Zimbabwe: New talks collapse
A fresh round of negotiations to unlock the impasse over the allocation of ministries between the two formations of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and ZANU-PF collapsed last night with President Robert Mugabe's negotiating team dangling the release of Morgan Tsvangirai's passport as a bargaining chip.
Before the negotiations on 10 October, former South African president Thabo Mbeki had to shelve his trip to Harare after being advised to allow the three parties to iron out their differences without recourse to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) appointed mediator.
Mbeki was reportedly due in the capital on Tuesday at the invitation of the MDC, which had asked SADC to salvage the dialogue.
