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Australian cricket tour of Zimbabwe cancelled

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Monday, May 14, 2007

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Australian Prime Minister John Howard said his government has decided to not let the national cricket team go to Zimbabwe.

"We don't do this lightly, but we are convinced that for the tour to go ahead there would be an enormous propaganda boost for the Mugabe regime," Howard told ABC television. "The [Robert] Mugabe regime at present is behaving like the Gestapo towards its political opponents, the living standards of the country are probably the lowest of any in the world and you have an unbelievable rate of inflation."

Reactions from Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe came quickly.

"The Australians are mixing politics with sport and the decision shows how desperate the Howard government is to isolate Zimbabwe," junior information minister Bright Matonga told Agence France-Presse.

"Australia is one of the worst human rights violators in this whole world. Look what they have done to the aborigines and yet they have the audacity to stand up and claim to have the moral authority to condemn us. This is also a racist ploy to kill our local cricket since our cricket team is now dominated by black players as we slowly transform cricket from being an elite sport."

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Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

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