In Brief: Mugabe seeks birthday sponsorship

Robert Mugabe’s 85th birthday, which falls on February 21, looks like being a lavish affair. Despite the fact that seven million Zimbabweans are currently struggling to subsist on international food aid, the president's Zanu-PF party have put out a request to corporate sponsors to help fund the event. According to the Times, the list of requirements includes 2,000 bottles of champagne (Moet & Chandon or '61 Bollinger preferred), 8,000 lobsters, 100 kilos of prawns, 4,000 portions of caviar, 8,000 boxes of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and 3,000 ducks ...........Bruce Springsteen will make his first festival appearance outside the US at a concert in London's Hyde Park this summer. 'The Boss' will appear with his E Street Band at the Hard Rock Calling 2009 event, to be staged on June 27 and 28............. Orlando 'Cachaito' Lopez, one of the founding members of the Buena Vista Social Club, has died in Cuba aged 76. Lopez became a worldwide sensation as part of the group of elderly musicians who were living quietly in Cuba before being brought together for a 1996 film directed by Wim Wenders............ Diane Keaton, the Academy Award-winning actress whose movies include Annie Hall, is working on a memoir about her mother, Dorothy Keaton Hall, who died last year and had suffered from Alzheimer's............ ·