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North Korea making 'excuses' for not returning to talks: Rice 37 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AFP) - North Korean officials "love to make excuses" for their continued absence at six-party talks aimed at ending the Stalinist state's nuclear standoff, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. Rice added that the United States was ready to listen to North Korea when it sets a date for returning to the talks, which also include South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. "The North Koreans love to make excuses for why they can't come to the six-party talks," she told Fox News Sunday when asked...

London - President Thabo Mbeki criticised the United States for calling Zimbabwe an "outpost of tyranny" saying, in an interview published on Tuesday, that it went against Washington's efforts to promote democracy worldwide. The comment attacked by Mbeki was made by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who listed six "outposts of tyranny" last month; Zimbabwe, Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar and North Korea. "It's an exaggeration and whatever (the US) government wants to do with that list of six countries, or however many, it's really somewhat discredited," Mbeki told the Financial Times. South Africa has served as an important mediator...

While United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was patently ignoring a President Robert Mugabe oppressed Zimbabwe, his son, Kojo was making money building the Zimbabwean capitol’s airport. Mugabe runs the ZANU-PF, a regime that Condoleeza Rice labels an outpost of tyranny. Why Kojo Annan’s business activities in Zimbabwe have not surfaced in the ongoing probe of the Oil-For-Food Program should surely raise concern about both the integrity and sincerity of the investigation. It’s a global village as far as Kojo’s business agenda is concerned. First came West Africa where Annan’s youngest son was working for the Swiss-based Cotecna with ties...

Harare - Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper on Saturday launched a vitriolic attack on US secretary of state nominee Condoleezza Rice, calling her anti-black and an apologist for "white sins". A weekly column compared Rice to her predecessor, Colin Powell, whom it called an "Uncle Tom", a put-down of a black who is overeager to win the approval of whites. "She is a black woman who will be manly and white in her relentless assault on blacks, their liberties and their remnant and dwindling sovereignities," said the column. "She will be a black who washes away the sins of white power...