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/ 27 September 2007
Burma’s generals launched pre-dawn raids on rebellious monasteries on Thursday in their crackdown on the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years, defying desperate international calls for restraint. It was unusually quiet on the streets of Yangon, where troops killed an estimated 3Â 000 people in the ruthless suppression of a 1988 uprising.
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/ 27 September 2007
Mozambique will not attend the forthcoming European Union-African Union summit if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is excluded, Radio Mozambique reported on Wednesday. Mugabe is barred from travelling to most European countries in terms of sanctions imposed on the Southern African country.
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/ 26 September 2007
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown renewed on Wednesday a pledge to snub Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at a European Union-Africa summit in December, but vowed to help his suffering people by reiterated London’s support for the ”reconstruction” of the economically ravaged former British colony.
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/ 26 September 2007
World governments vowed on Wednesday to hold Burma’s military rulers to account for a bloody crackdown on mass street protests, as the United Nations Security Council prepared to meet in emergency session and European Union officials began drawing up new sanctions.
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/ 26 September 2007
President Robert Mugabe’s attempts to control prices amid Zimbabwe’s worsening economic crisis have backfired and now even the black market faces shortages, a senior British diplomatic source said on Wednesday. Under Mugabe’s 27-year rule, Zimbabwe has plunged from prosperity to penury.
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/ 26 September 2007
South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu said on Tuesday he was ”devastated” by the human rights abuses of President Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe. Tutu said he struggles to understand how Mugabe changed so drastically after steering the country to independence in 1980.
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/ 25 September 2007
President George Bush announced new United States sanctions against Burma on Tuesday as world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly focused on rising protests against military rule in the South-East Asian state. Bush urged all nations to ”help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom”.
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/ 24 September 2007
Southern African nations on Monday lined up behind Robert Mugabe in a row over whether the Zimbabwean President would be invited to a European Union-Africa summit in December, saying they would boycott the event if he was banned. The meeting in Lisbon would be the first in seven years.
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/ 24 September 2007
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised a new drive to transform the health service and schools on Monday, but again failed to stamp out speculation he may call an early general election. He was to lay out his plans for "a fairer, stronger Britain" in his first speech as leader to the ruling Labour Party’s annual conference later on Monday.
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/ 24 September 2007
Former Mozambican president Joachim Chissano says Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe should attend the European Union-Africa summit to exchange views on issues in his country. ”I think it will be an opportunity for the EU to discuss with President Mugabe and exchange views,” Chissano was quoted as saying by the government mouthpiece Herald newspaper.
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/ 24 September 2007
Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said on Sunday there was ”no war in the offing” between his country and the United States. He told the CBS programme 60 Minutes: ”It’s wrong to think that Iran and the US are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war?”
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/ 23 September 2007
”Mugabe stands very tall and black,” boasted Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru in Zimbabwe on Saturday. ”Brown stands white and colonial.” It was a reminder of the intensity of the diplomatic row that has erupted over British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s decision to boycott a Europe-Africa summit if Mugabe shows up.
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/ 22 September 2007
The Dutch government rejected mounting calls for a referendum on Europe’s new reform treaty on Friday night, two years after Dutch voters killed off the European constitution in a referendum that stunned the European Union. Despite Friday’s decision in The Hague, the Dutch coalition is split.
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/ 21 September 2007
Gordon Brown or Robert Mugabe? One won’t go to a summit between Europe and Africa in December, but the Portuguese hosts say the potential rewards of closer ties between the two continents outweigh the antagonism between the leaders of Britain and Zimbabwe.
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/ 21 September 2007
Zimbabwe’s information minister on Friday hit out at calls by the Archbishop of York to step up punitive measures against President Robert Mugabe’s government. Archbishop John Sentamu’s comments were misplaced and unfortunate, said Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu.
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/ 20 September 2007
Britain will call on the European Union to extend sanctions against members of Zimbabwe’s ruling elite as the country’s humanitarian crisis plumbs new depths, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday. He urged the international community to do everything it can to relieve human suffering in Zimbabwe.
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/ 20 September 2007
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown threatened on Wednesday to boycott a summit of European and African leaders if Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe is allowed to attend. He called on fellow heads of state to increase pressure on Harare before the planned December talks between the European Union and African Union.
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/ 19 September 2007
A day after Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on Britain to toughen its stance on Zimbabwe and press its neighbours, including South Africa, to intervene, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said ”quiet diplomacy” was showing results. Speaking on Wednesday, Pahad hailed the constitutional changes agreed to by all the parties in Zimbabwe as a positive development.
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/ 19 September 2007
Thousands of Buddhist monks on Wendesday marched in protest against Burma’s military government one day after police fired warning shots and used teargas to disperse demonstrators. At least 2 000 monks turned out in the city of Sittwe, in north-west Burma, the scene of Tuesday’s clashes.
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/ 19 September 2007
Britain is poised to announce significant cuts in the number of troops in southern Iraq following an upbeat assessment by United States and British military officials in London on Tuesday. This was the message from defence officials following talks between ministers and General David Petraeus, the US military commander in Iraq.
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/ 17 September 2007
The former commander of the failed United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda on Sunday warned the newly appointed head of a similar force in Darfur that he faced ”long odds” against success and predicted he would be betrayed by the very officials and governments meant to be backing the mission.
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/ 16 September 2007
Troubled British bank Northern Rock faced break-up rumours on Sunday as it sought to reassure panicking customers and investors following an emergency bail-out by the Bank of England. Worried customers besieged Northern Rock on Friday and Saturday to withdraw their savings — despite assurances that it would not fall victim to the global credit squeeze.
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/ 16 September 2007
A real and unprecedented opportunity for peace in Darfur is emerging after breakthrough talks between Britain and Khartoum this week, according to the United Kingdom’s key envoy to the region, Mark Malloch Brown. A new optimism is building ahead of next month’s crucial talks between 13 rebel factions and the Sudanese government in Libya.
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/ 15 September 2007
Worried customers were expected to keep withdrawing savings en masse on Saturday from embattled British bank Northern Rock after the Bank of England bailed out the lender. Customers formed lengthy queues outside branches on Friday after Britain’s fifth-biggest home-loan provider said it was facing severe difficulties raising cash to cover its liabilities.
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/ 14 September 2007
The British government said on Friday that cattle slaughtered on a farm south-west of London have tested positive for foot-and-mouth disease, confirming the second case in the country since August. The disease was detected on Wednesday in cattle grazing near Egham in the county of Surrey.
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/ 14 September 2007
A key European Union and Africa summit remains under a shadow cast by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, whose attendance is demanded by African leaders but could spark a boycott by Britain. The Europeans are tempted to try for a compromise ”Myanmar-style”, by proposing that Zimbabwe be represented at a lower level.
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/ 13 September 2007
As the pressure grows on the parents of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann, support from their extended family, who have angrily denounced the police probe, has become stronger. The McCanns — named as formal suspects by Portuguese police last week — come from close Roman Catholic working-class families.
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/ 12 September 2007
Foot-and-mouth disease has struck a new cattle farm in southern England, the government said on Wednesday, prompting the European Union to suspend a decision to lift its ban on British meat exports. The Agriculture Ministry said a surveillance zone of more than 10km had been placed around the farm in Egham, Surrey, about 50km from the scene of the last confirmed outbreak.
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/ 12 September 2007
Britain found a suspected case of foot-and-mouth disease on a farm in southern England on Wednesday and immediately imposed an exclusion zone and had the herd in question culled. A statement on the Agriculture Ministry’s website said an exclusion zone had been placed around the suspect farm in Egham, Surrey, about 50km from the scene of the last outbreak in August.
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/ 11 September 2007
The European Union (EU) should invite Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to a planned summit with Africa because barring him would jeopardise relations between Africa and Europe, the Commonwealth’s secretary general said. The EU and Africa want to hold their first summit in seven years early December in Portugal.
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/ 11 September 2007
Nearly a decade since Humphrey was shown the door to 10 Downing Street, the prime ministerial house has a cat in residence again. Sybil, named after Basil’s wife in the 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers, has moved down from Edinburgh with Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling and his family who are living in the three-bedroomed flat above number 10.
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/ 8 September 2007
Britain has warned fellow European Union nations that Prime Minister Gordon Brown will not attend a planned Europe-Africa summit if Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe does, diplomatic sources said on Saturday. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband made London’s position clear on Friday during an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers