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Robert Mugabe has been stripped of his honorary knighthood, as the pressure grows on him to postpone Friday's run-off election.

The Queen has approved the annulment of the honour on the advice of the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, in protest at Mr Mugabe's misrule.

"This action has been taken as a mark of revulsion at the abuse of human rights and abject disregard for the democratic process in Zimbabwe over which President Mugabe has presided," the Foreign Office said.

The move came as it emerged Nelson Mandela is planning to speak out about the situation in Zimbabwe tonight.

The former South African president is due to use a fundraising dinner to make public his concerns about the worsening crisis in the country, to an audience that will include the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Bill Clinton, the Mayor of London and most of the artists who will perform at his 90th birthday concert on Friday.“

Earlier today African leaders meeting in Swaziland urged Mr Mugabe to delay the election, amid reports that a top negotiator in Harare was considering calling off the vote.

King Mswati of Swaziland and Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete held talks as part of efforts by the Southern African Development Community to find a solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe.

The head of the SADC, Tomaz Augusto Salomao, said after the meeting that "elections under the current environment undermines the credibility and legitimacy of the outcome" and added that the election should postponed to give the country "a cooling-off period".

However, Zimbabwe's electoral commission said that Sunday's withdrawal by Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader was filed too late to be legally valid.

The British Government also today announced it intends to block the Zimbabwe cricket team from touring England next year. The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, wrote to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) specifying that the tour should not go ahead.

At Prime Minister's question time Gordon Brown also called on other countries to help Britain have Zimbabwe banned from next June's international Twenty20 competition.

The ECB said in a statement that it "welcomed" the Government's decision and "shared the Government's concerns about the deteriorating situation and lack of human rights in Zimbabwe".

Mr Mugabe was appointed Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Bath in 1994 by John Major's government. "The honour was given when conditions in Zimbabwe were very different,” the Foreign Office spokesman said.

Ministers had previously said that removing the honour would be a petty reaction that could be construed as colonial.

This week Lord Malloch-Brown, the foreign office minister, said it would not fit the offence "for the mangy old British lion to rise to its full height and say, this is outrageous, you've lost your knighthood".

He had added: "We don't want it to be Zimbabwe versus Britain, it's Zimbabwe versus the world."

The late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was the last foreign leader to be stripped of his title, the day before his execution in 1989.


(From The Times Online, June 25th 2008)