Zimbabwe

Prosecutors seek tougher sentence PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Prosecutors for Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal appealed Monday for a longer sentence for the former chief jailer of the Khmer Rouge. Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and was sentenced last month to serve 19 years in prison, a term deemed by many victims as lenient. A statement by the prosecutors said the judgment "gives insufficient weight to the gravity of Duch's crimes.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. - For most of the day, it seemed as if much of the U.S. Open field was scrummed at 1-under-par. And you needed a media guide to identify many of them. The course that gave us Open winners Jack Nicklaus in 1972, Tom Watson in 1982, Tom Kite in 1992 and Tiger Woods 10 years ago provided an opening-round leaderboard that looked more like some kind of Quad Cities pro-am. This is what those first 18 holes at a major can often turn into. And when it was in the books, one of the guys at 2-under 69 being chased at Pebble Beach Golf Links was none other than Shaun Micheel, who somehow managed to win the 2003 PGA Championship despite winning nothing before.

As Roger Ross Williams says, laughing about it in hindsight, he holds two records in the annals of the Academy Awards. One - and this is the important one - is that he's the first African American to win a directing Oscar, for his documentary short, "Music by Prudence. " And two, he is the first Oscar winner to be Kanyed when he stepped up to accept his award. Sure, there have been random Oscar-speech hijackings over the academy's 82 years - but they were before the verb to Kanye entered the lexicon, inspired by Kanye West's obnoxious interruption of Taylor Swift's Video Music Awards acceptance spiel last fall.

Surprised and "a bit overwhelmed," University of Pennsylvania junior Tariro Mupombwa said yesterday she was stunned by the flood of 120 calls and e-mails supporting her plan to fashion a brighter future for her native Zimbabwe using sewing machines. An article Tuesday in The Inquirer described Mupombwa's proposal to collect donated sewing machines in America and export them to Zimbabwe to start a nonprofit business making school uniforms at a home for the elderly. Since then, the soft-spoken woman with the microbraids has been inundated by offers of used and new machines.

In her native Zimbabwe, her first name means hope. Now, Tariro Mupombwa wants to bring a brighter future to her troubled homeland through a simple project with simple means: sewing machines. The 21-year-old University of Pennsylvania junior has been in Philadelphia on a student visa since 2006, majoring in biochemistry with a minor in economics. Three days a week in a Penn medical school lab, the student whose adviser calls her "brilliant" does advanced research on tuberculosis and enzymes.

The incredible drama in Zimbabwe is about more than a defiant dictator, Robert Mugabe, who has tortured and murdered his political opponents to avoid election defeat on Friday. The 84-year-old Mugabe, onetime hero of his country's independence struggle, has destroyed his country's once-thriving economy, and driven its population to starvation. His goons have killed scores of opposition supporters and injured thousands. Mugabe insists that "only God will remove me!" Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who beat Mugabe in a first-round vote, sought refuge in the Dutch embassy this week to avoid being murdered; he has withdrawn his party from a run-off election he rightly says has become a "violent, illegitimate sham.

Cynthia Tucker edits the opinion section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution During the late 20th century, human-rights campaigns led by Western progressives helped liberate two nations in southern Africa from brutal whites-only rule. In 1980, the apartheid regime of Rhodesia gave way to a black-led Zimbabwe. And in 1994, the first multiracial elections in South Africa delivered the presidency to a black man, the longtime antiapartheid activist Nelson Mandela. In the years since, the two nations have traveled very different paths.

Beverly Sigel and Ruth Podolin, both veterinarians' wives, felt socially isolated, so they started a book club. In the 44 years since, Sigel, Podolin and other members have been through marriages, divorces, career changes, health crises, and the birth of grandchildren. But the book club rolls on. The 13 women in their First Friday Book Club range in age from 55 to 89 and hail from throughout South Jersey, including Cinnaminson, Lumberton, Haddonfield and Cherry Hill. They gather monthly at the home of a designated hostess.