A top aide to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said yesterday he would expose “lies, deceit and theft” in Zimbabwe after he is sworn in as deputy agriculture minister.
Roy Bennett, a 53-year-old white former farmer, was acquitted on Monday on charges of plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe that had already been discredited by another court.
“When you are dealing with people who hide in dark corners, who kill people and murder and maim and rule by absolute fear ... the biggest thing they fear is the shining light in those dark corners and they fear truth and honesty,” Bennett told South Africa’s Radio 702. “So my positioning as deputy minister of agriculture will open a can of worms because I would be able to expose a lot of the lies, deceit and theft that is taking place in Zimbabwe.”
Bennett, the treasurer-general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), had been accused of buying £3,000 worth of arms in 2006 to carry out acts of insurgency, sabotage, banditry or terrorism in a plot to topple Mugabe.
Bennett’s supporters, including Tsvangirai, the prime minister and MDC leader, maintained the charges were baseless and aimed at undermining the coalition.
Tsvangirai’s pick for deputy agriculture minister in the fragile year-old unity government, Bennett was arrested in February last year shortly before he was to be sworn in.
After his acquittal, Tsvangirai’s MDC called for Bennett to take office, with his trial one of the issues threatening the unity government.
Bennett said there had been progress in the work of the unity government, with media, constitutional and electoral commissions in place.
He said he had expected the trial to go on indefinitely and his acquittal was a sign that there was pressure on Mugabe.
“I think there is a lot of pressure and there are a lots of things happening in Zimbabwe and continue to happen on a daily basis that one would never have expected, my acquittal yesterday for example,” Bennett said.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant