Where They Are

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Vice President Gilbert Bukenya yesterday flagged off the first consignment of antiretroviral drugs locally made in Uganda by the Luzira-based Quality Chemicals Limited.

The Vice-President, who toured the factory, said promotion of local industries was the only way to develop and create employment for local talent.

On the economy:

That is exactly the opposite of how the Third World is supposed to pay off its debts, and that this seems to pass without comment is remarkable. These measures for the West are ones that might get the economy moving again, while it has been a disaster for others.

Oliver Ivanovic, who currently serves as a key Belgrade official on Kosovo issues, was born in Mitrovica. But he says even he finds the city to be neglected and dreary.

"In this gloomy, gray atmosphere, it's hard to be an optimist," Ivanovic says. "People who were born here and have lived here for a long time have become attached to this town. But talking to them, I learned that, despite their roots in Mitrovica, some of them have reached the conclusion that this is no longer the place they used to care about. They're thinking about leaving."

Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo, has been a divided city for nearly a decade. Its northern half, and its environs, are home to the bulk of Kosovo's 250,000 ethnic Serbs. Contact is rare -- and often hostile -- with the majority Albanians who populate the city's southern half.

Zimbabwe's new prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has called on the world "to get over" President Robert Mugabe and stop seeing him as the principal problem facing his country.

Speaking to the Guardian shortly before ministers in the new powersharing government were due to be sworn in today, Tsvangirai said that his most immediate challenges – from finding the money to pay government workers and prising political detainees from prison, to purging the system of some of its worst crooks– now have little to do with the man who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence 29 years ago.

"Unfortunately people are preoccupied with Mugabe as a person. They need to get over it. This has gone beyond Mugabe. People need to stop talking about him as the only issue. Mugabe is part of the problem but he is also part of the solution. He is not the obstacle we are now facing," he said.

And it's bitter sweet:

But hours later, Tsvangirai received a sharp reminder of another more sinister challenge his administration faces as one of his new ministers, Roy Bennett, was arrested today. The Movement for Democratic Change said Bennett, a former white farmer who is a particularly hated figure within Mugabe's Zanu-PF, was "abducted" by the police law and order unit.

In a major change of strategy, the new head of GlaxoSmithKline, Andrew Witty, has told the Guardian he will slash prices on all medicines in the poorest countries, give back profits to be spent on hospitals and clinics and – most ground-breaking of all – share knowledge about potential drugs that are currently protected by patents.

Witty says he believes drug companies have an obligation to help the poor get treatment. He challenges other pharmaceutical giants to follow his lead.