South Africa has announced it would send a team to Zimbabwe to assess the extent of a cholera epidemic that has killed over 575 people, as Condoleezza Rice and Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on President Mugabe to step down.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev continued his Latin American tour on Thursday with a visit to avowed US foe Venezuela, before a scheduled visit to communist Cuba.
Middle East experts are divided on the subtext of statements by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh in support of Barack Obama's election to the US presidency.
Freya PETERSEN 
