Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans have attended the funeral of one of the country's most senior politicians, General Solomon Mujuru, who died in a mysterious house fire last week. A BBC's southern Africa correspondent says the ceremony in the capital Harare was the biggest state funeral since independence. General Mujuru was said to have been in negotiations with the junior partner in Zimbabwe's government, the Movement for Democratic Change. His widow, Joice Mujuru, who's one of the country's two vice presidents, has been engaged in a bitter

succession

battle.

About one million young pilgrims have

brave

d a day of ferocious heat to join Pope Benedict at an open-air prayer vigil on the outskirts of the Spanish capital Madrid. At least 900 people required medical treatment as the temperature neared 40C. The Pope is visiting Spain to celebrate World Youth Day, a festival

bringing together

pilgrims from countries around the world. From Madrid, Sarah Rainsford.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have been

flock

ing there all day, many of them waiting up to 12 hours in the blistering heat just to be at this event.

There were fire engines driving through the crowds and spraying them with water to try to keep the temperatures down, but it couldn't keep the excitement down.

It's an extremely excited vast crowd and, just now, waiting to hear from the Pope. There's just been a group of young people who asked questions of the Pope and that was expecting the beginning of the vigil, which will lead overnight into the Mass tomorrow morning, the