British Foreign Secretary to visit

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will visit South Africa next week to conduct bilateral talks and visit community development projects. This follows a visit to the region last week by Walter Kansteiner, the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, to open a trade information office in Botswana for countries eligible for the African Growth and Opportunity Act. An update on Zimbabwe will be on Straw's agenda, which will also include developments in Iraq and other matters, British High Commission spokesman Nick Sheppard said on Friday. President Thabo Mbeki travelled to Zimbabwe earlier this week to join his Malawian and Nigerian counterparts for a series of meetings with President Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change over the country's political and economic crisis. Straw's visit follows a meeting between the South African president and British Prime Minister Tony Blair two months ago, and an agreement that the two would meet again to continue discussions. Relations between Britain and Zimbabwe are currently strained over the country's land reform programme, which Zimbabwe says Britain, as the country's former coloniser, must pay for.