He said the new unity government was the best option and that change could only really come at the next election. He was questioned by a Zimbabwean activist on the lack of unity among the leaders of southern African countries in dealing robustly with Robert Mugabe's regime.

Archbishop Tutu told the woman questioner that he "felt very deeply" with her anguish, according to a report on BBC. Tutu, now the emeritus Archbishop of Cape Town, said some leaders had taken a tougher line with President Mugabe. He said he hoped other leaders would follow suit.

Tutu also said he understood too that countries were reluctant to give aid to a country with so many problems. But he said this was the best way forward and that would help to strengthen the political process and give Morgan Tsvangirai a decisive mandate at the next election.

In a wide-ranging and witty conversation with festival director Peter Florence, the Nobel laureate praised the human spirit in adversity. He said if apartheid could be abolished in South Africa then surely most of the world's problems could be solved.

There was no situation that was "totally intractable" he said. Tutu also said his roving brief as a "global elder" had involved him in helping to resolve the problems in Gaza.
He criticized the conditions Palestinians were living under and said the only answer was the two-state solution.

But he warned that if the Palestinian question was not resolved, the world could "give up on everything else". "This is the problem and it is in our hands," he said.

Tutu said he felt that religious faith had played a large part in the process of rebuilding post-apartheid South Africa.