Botswana

When Dahame Belese left the land of his ancestors, his parents felt as if he had fallen off the edge of the universe. They had no idea of the world outside, never traveled by car or bicycle. They had not even climbed on a donkey's back. The day he went away, his father was so angry he wouldn't say goodbye and his mother cried herself to sleep.

Botswana welcomed a crew making a film of a popular series of detective novels set in the southern African country, with officials saying the movie would generate good publicity for Africa. The film based on the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series by Alexander McCall Smith is expected to be released by Christmas, and has the backing of Botswana's government.

HBO has picked up a television series based on Alexander McCall Smith's book "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" and its popular sequels, which relate the adventures of Precious Ramotswe, a no-nonsense investigator who runs a detective agency in Botswana. A two-hour pilot, starring Jill Scott ("Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?"), was recently filmed on location in Botswana, directed by Anthony Minghella, who co-wrote the script with Richard Curtis. HBO, in partnership with the Weinstein Co. and the BBC, ordered 13 additional one-hour episodes of the series, which will begin filming this summer.

President Festus Mogae was assured of another term as his ruling Botswana Democratic Party swamped the opposition, keeping its 38-year lock on power in the National Assembly, election officials said. With just four seats yet to be decided, the governing party had won at least 41 seats to just 12 for opposition parties in Saturday's vote, the Independent Election Commission said. The president is elected by the assembly.

The United States said Monday that it would endorse a one-time sale of African ivory if strict international enforcement regulations were set in place. An American delegation here at the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species offered a proposal to allow Botswana's government to sell nearly 45 tons of elephant ivory worth millions of dollars. International trade in ivory has been illegal since 1989.

Botswanans voted for National Assembly candidates, with the ruling Democratic Party favored to keep the lock on power it has had for 38 years. The party that gets the most seats will choose the president. The Democratic Party has not lost an election since independence from Britain in 1966 and was expected to give Festus Mogae his second term as president. Mogae's strongest rival was expected to be Otsweletse Moupo, a former public prosecutor and leader of the Botswana National Front.

Draped in a ceremonial leopard skin, a former bank manager was installed as the first female paramount chief in Botswana. Mosadi Seboko took over as the highest-ranking chief of the Balete people in a celebration attended by thousands, including some of the country's top political figures, in the rural village of Ramotswa, about 20 miles south of the capital, Gaborone. She is one of eight such chiefs in the country. Her father and brother preceded her in office.

If it is right for the United States to condemn the raid into Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe by South Africa ostensibly to wipe out guerrilla camps of the African National Congress, then how do we distinguish the same act when it is done by Israel in Tunisia? Why do we loudly protest the actions of South Africa and only a whimper is heard when Israel violates the same norms in pursuit of the PLO? Both nations contend that the enemy are terrorists and they they are only protecting their self-interest and national homeland.