Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will form a government after yesterday’s regional summit in South Africa with or without a deal with opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a minister said.
“This summit is the last summit that is going to discuss this issue of an inclusive government. If it does not work today, definitely when the president comes back here, he has to form a new government with or without Morgan Tsvangirai,” Deputy Information Minister Bright Matonga said.
“The way forward, soon after this summit whether there is an agreement or there is no agreement, President Mugabe is going to form a Cabinet, 15 Cabinet ministers, eight deputy ministers of ZANU-PF,” he said in an interview on public broadcaster SA FM.
“He will obviously try to leave room for Tsvangirai so that whenever he changes his mind ... but that is not going to be for too long. He will then come to join the all-inclusive government. There has to be a government whether there is MDC or not,” Matonga said.
Southern African leaders were to renew efforts to break Zimbabwe’s political deadlock at a summit in Pretoria yesterday, as Mugabe comes under increasing international pressure.
Mugabe and rival Tsvangirai signed a deal more than four months ago to share power and form a unity government, but it has yet to be implemented because of the failure to agree key posts.
The pact has floundered since last September over which party will control top public posts, including the home affairs ministry, which oversees the police.
The latest attempt by the 15-nation Southern African Development Community to forge a breakthrough comes one week after talks in Harare between the rivals collapsed in acrimony.
Yesterday’s summit in Pretoria was to be hosted by South African President Kgalema Motlanthe.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
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
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
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in