Police detained a mayor from Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party on Saturday following political violence in the east of the country earlier this week, a party spokesman said.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesman Pishayi Muchauraya said Admire Mukorera, the deputy mayor for the city of Mutare, was taken from his home early on Saturday by detectives from the police law and order section.
“They said his vehicle was used during political disturbances in Buhera, but they did not give details,” Muchauraya said. “He is detained at Mutare central police station, but they plan to take him to Buhera. When we went to see him he had not been charged.”
In a reference to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s party, he said: “What surprises us is that we have supporters who had houses burnt by ZANU-PF supporters this week and we made reports to the police with names of suspects, but nothing has been done.”
Meanwhile, Mugabe said on Saturday the unity government he formed with the opposition MDC would bring stability and warned against resurgent political violence.
Mugabe was addressing mourners at the burial of a former commander of Zimbabwe’s military forces in Harare and was joined by Tsvangirai in another sign of thawing relations between the two long-time foes.
Tsvangirai and the MDC have previously boycotted such occasions, saying Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party had hijacked national events for partisan purposes.
The gesture came after Mugabe last week joined mourning for Tsvangirai’s wife, who was killed in a car crash.
“We now have an inclusive government and I want to thank the honorable prime minister and his deputy prime minister who are here. That is as it should be,” Mugabe said. “We were fighting among ourselves, brother versus brother ... but we’ve realized our folly. Let us walk the same road. We formed this inclusive government to bring stability, peace and harmony.”
Mugabe also spoke out against political violence, which the MDC has previously blamed on Mugabe’s ZANU-PF.
“Violence must stop. We have heard reports of renewed violence, that must stop. Yes, we belong to different parties, but let’s not fight. Those who persist with acts of violence are the enemies of Zimbabwe,” Mugabe said.
Mugabe, who never misses an opportunity to attack his Western critics, said his government’s dispute with former colonial power Britain had not ended, but called for “friendship and partnership.”
“Our fight with the British is not yet over. Not a week passes without the British parliament discussing Zimbabwe. They forget that we will never be a colony again,” he said. “What we want is partnership, we don’t want to be subjugated, we don’t want masters. Those who want to be our friends and partners are welcome.”
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
French police on Monday arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of murder after an 11-year-old girl was found dead in a wood south of Paris over the weekend in a killing that sparked shock and a massive search for clues. The girl, named as Louise, was found stabbed to death in the Essonne region south of Paris in the night of Friday to Saturday, police said. She had been missing since leaving school on Friday afternoon and was found just a few hundred meters from her school. A police source, who asked not to be named, said that she had been