News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Zanu-PF bolstering terror machinery - MDC

Posted: 15 Nov 2016 10:03 PM PST

Zimbabwe's opposition MDC fears that the recruitment of more army personnel is a ploy by the ruling party.

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Harare - The opposition MDC, led by former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has expressed fear that the recruitment of more army personnel by Zanu-PF is a ploy by the ruling party to bolster its terror machinery ahead of the 2018 elections.

The Zimbabwe National Army has been flighting adverts calling for youths between the ages of 18 and 22 to go for recruitment exercises at various barracks around the country.

In a statement on Tuesday, MDC-T national spokesperson Obert Gutu said the nationwide military recruitment exercise by the ZNA was irrational considering that government was currently struggling to pay salaries for its workers timeously.

"As a peace-loving social democratic political party, the MDC is also alarmed by the fact that the ongoing massive army recruitment exercise is deliberately targeted at building the Zanu PF regime's 'war arsenal' in preparation for the 2018 elections," he said.

Gutu said the Zanu-PF government was known for unleashing its security apparatus each time it faced possible defeat at national elections.

He said Zanu-PF had done the same during the June 2008 presidential election run-off when it unleashed soldiers and other security operatives in both urban and rural areas which resulted in an orgy of violence which saw hundreds of civilians murdered while women were raped and homesteads were set ablaze.

"Because the Zanu-PF regime is sensing a crushing and humiliating electoral defeat in 2018, it is already re-tooling and sharpening its instruments of terror, thuggery and brutality. Once again, the MDC would like to call upon SADC,the AU and even the United Nations to keep a close eye on the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe," he said.

Gutu said it was senseless to add more personnel to an already bloated civil service as revealed by a recent audit by auditors Ernst and Young.

"In fact,this audit revealed that there are no less than 75,000 ghost workers on the civil service payroll. Most, if not all,of these ghost workers are actually Zanu-PF activists who are conveniently given the job title 'ward or youth officers'," he said.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa is on record saying that more than 80 percent of government revenue was going towards salaries.

African News Agency

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Egyptian court overturns Morsi death sentence

Posted: 15 Nov 2016 04:01 AM PST

An Egyptian court has overturned a death sentence against ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

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Cairo - An Egyptian court on Tuesday overturned a death sentence against ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and ordered a retrial in a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising, official news agency MENA reported.

The Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest degree court, ordered that Morsi and five co-defendants, including the supreme guide of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, will also be retried.

Morsi was sentenced to death in June 2015 in connection with a mass jailbreak during the country's 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

He, along with 129 members of the Brotherhood, was charged of assaulting a prison, killing officers and fleeing in cooperation with Palestinian Hamas movement's affiliates.

The jailbreak helped more than 20,000 criminals escape the prison and spread chaos in the country. Morsi, the first democratically elected president, was overthrown by the army in response to mass protests against his one year rule in July 2013.

He received several prison sentences in other cases related to spying and espionage, in which he appealed.

Tuesday court's ruling cancelled the only execution sentence he was facing. In another case related with violence and killing protesters outside the presidential palace in 2013, Morsi was handed his first final sentence, 20 years in prison.

Xinhua

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