A human rights activist missing for three weeks was taken to court and state media said she was accused in a plot to overthrow Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
Late on Wednesday, a judge ordered Jestina Mukoko and six other activists sent to a hospital under police guard so that allegations of torture could be investigated, a human rights lawyer said. The lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, said the seven would be brought to court again on Monday to determine the next step, while another judge had ordered another group of about two dozen detainees released unconditionally.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu joined the growing international pressure on longtime leader Mugabe to give up power.
Asked during a BBC interview if Mugabe should be removed by force, Tutu said there should “certainly be the threat of it.”
Tutu, the retired archbishop of Cape Town, also said he is ashamed of South Africa’s handling of the Zimbabwe issue at the UN Security Council, where China and Russia in July vetoed a US-sponsored resolution that proposed worldwide sanctions against Mugabe and 13 officials.
Former South African president Thabo Mbeki mediated the power-sharing deal between Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, and South Africa reiterated this week it saw the deal as the only way forward, despite new US and British opposition to it.
“We have betrayed our legacy, how much more suffering is going to make us say: ‘No, we have given Mr Mugabe enough time,’” Tutu told the BBC.
Mukoko’s court appearance came days after Tsvangirai threatened to withdraw from talks on implementing the power sharing deal unless at least 42 missing activists and opposition officials were released or charged. Mukoko had been taken from her home on Dec. 3, the day activists held nationwide protests against the country’s deepening economic and health crises, and scores of others had disappeared in recent weeks.
Charging Mukoko, the respected head of a group known as the Zimbabwe Peace Project, in a plot already widely dismissed as a fabrication is a sign Mugabe is not prepared to back down.
The Herald, the state-run daily, said Mukoko and the other activists with Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would be charged with attempting to recruit fighters to overthrow Mugabe. The Herald quoted police as saying the MDC was training fighters in Botswana.
Zimbabwean officials have repeatedly made such accusations, which have been denied by Botswana and the MDC. Last week, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe dismissed the allegations, saying the main regional bloc opened an investigation when Mugabe’s regime first raised them last month, but “we never believed” them.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS