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HARARE - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was jeered on Tuesday as he opened parliament in defiance of opposition objections, but voiced optimism for a power-sharing deal to end political turmoil.

Heckling by parliamentarians from the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) drowned out Mugabe’s speech, underscoring the bitterness of the divide. It said reconvening parliament could undermine deadlocked talks.

“Landmark agreements have been concluded, with every expectation that everyone will sign up,” said Mugabe, 84, whose ZANU-PF party goes into the new parliament without a majority for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980.
“The elections are now behind us, what is upon us is a challenge of vision and common Read more »

Morgan Tsvangirai was to attend a summit of regional leaders Zimbabwe’s main opposition party says authorities have confiscated travel documents from its leader and other officials ahead of a regional summit. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the documents were taken at the airport in the capital, Harare. MDC leaders were due to travel to South Africa this weekend after power-sharing talks in Zimbabwe were adjourned. The MDC has been negotiating with President Robert Mugabe in efforts

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Mr Mbeki is hoping to secure a power-sharing deal Talks are under way in Zimbabwe to try to finalise a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. South African President Thabo Mbeki is acting as mediator at the talks, which are taking place in a Harare hotel. Reports in some South African papers say a deal is close, and that a final agreement could be reached shortly. Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai are due to meet after more than a week of talks between their parties, reports say. One widely touted solution is that Mr Mugabe, the Zanu-PF leader, may become ceremonial president while Mr Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, is made executive prime minister. But there has been no official comment on these reports, apart from

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Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe meets with Arthur Mutambara, an opposition leader.

Russia has reacted angrily to comments made by U.S. and British officials who criticized Moscow’s veto of U.N. sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Officials in the United States and Britain were quick to exclaim their surprise over Friday’s veto by Russia and China on sanctions.

The U.S.-led sanctions were aimed at punishing Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe’s deadly crackdown on the opposition Move for Democratic Change during and after the presidential election.

The Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement Saturday said the criticism “places a question mark over the worthiness of Russia as a G-8 partner,” The Associated Press reported.
It added that the possibility of U.N. sanctions on Zimbabwe was excluded at a recent G-8 summit in Japan.

Russia said it believed the sanctions would set a precedent for U.N. meddling, AP reported.

The sanctions would have been imposed on Mugabe and 11 senior members of his government.

According to a draft of the resolution, the measure would have instituted a travel ban, Read more »

President Mugabe addresses supporters at Harare airport on his return to Harare from African Union summit.

Video secretly recorded by a Zimbabwean prison guard appears to show evidence of vote-rigging in the country’s recent presidential runoff election.
The footage, shot with a secret camera provided by the British newspaper The Guardian, was posted on the paper’s Web site Saturday. The paper said the guard had since fled the country with his family.

The video shows the guard, Shepherd Yuda, being summoned along with other prison guards to an office at Harare’s central jail days before the June 27 runoff between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Once there, a supporter of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party instructs the guards to vote by postal ballot while he watches. The ZANU-PF supporter, named only as “Shambira,” takes careful note of the guards’ ballot numbers and which candidate they vote for, and even helps Yuda properly fold his ballot and put it inside the envelope.

“The atmosphere in the room seems benign, but it’s deceptive,” Read more »

Robert Mugabe, left, and Morgan Tsvangirai

Despite their apparently intractable differences after a bitter and bloody three-month election process whose outcome has not been recognized by most of the world, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and the beleaguered opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) appear to be hinting that some form of power-sharing is inevitable. Mugabe remains defiant in the face of near universal condemnation of his regime’s thuggish election tactics, and this week he stormed angrily out of an African Union summit that urged him to create a government of national unity. Still, Mugabe is expressing a willingness to negotiate and consider a unity government, perhaps mindful of the need to reverse his regime’s growing isolation. And although MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai had warned that there would be no negotiations if Mugabe went ahead with the runoff vote staged last weekend, Read more »

Robert Mugabe won re-election as Zimbabwean president in a controversial and disputed election.

Officials at an African Union summit Tuesday adopted a resolution urging talks in Zimbabwe aimed at promoting peace and stability in the country, according to Egypt’s official news agency.
However some leaders, had harsh words for Mugabe in what appeared to be sharp exchanges in closed-door meetings at the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Associated Press reported that Botswana’s president said Robert Mugabe’s government should not be recognized and that Zimbabwe should be barred from AU gatherings.

Earlier Tuesday, Mugabe’s spokesman said talk of Western intervention in the country’s election crisis smacks of colonialism, and that the UK “can go and hang a thousand times.”

The comments came as it was revealed that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has left the Netherlands Embassy in Harare, where he sought sanctuary a week ago. His Movement for Democratic Change party also denied Tuesday being in discussions to create a unity government.

George Charamba, a spokesman for Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, Read more »