Mugabe, Tsvangirai conclude first Ccabinet meeting

Mugabe, Tsvangirai conclude first Ccabinet meeting

PROCEDURE: New ministers attend an induction course on procedures in Harare on Monday, February 16

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Posted to the web 17/02/2009 14:07:28
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and his arch rival Morgan Tsvangirai sat at Zimbabwe's cabinet table for the first time Tuesday as ministers of the country's new unity government held their inaugural meeting.

The historic cabinet session, which took place at the Munhumutapa government headquarters in downtown Harare, lasted around two hours although there was no immediate word on its outcome.

"The cabinet meeting is over. President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai attended," Tsvangirai's spokesman James Maridadi told AFP, without giving further details.

New ministers assumed their duties on Monday with some of them holding meetings with Tsvangirai and his deputies.

Tsvangirai also met leaders and representatives of teachers' unions.

Most teachers in public schools have been on strike over pay since last year and Tsvangirai has promised to pay them and other key professionals and soldiers in foreign currency from the end of this month.

Zimbabwe, once seen as a post-colonial success story, has been brought to its knees by the collapse of its economy since the turn of the decade and the inflation rate is now the highest in the world.

The economic crisis has also led to the collapse of the country's health infrastructure and more than 3,000 people have been killed by a cholera outbreak in recent weeks.

The former British colony has been ruled by Mugabe since independence in 1980 who was beaten into second place by Tsvangirai in a first-round presidential election in March last year.

Tsvangirai subsequently pulled out of the run-off after scores of his supporters were killed and only agreed to enter the unity government after months of wrangling over the division of powers. - AFP
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