Harare, April 5
Armed police prevented Zimbabwe Opposition lawyers from entering the High Court today to apply for an order forcing the release of presidential election results. Three police officers blocked Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lawyers Alec Muchadehama and Andrew Makoni from entering the building, a Reuters correspondent present on the scene said.

The MDC wants the High Court to order the electoral commission to release results from last Saturday’s vote. A long delay has roused Opposition suspicions that President Mugabe is buying time to organise a fight back.

“We can’t go in. They are threatening to shoot. They are saying no one enters the court,” lawyer Alec Muchadehama told reporters outside the building. The case was due to be heard at noon. A Reuters journalist reported that the police appeared to have come from the President’s offices opposite the High Court.

Projections by the ruling ZANU-PF party and independent monitors suggest Tsvangirai will fall short of the absolute majority needed to avoid a second round. There are strong signs that Mugabe’s government is preparing for a counter-offensive after it lost control of Parliament for the first time in his 28-year rule.

Under electoral law a presidential runoff must be held three weeks after results are released. So the longer the results take, the more time ZANU-PF has to organise. Meanwhile, British PM today said international observers must be allowed to monitor a rerun of the disputed presidential election. — Reuters

Toronto/ Beijing, April 5
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel in announcing that he will not attend the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, although a high-level Canadian delegation will be present at the event.

Harper announced his decision Thursday in Romania, where he is attending a NATO summit.

“I don’t have and have not had any plans to attend the opening ceremonies myself, but we are still planning to have high level government representation," Harper told a press conference in Bucharest. Since Canada is hosting the next Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010, it remains to be seen how China will respond.

Harper pointedly asked China to pay heed to the international community's concern over the violent situation in Tibet. “My advice - I know the government of China is not typically taking my advice - my strong advice would be to take these concerns seriously because I think they are likely to grow rather than diminish if we see a repetition of the current pattern," he said.

Meanwhile, after initial reports that French President Nicholas Sarkozy had threatened to boycott the Olympic opening, following fresh violence France’s human rights minister denied that the President had laid out ‘specific conditions’ to his attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Earlier, Le Monde newspaper had quoted Rama Yade as saying Sarkozy would boycott the ceremony unless China opened talks with the Dalai Lama, released political prisoners and investigated recent unrest in Tibet. Hours after the publication of the interview, Yade issued a brief statement denying the remarks attributed to her. “I want to point out that during the interview I gave to a journalist with Le Monde ... the term ‘conditions’ was not used,” her statement said. — Reuters

London, April 5
Two teenagers were sentenced to four years in jail for killing a 23-year-old IT graduate after he objected to their throwing a chocolate bar into his car.

Delivering the judgment yesterday at the Old Bailey, Judge Ann Goddard lifted restrictions banning the teenagers from being identified and condemned their actions.

“Your stupid behaviour escalated into your drawing a knife and then punching Evren Anil with such force that he fell and struck his head on the ground and died,” Judge Ann said.

“Anil was a decent, good young man with a first-class degree with everything before him,” the judge added.

Evren Anil, who was born in Turkey and moved to London at the age of three with his family, lived in Upper Norwood with his father Niyazi (52) a retired caterer and 48-year-old mother Altun.

He went to Harris and Coulsdon Colleges before getting into the Kingston University.

Anil was a first-class honours graduate in IT, who had just started his career as a programme developer.

The incident took place on August 8 last year when Anil was with his sister in her car at traffic lights in Gipsy Hill, southeast London and Patrick Rowe, 17, threw a half-chewed Lion bar through the vehicle’s open window in a typical yobbish behaviour.

When Anil got out of the car to protest, one of the two boys produced a knife and held it to his throat.

Rowe was accompanied by his 16-year-old friend Dejon Thompson.

A passer-by tried to intervene but Anil was struck in the face and fell to the ground suffering a heavy blow to the head. His sister, Elif Anil told the court that Anil did nothing to provoke the attack. “We were just sitting at the lights when one of the boys threw a chocolate bar in the car window because he thought it was funny. Evren asked them why they did it but the boy then pulled out his knife, pushed him and then threatened him. He held the knife to his throat and then punched him. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Flights cancellation at Heathrow’s
LONDON: London Heathrow’s showpiece terminal 5, beset by baggage chaos since its opening last month, hit more problems on Saturday as a luggage software glitch forced British Airways to cancel seven flights. Airport operator BAA issued an apology to BA and its passengers as it tried to fix the problem. Tens of thousands of bags have gone missing, costing BA about £ 16 million since the termina’s opening last month. — Reuters

China okayes English Wikipedia
HONG KONG/BEIJING: The Chinese authorities appeared to have lifted a block on the English-language version of online encyclopedia Wikipedia on Saturday, but politically sensitive topics such as Tibet and Tiananmen Square are still off limits. The move comes after IOC inspectors told Beijing organisers that the Internet must be open for the Olympics. — Reuters