.
The government says the land reform programme was needed to right colonial era wrongs, when black villagers were evicted from the most fertile land.
Some reports suggest that the areas where there have been land invasions in recent days are rural areas which voted for the opposition.
Results have been published in the parliamentary race and Zanu-PF has lost its majority for the first time since independence.
Police said the election officials have been charged with fraud and criminal abuse of duty, accused of taking nearly 5,000 votes away from Mr Mugabe.
On Monday, Mr Tsvangirai visited regional powerhouse South Africa, where he met ANC President Jacob Zuma.
No word has emerged from those talks. Mr Mugabe's critics have long urged South Africa to take a tougher line on Zimbabwe's leader over allegations of human rights abuses.
Government ministers have said the arrested election officials were paid to falsify the election results.
They say the results posted outside polling stations showed more votes for Mr Mugabe than the forms forwarded to Harare for counting.
"That's absolute rubbish," Mr Biti earlier told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
He said that anyone who worked for the ZEC was carefully vetted by the authorities.

SPAIN SMASHES 'RUSSIAN SEX RING' !

Spanish police say they have smashed a major Russian prostitution ring, arresting 76 people and detaining 400 women suspected of illegal residence.
The gangs were based in Lerida and Gerona in the north-east of the country and Almeria and Granada in the south, police said.
Russian-Spanish couples - married or cohabiting - were involved in the sex trafficking, police said.
Illegal remittances to Russia may have totalled more than 2m euros (£1.6m).
The police operation was launched in November 2006.
The prostitutes lived in cramped apartments, police said. The payments for each sex trafficking victim were reportedly made in transfers totalling less than 3,000 euros each, to avoid detection by the fiscal authorities.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWEAN ACTIVISTS 'BEATEN UP' !

Zimbabwean activists 'beaten up'

The opposition was able to campaign across the country this year
At least 80 Zimbabwean opposition activists have been assaulted by pro-government militants in different parts of the country, the opposition says.
The alleged assaults took place in the eastern province of Manicaland and Matabeleland in the west.
This year's election campaign has been relatively peaceful until now.
Meanwhile, a judge has agreed to hear an opposition request that the results of last month's presidential election
be released, as an urgent matter.
"The case should proceed," said Justice Tendai Uchena in Harare's High Court.
The opposition says the violence is meant to intimidate rural voters ahead of a possible run-off poll.
People are being beaten for supporting the MDC
Misheck Kagurabadza, MDC
Independent and ruling party projections say opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai gained most votes but not the 50% needed to win outright.
His Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says he gained 50.3% of the vote and so should be declared the winner.
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF has demanded a recount of the vote, while police have arrested at least seven election officials, accused of under-counting votes cast for Zimbabwe's long-time leader.
'Battle for land'
The reports of violence coincide with the invasion of at least 18 white-owned farms by so-called "war veterans".
"These guys have started violence and it will continue until the re-run," one ex-army officer told a BBC contributor in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo.

President Mugabe has urged Zimbabweans to fight for their land
He said that at least 20 supporters of independent presidential candidate Simba Makoni had been assaulted in the Nyamandlovu district north of Bulawayo.
Mr Makoni's campaign officials say their supporters have been attacked in three other districts of Matabeleland.
In Manicaland, opposition parliamentary candidate Misheck Kagurabadza said that about 60 families had fled their homes after being harassed by so-called "war veterans" who had invaded nearby white-owned farms.
"People are being beaten for supporting the MDC," said the MP-elect for the Mutasa South constituency, just north of Mutare.
One of his election agents was seriously assaulted, he said.
The reports have not been independently confirmed, although they have been reported to the police.
The invasion of white-owned farms came as President Mugabe called on the black population to ensure white farmers did not reverse his land redistribution programme.
"Land must remain in our hands. The land is ours, it must not be allowed to slip back into the hands of whites," the state-owned Herald newspaper quoted him as saying on Monday.
The widespread invasion of white-owned farms from 2000 coincided with a campaign of intimidation against opposition supporters in rural areas.
The government says the land reform programme was needed to right colonial era wrongs, when black villagers were evicted from the most fertile land.
'Bloodshed'
Police said the election officials have been charged with fraud and criminal abuse of duty, accused of taking nearly 5,000 votes away from Mr Mugabe.
On Monday, Mr Tsvangirai visited regional powerhouse South Africa, where he met ANC President Jacob Zuma.

The MDC believes its leader Morgan Tsvangirai has won outright
No word has emerged from those talks. Mr Mugabe's critics have long urged South Africa to take a tougher line on Zimbabwe's leader over allegations of human rights abuses.
Government ministers have said the arrested election officials were paid to falsify the election results.
They say the results posted outside polling stations showed more votes for Mr Mugabe than the forms forwarded to Harare for counting.
"That's absolute rubbish," MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
"That's the desperate act of a dinosaur regime that has lost an election," he said.
Mr Biti said that anyone who worked for the ZEC was carefully vetted by the authorities.
He also urged the international community, and African leaders in particular, to press Mr Mugabe to accept defeat, saying otherwise there could be "bloodshed".
"They want to see dead bodies before they send Kofi Annan," he said, referring to recent violence over disputed elections in Kenya.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"HAVE NO FEAR OF PERFECTION -

YOU WILL NEVER REACH IT" !

______

HUNDREDS LEAVE TEXAN SECT RANCH !

The women and children are being housed in an old frontier fort. Authorities in Texas have removed more than 400 children and 130 women from a compound belonging to a polygamist sect as part of a child abuse inquiry.
They moved in on Friday after a teenage girl phoned to say she had been abused at the ranch in Eldorado County.
Women and girls in long dresses with their hair pinned up in braids could be seen leaving the ranch voluntarily.
State troopers were still holding an unknown number of men inside as they searched the 1,700-acre compound.
It is still unclear whether the girl who sparked the search has been found. Those removed are being housed at Fort Concho, an old frontier fort.
The sprawling ranch is located about 160 miles (260km) north-west of the Texan town of San Antonio and includes large housing units, a medical facility and a temple. It is not known how many people live there.
It is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a breakaway branch of Mormonism.
'Mother at 15'
The sect's prophet is Warren Jeffs, a self-confessed polygamist who was jailed last year for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who married her cousin.

Sect members believe men must have at least three wives to get to heaven.
Authorities have kept the ranch under surveillance since it was bought by the sect five years ago.
The 16-year-old who phoned said she had been sexually and physically abused.
She also said she had given birth at the age of 15 to a child fathered by her 50-year-old husband.
It is illegal in Texas for girls under 16 to get married.
One person was arrested at the ranch for obstructing the search.
"For the most part, residents at the ranch have been cooperative," said Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety.
Authorities describe it as the largest child welfare operation in the history of the state.
Waco fears
Officials have been authorised to remove computer hard drives, CDs, DVDs and photos.

Warren Jeffs led the breakaway Mormon sect from 2002.
Jeffs was convicted after he forced a 14-year-old girl to marry her cousin.
The self-proclaimed prophet is currently awaiting trial in Arizona on charges of being an accomplice to four counts of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages.
His 10,000-strong sect, which dominates the towns of Colorado City in Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, split from the mainstream Mormon church more than a century ago.
Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are meanwhile taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband.
Polygamy is illegal in the US, but the authorities have reportedly been reluctant to confront the FLDS for fear of sparking a tragedy similar to the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, which led to the deaths of about 80 members.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHERE NOW AFTER DIANA VERDICT?

After jurors in the inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed reached a verdict of unlawful killing, BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw answers questions on what the impact of the findings could be.

WILL ANYONE BE PROSECUTED FOLLOWING THE VERDICTS?

No-one can be prosecuted in Britain for a crime committed abroad allegedly by a foreign national, even if the victim is British.
So any prosecution for the deaths of Diana and Dodi would have to brought by the authorities in France, because the deaths occurred there and none of the paparazzi allegedly involved was British.
Clearly no prosecution can be brought against Henri Paul, the driver, who died in the crash.

WHAT AVENUES CAN MOHAMED AL FAYED NOW PURSUE?
He could ask the French authorities to re-open their investigation.

Mohamed Al Fayed could ask the French to re-open their investigation.
Previously the French had refused to prosecute any other photographers for manslaughter, or contributory negligence - although three of them were tried and convicted of breaching privacy laws.
He could argue that with the unlawful killing verdicts, the French should examine any new lines of inquiry thrown up by the inquest.
He could seek to challenge the inquest verdict in the High Court. To do so, he would have to show that the coroner had made a significant legal mistake or had misdirected the jury.

HOW ARE THE FRENCH AUTHORITIES LIKELY TO REACT?

The French carried out an exhaustive inquiry into the deaths. This was followed by Lord Stevens's inquiry conducted on behalf of the coroner, which backed up the French investigation.
So the French would need some convincing that the investigation should be re-opened.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PARIS PROTESTORS CLAIM OLYMPICS WIN!

By Chris Mason - BBC News, Paris.

Activists in Paris, determined to disrupt the Olympic torch relay through Paris, had defiant words.
Asr Srwut wanted the protests to grab headlines, not the torch relay
"I've travelled here from Holland today. This can make a difference," Asr Srwut, 38, says next to the Arc de Triomphe.
Mr Srwut is originally from Xinjiang in western China, home to the country's Muslim Uigher ethnic minority.
Some from that province want to break away from Beijing - and Asr says as a result people there are abused by the Chinese authorities.
"I've always been against giving the Olympic Games to China," he tells me.
"They simply don't deserve it. But what's happened recently in Tibet really does prove they're not fit to be the hosts."

Asr Srwut was just one of hundreds of demonstrators here in Paris - determined and dogged in their desire to make sure their protests grabbed the headlines, and not the Olympic relay itself.
In that aim, they succeeded.
Security officials were forced to extinguish the flame on several occasions as chaotic protests against Chinese policies on human rights turned the relay into a jarring series of stops and starts.
As I waited with a handful of protesters at the Arc de Triomphe, who were planning to join the main demonstration when the torch relay arrived, there were bemused looks - and frequent glances at watches.
Metres away were more than 10 police vans. Officers, with riot gear, were receiving instructions from their commanders.

Some of the protesters got very close to the torch runners
In pictures: Paris protests
How is the flame kept alight?
Long history of Olympics protests

"Where is the relay?" one protester asked me. The answer - it is late. Very late.
As we talk, a fellow protester is arrested and bundled into the back of a police car.
It is not clear exactly what he has done wrong - the torch is still not even in sight.
In fact, three hours after the start, the torch had covered less than half of what was supposed to be a four-and-a-half hour route.
So, for the authorities, it was time for Plan B.
Another city, another protest
Firstly, we heard that the ceremony planned at the Hotel de Ville (city hall) to mark the passing of the Olympic flame had been cancelled.
And then came news, with the Parisian rush hour perhaps just 30 minutes away, that the remainder of the torch procession had also been called off.
Instead of being carried through the streets of the French capital on foot by dignitaries and Olympic athletes, the final leg of the journey was a little less glamorous.
The torch was loaded onto a bus and escorted to the headquarters of the French Olympic Committee.

Protesters were determined to highlight China's human rights record"It's good news. We've irritated them and we've won," Asr Srwut tells me.
"I came here today after I saw the demonstrations in London on the television. I thought, 'I know it's a long way, but I've got to go to Paris.' So I came along - and it was definitely worth it," he adds, his face lighting up.
This has hardly been a "journey of harmony" for the Olympic flame, as it was billed. It has been to two European capitals in two days - and there have been two major protests.
And the next stop for the torch?
San Francisco.
And yes, more protests are planned there too.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE POLL OFFICIALS DETAINED !

The MDC believes its leader Morgan Tsvangirai has won outright.
Zimbabwean police have arrested at least five officials for allegedly under-counting votes cast for President Robert Mugabe in last month's election.
Police said the election officials have been charged with fraud and criminal abuse of duty, accused of taking nearly 5,000 votes away from Mr Mugabe.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined international calls for the urgent release of the results.
The opposition MDC is seeking a court ruling to force publication of results.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the election by a clear majority.
But Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF is seeking a recount.
On Monday a High Court judge dismissed the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's (ZEC) argument that his court did not have jurisdiction and set the case for Tuesday.
The judge said he would decide whether to treat it as an urgent case, before hearing the actual arguments.
"I think ZEC just wants to delay this whole thing," said opposition lawyer Alec Muchadehama.
The ZEC lawyer said the votes were still being verified, while the ruling party's demands for a recount was also delaying matters.
Meanwhile, two foreign nationals accused of working as journalists without accreditation have been freed on bail and are due to appear in court again on Thursday.
'Preparing war'
Earlier, Mr Mugabe called on the black population to ensure white farmers did not regain seized land, reports say.

Barry Bearak of the New York Times was freed after four days in custody
He said black Zimbabweans could not afford to "retreat in the battle for land", the Herald newspaper said.
At least 18 of Zimbabwe's few remaining white-owned farms have been invaded since Saturday, farmers say, raising fears of renewed violence ahead of a possible run-off in the presidential election.
Mr Tsvangirai is currently in South Africa, where he is having a series of meetings, including talks with the ANC leader Jacob Zuma.
In an article published on Monday, the state-run Herald newspaper quoted Mr Mugabe as saying Zimbabwe's black population had to protect their land from white farmers.
"Land must remain in our hands. The land is ours, it must not be allowed to slip back into the hands of whites," he is quoted as saying.
In 2000, there were 4,000 white farmers working on much of the best land in Zimbabwe.
Just 300 now remain after a campaign of often violent land seizures, with the land redistributed to black farmers.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MBEKI'S 'QUIET DOMPLOMACY' DOUBTED !

By Allan Little - BBC News, Johannesburg.

The South African president had been leading mediation efforts. To get a sense of why Zimbabwe's crisis matters to its s