Zimbabwe’s top opposition leader was in South Africa yesterday, holding meetings in the regional powerhouse on the same day he issued a call for international help in getting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to step down.
Morgan Tsvangirai left Zimbabwe on Sunday and was meeting “important people in South Africa,” Tendai Biti, secretary-general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said yesterday. South African President Thabo Mbeki had mediated failed pre-election talks between Tsvangirai’s and Mugabe’s parties.
Zimbabwean electoral officials have yet to say whether Tsvangirai or Mugabe won the March 29 presidential elections and the two rivals have adopted sharply contrasting strategies in response. Mugabe has virtually conceded he did not win and is already campaigning for an expected runoff on a platform of intimidation and fanning racial tension. Tsvangirai says he won and has demanded Zimbabwean courts and the international community support him.
“We urge the International Monetary Fund, at its meeting this week, to withhold ... aid to Zimbabwe unless the defeated ex-president accepts the election results in full and hands over the reins of power,” Tsvangirai wrote in an opinion piece published yesterday in the British newspaper the Guardian. “This is also the time for firm diplomacy. Major powers here, such as South Africa, the US and Britain, must act to remove the white-knuckle grip of Mugabe’s suicidal reign and oblige him and his minions to retire.”
A court postponed until today an expected ruling on an opposition petition to force the release of the election results.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS