Delegation to meet British government

Britain's Foreign Office Minister, Peter Hain said on Wednesday that the Zimbabwean government has agreed to send a "high-powered" delegation to London next week for talks on the land crisis. News reports said Zimbabwe's delegation will be led by Local Government Minister John Nkomo. Britain's Foreign Secretary Robin Cook recently invited Mugabe to send a delegation to London to discuss President Robert Mugabe's demands that Britain, as the former colonial power, should pay compensation for white-owned land that the Zimbabwean government plans to seize in order to resettle landless blacks. Cook was reported as saying: "I am glad we now have a date when a delegation will come to London. We have always said we are willing to help fund a programme of land reform, but it's got to be within the rule of law, to help the real rural poor." Hundreds of white-owned farms have been invaded by supporters of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party led by liberation war veterans over the last two months. At least four people have died in the last week in the ongoing conflict, including two white farmers and two supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).