A forum of South African church leaders has said former president Thabo Mbeki must step down as mediator of the process to solve the political crisis in Zimbabwe after years of failure.

The Rev Philip Potter, a former general secretary of the World Council of Churches, has been honoured by the South African government for his determined commitment to combatting racism and apartheid in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Zimbabwe Christian Alliance, a network of church and civic bodies, says it has no hope that inter-party peace talks brokered by South Africa's Thabo Mbeki will achieve results before Zimbabwean elections scheduled for 29 March.

Zimbabwe is seeking to put pressure on other European Union countries to back off Britain's tough stance on human rights there, as the diplomatic debate over Prime Minister Gordon Brown's proposal to send an envoy to the country continues.

The leader of a large Reformed denomination in South Africa says a crime wave gripping the country is a moral issue that cannot be solved only by having more police officers and state-of-the-art forensic equipment - writes David Wanless from Cape Town for Ecumenical News International (ENI).