WASHINGTON – The US has condemned a speech by Syria’s President Assad that denounced his opponents as “puppets of the West”. The state department said a peace plan outlined by Mr Assad was “detached from reality”, calling it “another attempt by the regime to cling to power”. The EU reacted by restating that the Syrian…
HARARE – A delegation of the European Parliament Development Committee arrived in Zimbabwe on Monday as part of the overall EU-Zimbabwe re-engagement. This is the first delegation from the European Parliament in over 10 years and the visit comes as the 27-nation bloc has just announced wholesale easing of sanctions imposed on the country more…
DAMASCUS – Dozens of people have been killed by an air strike on a petrol station in the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, activists say. Damascus residents say they saw burning bodies and a scene of horror after the strike on the petrol station in Mleiha district. Unverified video footage showed charred bodies and…
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is cutting short his Hawaiian holiday to leave for Washington on Wednesday to address the unfinished “fiscal cliff” negotiations with Congress, the White House said on Tuesday. As the clock ticks toward a January 1 deadline, efforts to avert a sharp rise in taxes and deep spending cuts have stalled,…
MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended a ban on Americans adopting Russian children, which has been proposed by the Russian parliament. He said the bill, a response to the US Magnitsky Act which bars entry to Russian alleged human rights violators, was “appropriate”. Russian officials, he said, were not allowed to sit in…
WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama has met senior officials to discuss how to respond to Friday’s school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children and six adults died. The White House said curbing gun violence was a “complex” problem that required a comprehensive solution. On Sunday Mr Obama told Newtown residents he would…
DAMASCUS – A Russian official has said for the first time that the Syrian government may be defeated by opposition forces. President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are “losing more and more control and territory”, deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Thursday. Russia was also making plans for a possible evacuation of thousands of its citizens…
HARARE – Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) says there is an improvement in the perception of Zimbabwe as a tourism destination, evidenced by renewed interests in the country by international tour operators. Givemore Chidzidzi, ZTA chief operating officer, said the country — whose image was seriously blemished by politics — was shaking off the “red flag”…
WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama has warned of a “Scrooge Christmas” if tax breaks are not renewed for working families in a deal to avert a so-called fiscal cliff. Mr Obama made the remarks as he tried to win public support for his plan on a visit to a toy-maker in Pennsylvania. But Republican…
DAMASCUS – Activists in Syria say a government jet has dropped a cluster bomb on a playground, leaving 10 children dead. Video posted on the internet showed children’s bodies on the ground with their mothers grieving over them. The children were killed when a MiG fighter bombed a playground in the village of Deir al-Asafir,…
