SADC to call for aid for Zimbabwe

South Africa's president Kgalema Motlanthe, current chairman of the Southern African Development Community, SADC, has been mandated to present a request for an eight-billion US dollar lifeline for Zimbabwe at the G20 summit in London on April 2. He will also have the unenviable task of pleading with the leaders of the world's richest countries to lift travel and visa restrictions imposed on President Robert Mugabe and more than 200 of his party leaders, government officials and loyalists.