HARARE: Zimbabwe freed on Thursday a 25-year-old American journalist charged with subverting President Robert Mugabe on account of an alleged tweet that described the aging leader as “selfish and sick.”
Martha O’Donovan had been charged with attempting to overthrow Mugabe as well as undermining or insulting the veteran leader, now 93.
The arrest of O’Donovan and the seizure of her laptop in a dawn raid at her apartment last Friday came just weeks after the government appointed a cybersecurity minister tasked with policing social media.
“Ms Martha O’Donovan has been granted $1,000 bail (860 euros) and ordered to reside at a given address, surrender her passport... and report twice a week” to detectives, said O’Donovan’s lawyer Obey Shava, speaking outside Harare’s High Court.
Prosecutors say that on October 11, O’Donovan tweeted on her @matigary account: “We are being led by a selfish and sick man.” The tweet was illustrated with a photo showing the Zimbabwean president with a catheter device.
The judge sided with the defense and accepted that the state had failed to justify the reason for remanding her in custody.
O’Donovan works for Harare-based Magamba TV, which describes itself as a leading producer of cutting-edge political satire and comedy. Its content is uploaded to YouTube.
Human rights lawyers had said previously that the arrest was linked to a retweet which did not mention Mugabe by name but referred to a “goblin whose wife and step-son bought a Rolls-Royce.”
Mugabe’s stepson with his wife and first-lady Grace is thought to have recently imported two of the British luxury cars, according to local media reports.
The cybersecurity ministry was created in Mugabe’s latest cabinet shuffle last month and is seen by rights groups as an attempt to clamp down on social media ahead of next year’s election.
Mugabe has already been named by his ruling ZANU-PF party as its presidential candidate for the 2018 vote.
Zimbabwe frees US journalist jailed on subversion charges
Zimbabwe frees US journalist jailed on subversion charges
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China. He was responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100 percent tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs.
Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone! President DJT”
The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the US and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said. “What we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”
In 2024, Canada mirrored the United States by putting a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100 percent import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25 percent on pork and seafood.
Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to China, Carney cut its 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.
Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1 percent, growing to about 70,000 over five years. He noted there was no cap before 2024. He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3 percent of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.
Trump posted a video Sunday in which the chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association warns there will be no Canadian auto industry without US access, while noting the Canadian market alone is too small to justify large scale manufacturing from China.
“A MUST WATCH. Canada is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history. All their businesses are moving to the USA. I want to see Canada SURVIVE AND THRIVE! President DJT,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump’s post on Saturday said that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We have a , but based off — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos.”
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance.
Carney has emerged as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the US under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” and he warned about coercion by great powers — without mentioning Trump’s name. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media this week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.
