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The 33 men sent up a 45-minute video with messages and a tour of their shelter.

The golden arches of McDonald's could soon be rising over struggling ZimbabweRobert Mugabe meets Ronald McDonald? It sounds about as likely as the Zimbabwe president retiring to become a beekeeper in Sussex. Yet a publicity stunt involving Mugabe clutching a burger beneath the golden arches of McDonald's emerged as a real possibility.

Diplomatic tensions grow as president criticises Robert Mugabe after 'insulted' western ambassadors walk out of state funeralBarack Obama has openly criticised Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, and said he is "heartbroken" by the country's turmoil since independence.The US president's unusually forthright comments are unlikely to soothe diplomatic tensions after his ambassador walked out of Mugabe's sister's state funeral in protest at an anti-western diatribe.Obama, whose father was Kenyan, was addressing 115 young Africans at an event in Washington to mark the 50th anniversary of independence in many of their countries."I'll be honest with you," the American president said.

'Conveyor belt' operations on 1.2m males could help avert 40% of infections, International Aids Conference is toldA big effort is under way to circumcise 80% of young men in Zimbabwe after a study four years ago found that the operation reduced the chance of contracting HIV by 60%.Yet the procedure is still not widely available across sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV prevalence is high, the International Aids Conference in Vienna was told today.In Zimbabwe, Population Services International (PSI) is working with the government to try to get mass circumcision underway, using a "conveyor b

Record levels of poaching are endangering survival of rhinoceros in South AfricaSouth African wildlife experts are calling for urgent action against poachers after the last female rhinoceros in a popular game reserve near Johannesburg bled to death after having its horn hacked off.Wildlife officials say poaching for the prized horns has now reached an all-time high. "Last year, 129 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa.

Founder of the Kimberley Process says that Harare must be brought back into international fold to avoid destabilising global tradeBlood diamonds will flood back into the world ma illerket unless a way is found to bring Zimbabwe back under global control at a key meeting next week, according to one of the world's biggest diamond tycoons.Willie Nagel, founding father of the Kimberley Process – a group made up of government, human rights and diamond industry officials to prevent the trading of diamonds that could be used for financing wars – has warned that Zimbabwe is not adhering to the "clean trade" system.He said u

Proposed site has links with massacres by Mugabe's men, say supporters of Zimbabwe liberation struggle leaderPlans for a statue of a leader of the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe have been branded an insult to the victims of massacres ordered by president Robert Mugabe.Joshua Nkomo fought alongside Mugabe to overthrow white minority rule in Rhodesia, but after independence the pair fell out.

Oscar Sibanda, a Zimbabwean player for Shelbourne FC, fears persecution if he is forced to return to homeland

Campaign could help break cycle of transmission, says Swazi officialLeading experts fighting the world's worst Aids epidemic have called on African leaders to head a month-long sexual abstinence campaign, saying it could reduce new infections.Researchers Alan Whiteside and Justin Parkhurst cite scientific evidence that due to ''viral-load spikes'', a newly infected person is most likely to transmit HIV in the month after they were exposed to it.

Robert Mugabe's regime accused of human rights abuses, including a massacre of illegal diggers, in diamond fieldsThe stakes were high as the sun set in Tel Aviv last week. Seventy international delegates talked long into the night but failed to reach a consensus.