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President Robert Mugabe celebrated 25 years of independence yesterday by telling the West to stay out of Zimbabwe's elections and leave Africa to the Africans. After four new Chinese jets flew over the National Sports Stadium on the outskirts of Harare, Mr Mugabe said Zimbabwe no longer needed "Anglo-American validation" for last month's general election, which gave his ruling Zanu-PF a landslide majority. Observer groups from the European Union and other western countries were barred from monitoring the March 31 poll, but South Africa and other African observers said the elections reflected the "will of the people". "We have turned...

Qadhafi: Arab nationalism is deadbySaturday 04 October 2003 10:33 PM GMT  Qadhafi has long championed women's rights in the Arab world Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi gave a hard-hitting speech against fellow-Arab countries, declaring Arab nationalism dead and gone forever. “The times of Arab nationalism and unity are gone forever,” Qadhafi told an audience of women on Saturday at Syrte, east of Tripoli, AFP reported. “These ideas which mobilised the masses are only a worthless currency.”The once champion of both Arab nationalism and Pan-Africanism also called on the People's Congresses, the centre of the country's political system, to permit Libya to...

An initiative aimed at bolstering homegrown African peacekeeping efforts has been welcomed in a continent that has traditionally relied on outside help when its many conflicts have gotten out of hand. Military commanders from numerous African countries agreed recently to establish a standby peacekeeping force within the next few years, designed to intervene in conflicts like those currently underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Liberia and Burundi. Jan Kamenju, a retired army lieutenant-colonel now based at the Security Research and Information Center in Nairobi said it was certainly possible to establish the envisaged force, although the process would...

Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi arrived Monday in Tunisia for a “working visit of brotherhood” on the invitation of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the TAP news agency reported. Qadhafi travelled by road to neighbouring Tunisia, where he was met at the border town of Ras Jedir, 550 kilometres south of the Mediterranean coastal capital, Tunis, by Interior Minister Hedi M'henni, TAP said. Qadhafi was expected to make his way to Tunis on Monday to meet with Ben Ali. The aim of the Libyan leader's visit was to “reinforce relations of fraternity and cooperation” between the two north African...

The whole world would be screaming if a Western leader tried what Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is getting away with in Africa: turning the continent into his own personal empire of gore and plunder. Gadhafi has been trying to style himself as friend to America, but we're going to have to blow the whistle on him. Consider the following: Zimbabwe: Gadhafi's oil and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid keep genocidal madman Robert Mugabe in business. Central African "Republic": Gadhafi's forces have saved unpopular dictator Ange-Felix Patasse from three coup attempts since May 2001. "Libya's prize: a monopoly on...