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Above - the Zimbabwe MDC opposition party activists Magabe locked up in a police station. There is a shortage of photographs because of the detestable "Magabe Laws". Magabe is second to Arafat as social predator of the week.

. This week our eye in on the very undemocratic democracy ruled by the despised tyrant with the name Magabe. He creates and changes the laws of the land to increase his power and get rid of any opposition. He has legislated many laws - "Magabe Laws". He has become an international disgrace to the concept of democracy demonstrating in his attitudes and behavior that he has no respect for the rights of the individual. Since his administration, Zimbabwe has fallen from being a great African country and economy to a country that cannot feed itself and seeks aid from whereever it can get aid. .

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AP
Tiananmen vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park

 Hong Kong's annual June 4 movement began in 1989 when more than one million Hong Kong residents gathered to protest Beijing's use of military force. 

Thirteen years later, the candlelight vigil is the largest of all demonstrations in Hong Kong and is the only pro-democracy protest of this magnitude in China.

 Even though Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule five years ago, it is governed under a separate and autonomous system that guarantees civil liberties, such as the freedom of assembly and speech not granted to mainland Chinese. 

Lee Cheuk-Yan is one of the founding members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic and Democratic movements in China, which organizes the annual rally.

 "When we are promoting democracy in China you can not say it is anti-China. It is actually very much pro-China, but of course we are against the regime and the system that massacred the people and denied the people its basic rights," Mr. Lee said. 

Last year about 40,000 people joined the vigil, a record low when compared to the hundreds of thousands who attended the rally in the 1990s.

 One academic at Hong Kong's Baptist University has said lower turnout is partly due to Hong Kong people acknowledging China's economic reform and village-level elections as positive changes. He also said they do not hold the same anti-Beijing sentiment, which was once prevalent. 

Michael DeGolyer is the director of the Hong Kong Transition Project, which tracks public opinion in the territory. "There were a lot of people who came to these vigils prior to the 1997 hand-over as an expression of opposition to Beijing's interference in Hong Kong affairs. But since 1997 the central government has pretty much stayed out of Hong Kong affairs. So as a vigil about change of the Communist Party, and keeping the Communist Party out of Hong Kong, that reason has disappeared and along with it has gone a lot of the people who used to come," he said. 

Hong Kong political parties pushing for democratic reforms in mainland China continue to call for Beijing to reverse its verdict that the 1989 pro-democracy protests were aimed at toppling the government. 

After weeks of massive demonstrations to push for greater openness 13 years ago, Chinese tanks and soldiers moved to crush the student-led democracy movement around Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Hundreds, possibly thousands were killed. 

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On Wednesday African leaders and business executives begin three days of talks in South Africa on the economic future of the world's poorest continent. 

African political leaders and members of the continent's business community will meet from Wednesday through Friday in the Indian Ocean port city of Durban. 

The talks will be the 12th Summit of the World Economic Forum in Africa. They are set to focus on the New Economic Program for African Development, known as NEPAD. The 15-nation NEPAD steering committee will co-host the summit. 

NEPAD is the brainchild of South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian leader Olusegun Obasanjo. It aims to convince the developed world that Africa is a good place for investment. 

The World Economic Forum has said seven heads of state, roughly 800 business leaders and scores of other regional officials will attend the summit. They will discuss good governance, peace and security and infrastructure development. 

The summit is also expected to address several regional trouble spots, including Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. African diplomats tell the Reuters news agency there will be special talks on the Congolese peace process alongside the economic meeting. 

Reuters has reported South African President Mbeki will meet with Malawian President Bakili Muluzi and Zambian leader Levy Mwanawasa to exchange views on how to re-start the peace dialogue in the DRC. 

Mr. Mwanawasa currently chairs the Organization of African Unity. Mr. Muluzi heads the 14-nation Southern African Development Community, or SADC, which includes Congo. All three men are scheduled to take part in the economic summit. 

A DRC peace summit scheduled for last week in Zambia was postponed indefinitely, in part because it was not clear that all the parties would be attending. That summit was supposed to build on a controversial partial agreement that emerged from an earlier round of talks held in South Africa. 

The government reached a secret peace deal with one of the main Congolese rebel groups. But another major armed group and several opposition parties have rejected the agreement. 

When the Zambian, South African and Malawian leaders meet in Durban for the economic summit, it is believed they plan to use the opportunity to discuss ways of re-starting the Congolese peace process. 

Reuters has said the leaders of Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda will also take part in the consultations. 

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Japan has ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol aimed at curbing global warming. But it is unlikely the pact will go into force during the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which opens in August. 

The cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi officially endorsed the Kyoto Treaty's ratification Tuesday. Prime Minister Koizumi said in a statement it will not be easy to meet the targets in the treaty. He said it will require a joint effort by the government, corporations and individuals. 

The global climate treaty was signed five years ago, in the ancient Japanese capital Kyoto. It requires industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Some scientists say that the gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, contribute to rising temperatures around the world. 

Japan pledged to cut its emissions six percent, but environmentalists predict this will be difficult. Environment Minister Hiroshi Oki said that as the host nation of the Kyoto pact, he is pleased that it has been ratified. He added that the government, along with the people of Japan, will aim to achieve the treaty's goals. 

A Japanese official said the nation's environment minister and other leaders will urge the United States, Russia and other countries to participate in the agreement. 

The United States, the world's largest polluter, rejected the treaty last March shortly after President Bush took office. His administration said that participation in the pact would hurt the U.S. economy. A U.S. government report released Friday for the first time blamed human actions for global warming, but it recommended adapting to climate changes rather than making sharp cuts in greenhouse gases. 

At least 55 nations, accounting for 55 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, must ratify the Kyoto Protocol before it becomes legally binding. 

The pact is likely to miss the deadline for going into force, scheduled for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa. That gathering opens on August 26. Due to a delay in ratification by Russia, another major greenhouse gas emitter, reaching that deadline has become virtually impossible. 

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NATO defense ministers are meeting in Brussels Thursday and Friday as pressure from Washington builds for the alliance to boost its capabilities to fight terrorism. The West's premier security organization is also seeking ways to deal with challenges outside of its traditional Euro-Atlantic area of operation. 

The defense ministers of the 19 nation alliance are gearing up for a summit in Prague next November that diplomats say will set out new goals for the organization. The meeting follows a landmark accord last month that gives Russia a role in NATO decisions about terrorist threats and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. 

The main item on the agenda for this week's meeting is the widening capabilities gap between the United States and its allies. 

The United States has been pressing the allies to increase defense spending and acquire new capabilities to face new challenges to security. Even though budgets are tight, and no European politician facing an election wants to spend more on defense, U.S. officials say they think the allies will be ready at the Prague summit to commit to improving their military muscle. 

The alternative, say diplomats at NATO headquarters, is for the alliance to become a two-tier alliance, with the United States providing smart bombs, logistics and intelligence, while others provide ground troops or simply sit on the sidelines. 

American officials say it is urgent for Canada and the European allies to build up their capabilities in such areas as strategic airlift, precision-guided munitions, and secure communications. 

Washington also wants the alliance to develop a strategy to protect troops and civilian populations from biological and chemical weapons. It is suggesting that some of the smaller allies, given the difficult budgetary climate, pool resources or specialize in individual capabilities to keep costs down. 

All of these ideas have picked up support in Europe recently. Britain and Spain this week called for NATO to transform itself from a strictly collective defense alliance into a more flexible organization whose forces can be used wherever they are needed, raising the prospect of missions beyond the Euro-Atlantic area. That call is consistent with NATO Secretary-General George Robertson's insistence that the alliance must be able to deploy small, highly mobile units quickly into far-flung trouble-spots and sustain them there. 

NATO is developing what a senior official describes as "a new military concept" that will define what role its armed forces should play in the war on terrorism. The official says NATO is also considering how to respond to attacks on non-member countries that are outside its area of operation. 

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At a NATO meeting in Brussels, defense ministers have agreed the alliance needs to be better prepared to respond to the pervasive spread of weapons of mass destruction - a threat Secretary Donald Rumsfeld describes as urgent and far worse than previously thought. These threats could result in NATO members becoming more involved in the fight against terrorism. 

George Robertson

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, speaking after a meeting of alliance defense ministers who heard U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld offer a dire warning - that threats of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons falling into the hands of terrorists are actually worse than the facts now suggest. 

"This threat is not theoretical. It is real; it is dangerous. If we do not prepare promptly to counter it, we could well experience attacks in our countries that could make the events of September 11th seem modest by comparison," Mr. Rumsfeld said. 

An outline provided to reporters on what he told fellow ministers behind closed doors suggests Mr. Rumsfeld was emphatic, saying what happened in the United States should make other countries ask what they need to do now to prevent a similar attack in Europe. 

NATO secretary-general Robertson all but conceded the alliance is not entirely equipped to meet that threat. "There is doctrine that deals with the use of nuclear weapons. There are actually methods of protection against some chemical weapons, and we have got some capability in that area. But we have to face the fact that biological weapons, germ warfare is now coming on to the agenda for both individual terrorists and perhaps for terrorist states," Mr. Robertson said. 

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld advised fellow NATO members not to wait for absolute proof before acting against terrorist threats, suggesting the alliance may soon find itself breaking with tradition and becoming involved in military action far beyond European soil. 

"The only defense is to take the effort to find those global networks and to deal with them as the United States did in Afghanistan. Is that defensive or offensive? I personally think of it as defensive. We had no interest in doing anything in Afghanistan. It was not on the radar scope," Mr. Rumsfeld said. 

All of this, though, will require increasing military budgets, while at the same time reducing the capabilities gap between the U.S. military and those of Europe. Secretary Rumsfeld wrapped up a news conference here Thursday with a final warning: the way NATO has done business for the last half century can no longer provide a defense against the kind of terrorists and weapons that will inevitably strike again, this time, perhaps, in Europe. 

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Lawmakers from both U.S. political parties are calling on President Bush to stop construction of nuclear power reactors in North Korea as part of a 1994 agreement. The lawmakers say the United States should force a delay in construction, scheduled to begin this August, because of Pyongyang's refusal to allow full inspections of its nuclear facilities. 

Under the Agreed Framework of 1994, the United States and key allies agreed to pay for construction of two light water nuclear reactors in North Korea, in exchange for Pyongyang's agreement to stop suspected weapons-related aspects of its nuclear program. 

North Korea is required to be in full compliance with International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, safeguards, including full inspections, once most of the reactor project is completed. 

However, lawmakers on Capitol Hill say the situation the United States finds itself in since September 11, and ongoing concerns about North Korean nuclear efforts, should delay construction. 

President Bush in April said he could not certify to Congress that Pyongyang was complying with all provisions of the agreement. 

Republican Congressman Benjamin Gilman of the House International Relations Committee says Mr. Bush should now move to suspend construction. 

"We are now urging the president, once again," he added, "to follow up on his decision of April, by suspending nuclear reactor construction in North Korea until North Korea begins cooperating with the IAEA in a manner required under the Agreed Framework." 

Mr. Gilman, fellow Republican Chris Cox, and Democrat Ed Markey, say even with Pyongyang's full cooperation, it will take until 2005 for the International Atomic Agency to determine if North Korea is in compliance with nuclear safeguards. 

Citing what they call recent reports that North Korea is continuing a covert nuclear weapons program, Congressman Cox says it makes no sense to allow reactor construction to move ahead of full compliance. 

"Until we get answers to these fundamental questions, it is fundamentally at odds with rational U.S. policy, and with rational security policy for the region, for the United States to provide the core of technology and nuclear materials that could be so easily hijacked and used for nuclear weapons," said Mr. Cox. "The reprocessing of nuclear material from this light water reactor could permit the government of Kim Jong Il to make as many as 60 bombs or more per year." 

The lawmakers question how the Bush administration can be critical of Russian nuclear reactor sales to Iran, while proceeding with the reactor element of the Agreed Framework project with North Korea. 

Both countries, along with Iraq, were named by President Bush earlier this year as being in an "axis of evil" supporting terrorism. 

Congressman Markey says the United States and Russia need only look at the alarming prospect of nuclear war between India and Pakistan as an example of what can happen from the spread of nuclear technology. 

The lawmakers delicately sidestepped questions about what reaction South Korea might have to their call for a halt to reactor construction.