Zimbabwe's Mugabe in Singapore for medical treatment, unable to walk

During his later years in power, Mugabe made several medical trips to Singapore. (AP)
Updated 24 November 2018
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Zimbabwe's Mugabe in Singapore for medical treatment, unable to walk

  • Mugabe had been due to return on Oct. 15 but that his poor health had delayed the journey
  • Mugabe, 94, who ruled the southern African nation for nearly four decades since independence from Britain in 1980, was forced to resign in November 2017 after an army coup.

HARARE: Former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe has been receiving medical treatment in Singapore for the last two months and is no longer able to walk, though he should return home next week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Saturday.
Mugabe, 94, who ruled the southern African nation for nearly four decades since independence from Britain in 1980, was forced to resign in November 2017 after an army coup.
Mnangagwa told ruling ZANU-PF supporters at a rally in Murombedzi, Mugabe’s village some 100 km (60 miles) west of the capital Harare, his predecessor had been due to return on Oct. 15 but that his poor health had delayed the journey.
He did not say what treatment Mugabe had been undergoing. “We have just received a message that he is better now and will return on Nov. 30. He can no longer walk but we will continue taking care of him,” Mnangagwa said, referring to Mugabe by his totem name Gushungo.
During his later years in power, Mugabe made several medical trips to Singapore.
Officials often said he was being treated for a cataract, denying frequent reports by private local media that he had prostate cancer.
Mnangagwa, who won a disputed July 30 presidential vote, repeated the army’s previous justification for last year’s coup, saying his former mentor Mugabe had been surrounded by criminals.
When the army rolled its tanks into Harare, military leaders said they were targeting “criminals around the president.” A bitter Mugabe said later, however, that the army’s action had forced him to resign. 


France investigates two Franco-Israelis for ‘complicity in genocide’

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France investigates two Franco-Israelis for ‘complicity in genocide’

PARIS: French authorities have issued warrants for two Franco-Israeli nationals for “complicity in genocide” over allegations that they tried to stop humanitarian aid entering conflict stricken Gaza, a legal source said Monday.
According to a lawyer for the NGOs that made a legal complaint last year, it is the first time that a country has considered the blocking of aid as possible “complicity in genocide.”
The warrants were issued in July last year for Nili Kupfer-Naouri of the Israel is Forever group and Rachel Touitou of the Tsav 9 group, the source close to the investigation told AFP following a French media report.
The warrants call for the two to appear before an investigating magistrate but not for their detention.
The pair are accused of seeking to block aid trucks entering Gaza between January and November 2024 and in May last year at the Nitzana and Kerem Shalom frontier posts.
Olivier Pardo, a lawyer for Kupfer-Naouri, said the “pacifist” actions sought to condemn the “hijacking” of humanitarian aid by Hamas and other groups that launched the October 7, 2023 attacks that set off the Gaza war.
“If peacefully demonstrating with an Israeli flag against a terrorist organization seizing humanitarian aid, diverting it, and reselling it at exorbitant prices to Gazans is a crime — then there is no need to look down on the mullahs, France is Iran!” said Touitou, 34, on her social media account.
In an interview with The News website, Kupfer-Naouri, 50, called the French investigation “anti-semitic madness.”
Pardo said Kupfer-Naouri was in Israel but was ready to speak to French investigators there.
The two activists are also suspected of “public provocation for genocide” by calling for aid to be prevented from reaching Gaza, the source said.
Another source close to the investigation said warrants could be issued for about 10 other people.
The complaints were made last year by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the rights groups Al-Haq and Al-Mezan. Clemence Bectarte, a lawyer for the groups, said it was the first investigation of its kind in genocide law.
Other legal complaints have also been made in France for “war crimes” over the deaths of Franco-Palestinian children in Gaza in an Israeli bombing raid and against two Franco-Israeli soldiers who took part in operations in the territory.
Another complaint is over the Hamas attack that set off the war.