It seems the murderous despot (Mugabe) is trying to come in from the cold. Apparently, Mbeki has succeeded in negotiating a deal between de facto president Tsvangirai and Mugabe. The deal is expected to be made public on Monday. 

A certain nauseous feeling always arises, when in my sister's car. It is always when we enter Total petrol station. It is not the scent of the petroleum that gives me a sickly feeling. It is in fact, the notion, that the Prime Minister of Burma is under house arrest, as her citizens cannot afford the fuel and food costs of the illegal government under the nom de jeure of Myanmer. A government that spends more on military processions than the welfare of Burmese people. A vile regime based on supernatural jingoism, enfused with pseudo-communism.

Gordon Brown will boycott a summit of European and African leaders if Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe attends the event.

Is it hypocritical to support one military action and not the other? I'm actually not sure. I'm not old enough to remember UK going into Kosovo, but I think I would have been for military intervention in the Balkans. There are some who are always against these interventions, people like Tony Benn etc. There are also conservitives like Malcolm Rifkind who was against intervention in Kosovo and Iraq. There are others who shared the views of Robin Cook, for the first war, not the other. Another Hitchenesque school of thought is always confusing, defining missiling Sudan as a war crime, but, defending the intervention of Iraq. I was against intervention in Iraq from the start. Does it make me hypocritical? I think on the basis that Milosovic was threatning other countries and ethnic blocs. But I didn't believe Iraq was threatning other countries, the failiure to get a second UN resoloution, the faulty intelligance etc. were the reasons for my opposition. Hussein was obviously lots of things which I won't choose to say on a Sunday morning. If the 'Blairesque' school of thought is to be believed, then we would also have to intervene in Belarus, Burma, Zimbabwe, China, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and many other countries. And I'm sure, that many bloggers would like to see intervention in some of these countries, but not others.

Have written on this on my blog.

Please take a moment to send a message in protest at the crackdown in Zimbabwe, after Wellington Chibebe and pretty much the whole labour movement leadership were arrested and beaten.