Roaming bands of government supporters heckled, harassed and threatened people into voting in a run-off election in which Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was the only candidate, ensuring he will remain in power despite international condemnation of the balloting as a sham.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today shrugged off the decision to refer Iran’s nuclear programme to the UN Security Council, saying his country would never abandon its plans for the peaceful exploitation of atomic power.

Republicans will not allow unionists to suffer disadvantage or discrimination, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams insisted today.

Unionists are fearful of change in Northern Ireland in much the same way as white South Africans were concerned about their future following the fall of apartheid, the country’s President, Thabo Mbeki, said today.

Airliners are shuttling hundreds of trapped foreigners out of the Ivory Coast this morning, as South Africa convened urgent peace talks on a crisis that it said threatened to destabilise West Africa.

South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has urged African and Asian nations to form a “strategic partnership” to reverse the marginalisation of their two continents in world affairs.

Sixty-four suspected mercenaries detained in Zimbabwe this week were hired to help overthrow the government in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea with the assistance of British, American, and Spanish intelligence agencies, the Zimbabwe government claimed.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the embattled ex-wife of Nelson Mandela, staged yet another political comeback today when she was re-elected to the top flight of South Africa’s ruling party.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has welcomed delegates to the World Summit on Sustainable Development with a call to action to band together to save the global environment and combat poverty.