International News - Audio and Video

Mugabe may need guarantees to step down: ICG
Posted 1 hour 25 minutes ago

A top think-tank says African leaders may have to guarantee Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe immunity from prosecution and safeguard his wealth if they are to persuade him to step down.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) warned time had already run out to ensure fair elections next year but said the Southern African Development Community (SADC) could still exert pressure on Mr Mugabe and his security chiefs if they were assured of a "soft landing".

"In exchange, Mugabe would have to retire at the end of his term [March 2008], and the security establishment would have to accept political reforms and free and fair elections," said an ICG report released in South Africa.

The report said incentives could include "immunity from prosecution for Mugabe and other senior ZANU-PF officials" as well as "guarantees, at least to a specified level, that the accumulated wealth, including land, of Mugabe, his family, and other members of the establishment will be secure".

"The incentives that may be needed to achieve these outcomes are likely to be controversial, though not necessarily among Zimbabweans, who want above all an end to their nightmare," it added.

South African President Thabo Mbeki was tasked by SADC leaders this year with mediating between Mr Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and the opposition ahead of elections which are due next year.

The ICG however said that the talks had faced "significant hurdles" with Zimbabwe's parliament set to change the existing electoral boundaries in a way that would increase the ruling party's chances of victory.

"The increase in parliamentary seats is not justified by demographic growth. It is a calculated strategy to reconfigure parliament to make it more amenable and guarantee the status quo will last beyond Mugabe's own rule," it said.

A voter registration program had triggered plausible charges that the government was "in effect rigging the polls in advance" while divisions within the opposition had also increased the likelihood of a ZANU-PF victory.

"A divided opposition offers ZANU-PF the prospect of an easy electoral victory, while harming its own bargaining power in the SADC mediation," it said.

The 83-year-old Mr Mugabe is seeking a seventh term in office next year at a time when Zimbabwe is struggling with the world's highest rate of inflation and an unemployment rate of around 80 per cent.

Mr Mugabe has rejected suggestions that he go into exile at the end of his current term, blaming the country's woes on Western sanctions imposed after he allegedly rigged his 2002 re-election.

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QATAR has upped its share in the London Stock Exchange to nearly 24 per cent, giving the gulf state and its neighbour Dubai a controlling stake.
Quoting LSE sources, a Qatari newspaper reported the gas-rich Gulf state bought an additional 3 per cent of shares on Friday, a day after the Qatar Investment Authority announced it had acquired a 20 per cent slice of Europe's oldest stock exchange.

According to Ash-Sharq, QIA initially bought a 20.8 per cent stake. This would put its overall share in the LSE at nearly 24 per cent.

The paper did not give further details, but a source close to the deal had said that the original bloc of shares acquired by Qatar on Thursday were sold by American investorsm, though not the US Nasdaq stock market.

The United Arab Emirates' group Borse Dubai meanwhile agreed to buy a 28-percent LSE holding from Nasdaq as part of a deal to jointly take over Nordic operator OMX.

The US-based Nasdaq, which was the LSE's biggest shareholder with a 31-percent holding, said last month that it wanted to sell up after a failed hostile takeover attempt.

"Qatar Investment Authority today announces that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Qatar Holding, has purchased a 20 percent stake in the London Stock Exchange," the QIA said in a statement last week.

No financial details of the transaction were given and the QIA stressed that it had no takeover plans.

QIA also announced on Thursday that it had bought 9.98 percent of OMX, which operates the stock markets of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius.

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noirua said:

Video News from around the World, including Australia: http://media.smh.com.au/?category=breaking News&rid=34402

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"Dogs trapped on cliffe".,

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The Northern Territory Government is confident it will not have any problems building a housing estate across the road from a crematorium in Darwin where a dead dog exploded on Wednesday night. .. Staff told the officers that the dog exploded because it had not been defrosted properly

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A POLISH man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees.

Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

"I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the newspaper.

The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.

But who's more at fault here? Debate the immoral dilemma.

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/19/2142087.htm?section=justin

PETA president arrested over bullfight protest
Posted Sat Jan 19, 2008 0:48am AEDT
The head of animal rights group PETA has been arrested in south India for a breach of public peace and insulting religious feelings while protesting against a bullfighting festival.

Ingrid Newkirk, president of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), was held by officials after she blindfolded a statue of Indian independence leader Mohandas K Gandhi to protest against cruelty towards bulls in the ancient sport of "jallikattu". Organised as part of the January harvest festival of "pongal", jallikattu is India's version of the running of the bulls which takes place every year in the Spanish city of Pamplona.

Fighters and muscular wild bulls - often pepped up with large amounts of homemade liquor - dash after each other in the streets of the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Unlike the Spanish version of the sport, the aim is not to kill the bulls but to dominate and tame them, and pluck away bundles of money or other treats tied to their specially sharpened horns.

Police said Newkirk was held on charges of breaching public peace, hurting religious sentiments and damaging statues after she entered a park in Coimbatore town and put a cloth around the eyes of Gandhi's statue.
She then hung a placard saying: "Reject cruel sport jallikattu". She was released on bail.

Newkirk told journalists she did not mean any disrespect to Gandhi, but blindfolded his statue to symbolically shield him from the cruelty of the sport. "In the name of taming of the bull, 10, 20, 50 people torment the animal and thousands cheer," she said.

"You can see fear and confusion in the eyes of the animal as it tries to flee."
India's animal welfare board has also criticised the festival, saying men beat the animals and throw burning chilli powder in their eyes, ears and mouth to enrage them.

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