A Zimbabwean military commander and ally of President Robert Mugabe was shot in an assassination attempt at the weekend, state media said yesterday.
Minister of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi was quoted in the state-controlled Herald newspaper as saying the attack that wounded Air Force Commander Perence Shiri on Saturday appeared to be part of attacks against high-profile figures designed to destabilize the country.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) alleges that Shiri and several military commanders led a violent election run-off campaign in June that its leader Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted over attacks on his supporters.
“The attack on Air Marshal Shiri appears to be a build-up of terror attacks targeting high-profile persons, government officials, government establishments and public transportation systems,” Mohadi was quoted as saying.
Shiri was shot on the way to his farm that was seized from a white commercial farmer in 2000. He escaped with a gunshot wound and is recovering at a Harare hospital.
Mugabe’s government has in the past accused the MDC of terror tactics as part of a campaign to remove the veteran leader, who has been in power since 1980.
Dozens of MDC members have been arrested on terror charges but have been cleared by the courts. The MDC says Mugabe uses the charges when under pressure, especially from Western foes who are calling on him to step down over a humanitarian crisis.
A cholera epidemic and Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown have drawn new calls from Mugabe’s Western foes for the resignation of the 84-year-old leader, who has ruled since independence in 1980.
The UN said on Monday the death toll from cholera had risen to nearly 1,000.
Prospects for rescuing Zimbabwe appear slim while Mugabe and Tsvangirai remain deadlocked over their Sept. 15 power-sharing deal.
State media said at the weekend that Zimbabwe might be forced to hold a new election if a constitutional bill to set up the new government failed to get through parliament, where Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party lost its majority in March.
The MDC said it was ready to take part in any new election, but only if held under international supervision. Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the first round of a presidential vote but withdrew from a run-off, citing attacks on his supporters.
Mugabe’s government says the cholera outbreak is a calculated attack by former colonial ruler Britain and the US, describing it as “biological warfare” to create an excuse to mobilize military action against Zimbabwe.
“Alarmed” by the spiraling crisis, Canada called on Monday for “the urgent engagement” of regional leaders.
“Canada is alarmed by the worsening humanitarian, economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe, which is claiming the lives of more Zimbabweans every day and threatening the stability of the region,” said Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon.
Noting that basic services have collapsed as a result of the government breakdown, Cannon said he was “deeply concerned over the recent return to a pattern of human-rights abuses and abductions.”
He cited the abductions of more than a dozen members of the MDC, and of Zimbabwe Peace Project director Jestina Mukoko and two of her colleagues.
“Canada calls for the urgent engagement of regional leaders in this crisis,” added Cannon, stressing that the African Union and the Southern Africa Development Community “have an important role to play in ensuring the implementation of a solution that respects the will of the Zimbabwean people.”
Canadian humanitarian aid and civil society support will continue, Cannon said, adding that the country has provided close to US$10 million in assistance to Zimbabwe since July last year.
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) announced on Monday it would provide up to US$500,000 to reduce shipping costs for life-saving medicine, including antibiotics and oral rehydration salts for children, to Zimbabwe.
Some Western council members said they hope to make a fresh push for adoption of such a non-binding statement next month when South Africa will no longer sit on the council.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, proposed on Thursday that Zimbabwe’s neighbors, particularly South Africa, close their borders with the country.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
RSS