Dalai Lama missing from party as South Africa's anti-apartheid icon and critic TUTU of its government turns 80

Desmond Mpilo Tutu, South Africa's retired archbishop and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has celebrated his 80th birthday.

Known as "The Arch", Tutu is a much-loved figure in his country, mostly for the role he played in ending apartheid.

Friday's birthday celebration, however, was not without controversy.

Earlier in the week he branded South Africa's government, which is led by the African National Congress party, "worse than apartheid" over suspicions that a delay in issuing a visa to Tibet’s Dalai Lama was due to pressure from China.

As a result, the Dalai Lama was unable to attend Tutu’s celebration, but still delivered a message wishing the archbishop well.

Among those in attendance were Graça Machel, Nelson Mandela's wife, and Bono, lead singer of Irish rock band U2.

Sparked debate

Al Jazeera's Tania Page, reporting from Johannesburg, said that Tutu's stinging attack on the government had sparked debate over the current government’s political direction.

Page said that the spat had highlighted "Tutu's ongoing relevance as the country's moral compass".

Susan Booysen, political analyst at the University of the Witwatersrand, said, "He has the gravitas, like no other leader, to say things and be heard.”

South Africans interviewed by Page said that the icon still symbolised perseverance and achievement for the country.

"There's still one person who still has the guts to challenge the government which we're living under, so it's a good thing what he did," said one interviewee.

Another South African interviewed said, "I hope to grow as old as him and to achieve as many things as he did in our country."

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Eight Bangladeshi migrants have been beheaded in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

Mamun Abdul Mannan, Faruq Jamal, Sumon Miah, Mohammed Sumon, Shafiq al-Islam, Masud Shamsul Haque, Abu al-Hussain Ahmed, Mutir al-RahmanThe eight had been executed in public on Friday. They were sentenced to death for the alleged murder of an Egyptian man in April, 2007, an interior ministry statement said on Friday. The men were convicted of robbing a warehouse and killing the security guard, Hussein Saeed Mohammed Abdulkhaleq, an Egyptian national. Three other men were sentenced to various prison terms, the statement in Arabic said. Most of the defendants have no defence lawyer, have insufficient hold of the Arabic language to follow proceedings and in many cases are not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them. Human rights group Amnesty International condemned the execution in a statement, also on Friday. "Court proceedings in Saudi Arabia fall far short of international standards for fair trial and news of these recent multiple executions is deeply disturbing," the group's Middle East and North Africa director, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, said. "The Saudi authorities appear to have increased the number of executions in recent months, a move that puts the country at odds with the worldwide trend against the death penalty," he added. The organisation also pointed out that majority of those executed recently in Saudi Arabia is migrant workers from poor and developing countries.They also have no access to influential figures or money, both of which might have secured them pardons. Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of offences, the statement said. The beheadings bring the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year to at least 58, more than double than the 2010 figures. Twenty of those executed in 2011 were foreign nationals. At least 158 people, including 76 foreign nationals, were executed by the Saudi Arabian authorities in 2007. In 2008 some 102 people, including almost 40 foreign nationals, were executed. In 2009, at least 69 people are known to have been executed, including 19 foreign nationals and in 2010, at least 27 people were executed including six foreign nationals. Criticising the process of conviction the rights body Amnesty International said that it might have been only based on confessions obtained under duress or deception.

The men who crashed the world

The first of a four-part investigation into a world of greed and recklessness that led to financial collapse. In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne. The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929. In depth coverage of US financial crisis protests But how did it all go so wrong? Lack of government regulation; easy lending in the US housing market meant anyone could qualify for a home loan with no government regulations in place. Also, London was competing with New York as the banking capital of the world. Gordon Brown, the British finance minister at the time, introduced 'light touch regulation' - giving bankers a free hand in the marketplace. All this, and with key players making the wrong financial decisions, saw the world's biggest financial collapse. Courtesy: Al Jazeera