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Source: Reuters -
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South Africa's president Jacob Zuma has been given the royal treatment by the Queen during his three-day visit to Britain.
All eyes were on which of the controversial leader's several wives would accompany him to Buckingham.
The head of state was greeted by Queen Elizabeth II on London's Horse Guards parade ground before heading to Buckingham Palace in a horse-drawn carriage.
Brown attended the ceremony, before 67-year-old Zuma undertook a packed day of events.
Thursday's agenda focuses on matters of politics and cooperation between Britain and South Africa, as Zuma and Brown hold discussions at Downing Street.
The main focus of the talks is expected to be Zimbabwe.
On the eve of his state visit Zuma repeated his call for international sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle to be lifted.
He says the sanctions were not helping the beleaguered administration.
Sporting events will also be on the agenda, ahead of the football World Cup in South Africa, which starts in June.
Other issues expected to form part of discussions are trade, climate change and an upcoming global non-proliferation conference in the United States.
But his trip has been overshadowed by controversy after some UK press criticised the president over his polygamy and a lovechild scandal.
The president has been embroiled in a major scandal over an out-of-wedlock daughter born in October to the daughter of a top World Cup organiser. It has sparked questions about his fitness for office.
She is the 20th child for the polygamist leader, whose latest wife, Thobeka Madiba Zuma, is accompanying him on the trip. In all, the president has had five wives, although one died and he divorced another.
An opinion piece in the Daily Mail newspaper on the eve of his visit blasted the president as "a sex-obsessed bigot."
The president hit back accusing the papers of colonial attitudes, saying the coverage was disrespectful of his Zulu culture and echoed the attitudes of the colonial era, when Britain ruled South Africa.
"When the British came to our country they said everything we are doing was barbaric, was wrong, inferior in whatever way.... I don't know why they are continuing thinking that their culture is more superior than others," he said.
Zuma revisits London anti-apartheid base
Zuma also visited a humble house in suburban north London where late ANC leader Oliver Tambo lived and which served as an unlikely refuge for anti-apartheid activists.
Accompanied by one of his three wives, Tobeka Madiba, Zuma visited the three-storey Edwardian house in London's Muswell Hill on the second day of his state visit to Britain.
Speaking to reporters outside the house, Zuma said it brought back memories of his visits in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Some of us used to come here and bring messages. It brings back those days when we could not speculate about when would be the day of freedom, but we were determined to fight until we defeated apartheid."
The house in Alexandra Park Road was home to Tambo's family from 1960 until 1990. It served as a place of refuge for ANC leaders in exile from the apartheid regime.
Zuma unveiled a commemorative plaque inside the house which has been bought by the South African government and may be turned into a museum.
He thanked the British people for allowing the house to be used as a base, even though the ANC was a proscribed organisation.
"I thank the British who made a contribution so remarkable. We knew at any given time that the power of the people was too powerful for a government to say you can't stay here," Zuma said.
"We were determined to fight until we defeated apartheid."
The ceremony was attended by several veterans of the anti-apartheid movement, along with British politicians, David Steele for the Liberal Democrats and Labour peer Glenys Kinnock.
Tambo's son Dali, 51, also attended. He lived there with his two sisters and mother Adelaide, visited intermittently by his father.
Dali told reporters the visit of president Zuma was "a great honour" for the Tambo family.
"It's wonderful in many ways, particularly as president Zuma came here during those days of the struggle," he said.
Zuma's three-day visit culminates on Thursday with an address to parliament.
