Harare - The leader of President Robert Mugabe's notorious war veterans militia has threatened prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai over his failure to turn up this week for a regional summit on the Zimbabwean crisis in Swaziland.

The meeting of the politics and security troika of the Southern African Development Community, the 15-nation regional alliance, was meant to discuss the five-week stalemate in the implementation of a power-sharing agreement between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the two groupings of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.

Tsvangirai refused to travel to the summit after Mugabe's regime refused to issue him with a new passport, giving him only an emergency travel document.

Harare - Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) threatened Tuesday that party leader Morgan Tsvangirai would boycott another meeting of the Southern African Development Community on the Zimbabwean crisis unless he received a passport.

Tsvangirai did not attend a SADC meeting in Swaziland on Monday at which the breakdown in talks between his party and President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party on the formation of a unity government was discussed. Mugabe attended the meeting.

Harare - A month after the sig

Harare - Despite earlier hopeful signs, the month-long standoff between Zimbabwe's political parties over the implementation of a power-sharing deal continued Thursday after three days of talks between President Robert Mugabe and his arch-rival Morgan Tsvangirai.

Harare- Talks on the fiercely disputed sharing of cabinet posts between Zimbabwean President Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) resumed Thursday amid conflicting signs of progress.

Mugabe was the last to arrive at the talks venue, keeping Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a small offshoot of the MDC who is also involved, waiting for about two hours. He told reporters that he was no longer sure the negotiations would end Thursday.

Harare - The world marked the United Nations' first Global Hand-Washing Day Wednesday but in Zimbabwe, where a severe economic crisis has made clean water a precious commodity, handwashing can be downright risky.

The UN introduced the day to highlight the importance of handwashing to prevent disease in a world in which about half the population does not have access to safe water.

In parts of the Zimbabwean capital Harare residents go for more than three weeks without tap water, because the government of President Robert Mugabe is short on cash to pay for water purification chemicals.