- Nelson Mandela, the world's favourite elder statesman, broke his silence on the Zimbabwe crisis late on Wednesday, adding his moral weight to growing international outrage at the violence in Zimbabwe.
The 89-year-old former South African president, who rarely speaks on such matters in his retirement, weighed in during a trip to London to attack his fellow African liberation figure.
"We had seen the outbreak of violence against fellow Africans in our own country and the tragic failure of leadership in our neighbouring Zimbabwe," the Nobel Peace Prize winner said at a fundraising dinner.
He told an audience that included former US president Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown: "We look back at much human progress, but we sadly note so much failing as well.
"It is now in the hands of your generations to help rid the world of such suffering."
- Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu this week labelled Mugabe a "Frankenstein" figure and called for international action to prevent the country descending into bloodshed.
Emiritus Archbishop Tutu told Australian television that Zimbabwe's best hope was an international peacekeeping force primarily comprising Africans with non-African nations providing logistical support.
"Rwanda happened despite all the warnings that the international community was given. They kept holding back and today we are regretting that we did not, in fact, act expeditiously," Tutu said, speaking from Cape Town late on Tuesday.
"I hope in this case we are not going to wait until several more people have been killed."
Tutu said Mugabe had gone from being a liberation leader who helped his people throw off the shackles of colonialism to a figure who was thumbing his nose at the international community and holding his country to ransom.
"He has mutated into something that is quite unbelievable, he has really turned into a kind of Frankenstein for his people," Tutu said.
- Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga warned that Zimbabwe could descend into a disaster akin to Rwanda's 1994 genocide if the world did not intervene rapidly to remedy the crisis.
Odinga called for the postponement of Zimbabwe's presidential run-off election, or, failing that, the appointment of a high-profile African mediator.
"Zimbabwe right now is a disaster in the making," Odinga, one of the most outspoken critics of Mugabe among African leaders, told reporters.
"If the world does not act now, we will soon have a situation very similar to what we saw in Rwanda," he said, referring to the 100-day slaughter of 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the east African nation.
"Friday's elections should be postponed until conditions are created that will enable a free and fair election."
Addressing a conference earlier, Odinga gave details of a phone call he had with African Union chairman and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete before he left for a meeting of the Southern African Development Community.
"I told him you need to take a firm stand at the SADC meeting. We need to appoint a mediator if the elections are held. There should be a supervisory team from the AU with support from the United Nations," he said.
- US President George Bush said Friday's elections "appear to be a sham," referring to Mugabe's insistence to press on with the vote despite opponent Morgan Tsvangirai's withdrawal because of attacks on his voters.
"You can't have free elections if a candidate is not allowed to campaign freely and his supporters aren't allowed to campaign without fear of intimidation," Bush said.
"This is not just, and it is wrong," he said.
- Democratic US presidential hopeful Barack Obama lashed out at African nations for keeping silent on Zimbabwe, saying they had pandered to Mugabe for too long.
He said the United Nations and other countries "in particular, other African nations, including South Africa... have to be much more forceful in condemning the extraordinary violence that has been taking place there."
- Southern African Development Community chief Tomaz Augusto Salomao said: "Elections under the current environment undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the outcome." He called on the country to "consider postponing the vote until a later day".
- ANC President Jacob Zuma told a conference in Johannesburg on Tuesday that the situation in Zimbabwe was now out of control.
"You now need a political arrangement there and then further down the line, an election," he said.
He added that the liberation movement values that the ANC once shared with Zanu-PF were no longer there.
"We cannot agree with Zanu-PF. We cannot agree with them on values," Zuma said. "We fought for the right of people to vote, we fought for democracy."
He said the moment the election monitors packed their bags and left Zimbabwe after the first round of elections, those elections became "discredited".
"The results had to be suspect," Zuma said.
Action by the United Nations and the SADC on Zimbabwe was urgent.
"We continue to engage with Zanu-PF and the MDC," Zuma said.
- The actions of the incumbent ruling elite in Zimbabwe deserved rigorous censure, the Catholic Bishops of Southern Africa said in a statement.
The politically motivated violence, intimidation and torture had made a just and fair run-off presidential election virtually impossible, they said.
"Opposition candidates cannot present their views to the electorate, nor do they have equitable access to the media. Monitoring is not in place.
"The choice by the MDC to pull out of the race, in order to protect the lives of people, was understandable. The alternative would have been an undeclared civil war," the bishops said.
They warned: "Mugabe's actions and those of his generals, his thug supporters and the 'war veterans' are offensive in the eyes of God. Judgment awaits."
- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Zimbabwe's leaders to respond to an opposition offer to discuss forming a "legitimate" government.
"That offer obviously ought to be taken up, but it can't be taken up from a position in which the Zimbabwean authorities declare themselves the victors.
"African voices are speaking out all over the place questioning the legitimacy of this election."
- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged businesses with interests in Zimbabwe to ensure they were not benefiting Mugabe's government, and called for the Zimbabwe cricket team to be banned from touring England next year.
A spokesperson for Brown said there was growing international condemnation of Mugabe and his regime and what they were doing to suppress the democratic will of the Zimbabwean people.
The stripping of Mugabe of a knighthood bestowed in 1994 was a "mark of revulsion at the abuse of human rights and abject disregard for the democratic process", said the British Foreign Office.
- The European Union president, Slovenia, backed an African call to postpone the run-off vote, saying the results of the poll would not reflect the will of the people.
Its statement also called for an immediate halt to the violence and the release of political prisoners.
- Nigerian senators called on President Umaru Yar'Adua on Wednesday to speak out on the Zimbabwe crisis to prevent it from degenerating into civil war.
The senators adopted a motion asking Yar'Adua to "appeal for the people's choice to be respected" and to "stop political violence, harassment and intimidation".
They also asked Yar'Adua to join the United Nations and the African Union in encouraging Mugabe to step down.
- Spain said it was willing to study, with its partners in the European Union and in co-ordination with the African Union and the SADC, the adoption of extra measures to increase the pressure on Mugabe's regime.
Its foreign ministry said in a statement its aim was to ensure that "the will of the people of Zimbabwe prevails and the situation of violence and absence of democratic guarantees and respect for human rights end".
- Global mining giant Anglo American said it was "reviewing all options" surrounding a major project to produce platinum in Zimbabwe. The Times reported on Wednesday that Anglo American planned to invest R31-billion in a platinum mine there.