Full-scale talks aimed at resolving Zimbabwe’s months-long political crisis are now expected to begin in South Africa today, a report in state media said yesterday.
Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, chief negotiator for President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, told the Herald it had been agreed with the opposition to begin the talks only when all the delegates were in place.
“All parties to the dialogue agreed that talks should begin on Thursday,” he told the daily.
The talks had initially been due to begin on Tuesday but Chinamasa said that all the delegates should now arrive in South Africa by the end of yesterday and would then “travel to the venue for the talks, wherever that would be.”
Chinamasa and ZANU-PF’s other senior negotiator Nicholas Goche stayed in Harare on Tuesday to attend a Cabinet meeting while opposition officials also delayed their travel plans.
A source in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said its top negotiator Tendai Biti had flown out of Harare yesterday but it was not known whether the party’s Bulawayo-based chairman Lovemore Moyo had left.
Mugabe, main MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, head of a breakaway opposition faction, penned a memorandum of understanding on Monday to pave the way for talks.
“This is just the first step on a journey whose duration and success is dependent on the sincerity and good faith of all parties involved,” Tsvangirai said in a statement Tuesday.
Although the venue of the talks has been kept under wraps, the negotiations are expected to take place in Pretoria. The rivals have set themselves a tight two-week timeline to wrap up the talks aimed at agreeing on the line-up of a new government.
Mugabe was re-elected in a one-man run-off last month after Tsvangirai pulled out, citing a campaign of intimidation and violence against his supporters that had killed dozens and injured thousands. The vote was widely condemned in the West as a sham, with the EU warning that it would not deal with a government unless headed by Tsvangirai.
EU foreign ministers agreed in Brussels to strengthen sanctions against Mugabe as a means of pressuring him to agree to share power with the opposition — a sign the West plans to keep the pressure on Mugabe.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Monday’s face-to-face meeting between Mugabe and Tsvangirai — their first in 10 years — was only “a first step,” and that EU nations were expecting more proof that Mugabe was willing to sign up to a transitional government with the opposition.
Also See: A screwdriver, not a hammer, could help to heal Zimbabwe
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese