Southern African leaders have been holding a summit to discuss Zimbabwe where the result of the presidential election two weeks ago was yet to be announced. The South African President Taboo Mbeki dismissed talk of crisis after meeting President Mugabe in Harare. The Zambian president who is hosting the summit said it was unfortunate that Mr. Mugabe was not attending. Peter Biles reports from Lusaka.



The leaders of Southern Africa have been talking for about six hours, but without the man at the centre of this crisis, President Robert Mugabe. He stayed away from this summit. The Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa said it was unfortunate that Mr. Mugabe was not attending. But the intention was not to put him in the dock. There is an unmistakable sense that Zimbabwe is now a problem for the entire region of southern Africa. The leaders came here at short notice. They know they need to be seen to be taking a strong stand. President Mwanawasa said they couldn't stand by and do nothing when their member state was facing political and economic difficulties.



The British government has offered to host talks on the future of the Sudanese region of Darfur. They said preliminary discussions have already been held with the Sudanese government and said the new offer of talks is aimed at(没有) assisting a speedy conclusion of the 5-year conflict; the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined the priorities for the talks.



"What we need now to happen is first of all that the peace talks are resumed, and that means all rebel groups as well as the government must go to these talks. It means secondly that there was going to be a ceasefire and the violence of all sides has got to stop. And it means thirdly that the efforts of reconciliation got to lead to a political settlement, and that means that the rights of people who have now been dispossessed are now upheld.



An explosion inside a mosque in the Iranian city of Shiraz has killed at least 8 people and wounded more than 60 others. First report said that the blast was caused by a bomb, but the authority said later that this could not be confirmed. Reports say the blast occurred in the evening during a sermon. From Tehran, Pam O'Toole filed this report.



Reports from Iranian news agencies suggest this was a powerful explosion which could be heard more than a kilometer away and shattered the windows of many houses nearby. Emergency services were sent to the scene. There were appeals for local people to give blood and nurses were asked to report for duty. The Iranian authorities have ordered an investigation into the cause of the blast. Iranian news agencies have been describing the explosion as a bomb. But one senior official in Shiraz told Fars News Agency that investigations have so far not confirmed this.



The Haitian government has announced an emergency plan to reduce the price of rice following more than a-week of food riots. President Rene Garcia Preval said the price cut of about 15% would be partly funded by the private sector and partly by international donors. Haiti is one of the world's poorest countries.



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The Maoists former rebels in Nepal are making a strong showing in earlier election results. The party's leader, Prachanda, was among the Maoist candidates who have won the majority of the few dozen seats declared so far. Although it would be days before all results are in, the Maoists clearly believe that they are on course for victory.



Finance ministers from 24 countries representing the industrialized and developing world are meeting in Washington to discuss how to contain the international financial crisis. The G7 says the current crisis is lasting longer than expected and the International Monetary Fund warns there's a one in four chance of a world-wide recession. Our business correspondent Andrew Walker reports from Washington.



The ministers' communique reflects the concern that economic conditions could deteriorate. They added to the chorus of calls for banks to reveal promptly their losses due to problems in the credit markets and to raise extra funds when necessary to repair the damage done by those losses. They also called for early action on recommendations of an official task force which recommended stronger monitoring by regulators of the risks being taken by the financial industry. The ministers also called for the IMF to improve its surveillance of financial conditions, so that it can better identify risks in the future.



Thousands of people have held a rally in the Turkish capital Ankara accusing the government of bringing religion into politics; people traveled from all over the country for the protest which police estimated to have numbered around 20,000. Demonstrators carry Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Turkey's strictly secular state.



School teachers in the Afghan province of Khost have gone a strike to protest against the detention of a number of students by American forces. The last incident was on Thursday and a total of 5 people including a headmaster are now being held. They’re thought to have been taken into American detention center at Bagram.



BBC News.