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Zimbabwe latest: Ruling Zanu-PF urges Mugabe to step down

Regional branches of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party have joined growing calls for President Robert Mugabe to resign.

The move comes ahead of a protest march to be held in the capital Harare on Saturday, fully supported by the country's military which staged a takeover on Wednesday.

War veterans until recently loyal to the 93-year-old president and liberal groups have also urged him to quit.

Earlier Mr Mugabe made his first public appearance since the takeover.

Mr Mugabe had been under house arrest for days, but attended a graduation ceremony on Friday, handing out degrees.

The army made its move after a power struggle over his successor. Mr Mugabe sacked Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa last week, apparently to pave the way for his wife Grace Mugabe - who is four decades younger than him - to take over the presidency instead.

The military said it was "engaging" with Mr Mugabe and would advise the public on the outcome of talks "as soon as possible".

Who is saying Mr Mugabe should quit?

At least eight out of 10 regional party branches voted on Friday evening for Mr Mugabe to resign as president and party secretary.

In an unprecedented broadcast, several regional leaders appeared on state TV saying that he should quit.

They also called for Grace Mugabe to resign from the party, and for Mr Mnangagwa to be reinstated in the party's central committee.

The party's members agreed to mobilise support for and attend Saturday's rally. The party is planning to hold a special central committee session over the weekend to discuss the crisis.

Meanwhile in a statement issued on Friday evening, the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) said it had been approached by organisers of the rally, which it described as a "solidarity march".

The statement went on: "ZDF is therefore advising the nation that for as long as the planned march remains orderly, peaceful... and without hate speech and incitement to cause violence, it fully supports the march."

Earlier Christopher Mutsvangwa - the leader of the influential war veterans' association, once loyal to Mr Mugabe - called for a huge turnout at the rally.

"We want to restore our pride and tomorrow is the day... we can finish the job which the army started," he said.

"There's no going back about Mugabe. He must leave."

Liberal groups opposed to the president have also backed the protest.

The leader of last year's #Thisflag protests, Evans Mwarire, urged people to turn up.

What happened when Mr Mugabe appeared in public?

Mr Mugabe's attendance at the graduation is an annual tradition but he was not expected this year.

BBC Online Africa editor Joseph Winter says the president was allowed to be there partly to keep up the pretence that the military have not staged a coup and partly because of a genuine, deeply felt respect for him going back more than 40 years.

The military was only targeting what he called "criminals" around the president, he said, denying that there had been a coup.

On Thursday Mr Mugabe was pictured smiling as he took part in talks with an army general and South African government ministers at State House but sources suggested he might be resisting pressure to resign.

What has the reaction been across the world?

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged a quick return to civilian rule, but also said the crisis was an opportunity for Zimbabwe to set itself on a new path
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing was hoping for stability and a peaceful "appropriate" resolution
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson warned against a transition from "one unelected tyrant" to another
Botswana's President Ian Khama said regional leaders did not support Mr Mugabe staying in power
Alpha Conde, the chairman of the African Union, a key regional bloc, said the takeover "seems like a coup" and demanded a return to constitutional order

Uneasy calm in Mugabe's village

By Stanley Kwenda, BBC News, Kutama

To get to President Mugabe's rural home you drive along the Robert Mugabe highway. It's probably one of the best maintained roads in Zimbabwe, like driving on a carpet. Along the way you are greeted by a plaque erected in his honour.

Kutama is a small and tightly connected village where everyone knows each other.

You can't really tell if they've been rattled by the current political crisis. As we arrived there was an air of uncertainty. Mr Mugabe is respected here - to many he's a father and a friend. A 65-year-old neighbour of his told me: "He's kind, he's a good man and he understands people's plight."

The man goes to St Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church with Mr Mugabe, a devout Christian, whenever he visits. "He never demands special treatment. He visits people to check on their welfare," said the man at his compound.

He said he supports the move by the army saying it's meant to correct a broken system. "If his term goes out then there's nothing wrong," he said.

UK and Canada lead global alliance against coal

The UK and Canada have launched a global alliance of 20 countries committed to phasing out coal for energy production.

Members including France, Finland and Mexico, say they will end the use of coal before 2030. Ministers hope to have 50 countries signed up by the time of the next major UN conference in Poland next year.

However some important coal consuming nations, including China, the US and Germany have not joined the group. Reducing global coal use is a formidable challenge, as the fuel produces around 40% of the world's electricity at present.

As a highly carbon intensive source, coal contributes significantly to the rising levels of CO2 emissions that scientists reported earlier this week. Researchers say that if the world is to curb dramatic temperature rises this century then coal use must be limited.

Called the Powering Past Coal Alliance, this new initiative sees countries, regions and provinces, signing up to setting coal phase-out targets and committing to no new investments in coal-fired electricity in their national jurisdictions or abroad.

No sacrifice

The UK has said it will end the generation of electricity from unabated coal by 2025. Unabated means that the coal is burnt without capturing the resulting carbon emissions.

Already, the move away from coal in the UK has been rapid. Around 40% of electricity was still being generated from coal in 2012 but in April this year the UK had its first full day without coal power in 135 years.

"We have not sacrificed growth," said Claire Perry, the UK's minister for climate change and industry.

"Since 1990 Britain has cut its emissions buy 42% and our economy has grown by 67%, that's the best performance in the G7 so this is not something that's a win-lose, it's a win-win situation."

However many of those who have signed up to the alliance have little or no coal production or consumption, among them Fiji, Niue, and Costa Rica. Many of the richer countries involved have already announced their move away from coal and taken together the grouping only represents about 2.5% of global coal consumption.

There are also some significant coal consuming countries including Germany and China, absent from the list at present.

The anti-coal alliance are confident that by the time of the next major UN climate conference in Poland in 2018, there will be closer to 50 countries on board.

The development has been broadly welcomed by environmental groups.

"This is another positive signal of the global momentum away from coal, benefitting the health of the climate, the public and the economy," said Jens Mattias Clausen from Greenpeace.

"But it also puts on notice the governments who lag behind on ending coal or those who promote it that the world's dirtiest fossil fuel has no future."

Closest of allies

Those involved in the coal industry say the alliance needs to put more efforts into developing technology that will allow coal use to continue.

"With the world set to use fossil fuels, including coal, for the foreseeable future, Canada and the UK should direct efforts to advancing carbon capture and storage technology because that's much more likely to achieve global climate objectives than unrealistic calls to eliminate coal in major emerging economies," said Benjamin Sporton, chief executive of the World Coal Association.

With Canada and the UK leading the group, it means that two of the closest allies of the US are moving away from coal at a time when President Trump is talking about a revival for the fuel.

The White House has had a presence at this meeting with the President's special adviser on climate change, George David Banks telling reporters that coal and other fossil fuels were an important part of the solution to climate change.

Mr Banks believes that a so-called "clean coal alliance" involving the US, Japan and others would be something the Trump team would favour. "I would say that the administration is interested in the idea," he told reporters.

"I'm guessing that would mean a clean coal alliance that would focus on highly efficient low emission coal plants and carbon capture utilisation and storage. I think there would be interest in exploring that."

Many environmental campaigners though, believe that attempts to produce clean coal are essentially efforts to prolong the dominance of the fossil fuel industry.

"People were worried that this summit would see Trump assaulting the Paris Agreement with his coal lobbyists," said Mohamed Adow from Christian Aid. "But his actions have actually galvanised other nations into action, with a new alliance making it clear that coal's climate change threat must be taken seriously.

"The bottom line is coal is a dirty, unnecessary, polluting fuel that deserves to remain in a more ignorant and backward era. These countries are showing they understand that."

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, Bonn

North Korean defector found to have 'enormous parasites'

By Andreas Illmer
BBC News

A North Korean soldier who was shot while fleeing across the border has an extremely high level of parasites in his intestines, his doctors say.

The defector crossed the demilitarised zone on Monday, but was shot several times by North Korean border guards.

Doctors say the patient is stable - but "an enormous number" of worms in his body are contaminating his wounds and making his situation worse.

His condition is thought to give a rare insight into life in North Korea.

"I've never seen anything like this in my 20 years as a physician," South Korean doctor Lee Cook-jong told journalists, explaining that the longest worm removed from the patient's intestines was 27cm (11in) long.

How do you get a parasite?

Humans can get parasites through eating contaminated food, by being bitten by an insect or by the parasite entering through the skin. In the case of the North Korean defector, the first case is most likely. Parasites which enter the body via contaminated food are often worms.

The North still uses human faeces as fertilisers. If these faeces are untreated and fertilise vegetables that are later eaten uncooked, the parasites get into the mouth and the intestines of the person.

While some don't cause any severe symptoms, others can be life-threatening, explains Prof Peter Preiser from the School of Biological Sciences at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

"What they all do is take nutrients away from your body," he told the BBC. "So [even] if most of them might go unnoticed, they all indicate a poor health status. To put it simply: people who have parasites are not healthy."

What does it tell us about N Korea's standards of health?

"North Korea is a very poor country and like any other poor country it has serious health problems," Prof Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul told the BBC.

In 2015 South Korean researchers studied the health records of North Korean defectors who had visited a hospital in Cheonan between 2006 and 2014.They found that they showed higher rates of chronic hepatitis B, chronic hepatitis C, tuberculosis and parasite infections, compared to South Koreans.

"I don't know what is happening in North Korea, but I found many parasites when examining other defectors," Professor Seong Min of Dankook University Medical School was quoted by the Korea Biomedical Review as saying.

But Prof Lankov points out that compared with other countries with a similar per capita income - like Bangladesh or many African countries - the population in North Korea is healthier than one would expect. The country's life expectancy is well above average considering the level of economic poverty, he says.

"North Korea does not have the resources to have a modern medical system," he says. "Its doctors are relatively poorly trained and have to work with primitive equipment."

Are the parasites endangering the soldier?

Yes. Considering that he is already in a critical condition, they are making a bad situation much worse. The soldier was shot at least six times when North Korean border guards opened fire on him as he ran across the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom to the South Korean side.

The young soldier was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in South Korea and has undergone emergency surgery.Doctors say there is a severe contamination of the wounds by both parasites and faeces.

"We are paying close attention to prevent possible complications," surgeon Lee Cook-jong told reporters, explaining that "an enormous number of parasites" including roundworms had been found in the small intestine.

If the intestines are disrupted and parasites are released into the body cavity, they can be a lot more dangerous and much more complicated to treat. Also, he is likely to have had the parasites for a long time. This means "that patient will generally be in a weaker state so any wounds and surgery will become more dangerous," explains Prof Preiser.

Is this a problem particular to North Korea?

Parasites, especially worms, are thought to be widespread in North Korea. However, they also affect many developing countries where diets include uncooked vegetables fertilised with faeces.

There are ways to treat faeces so they can be used as a safe fertiliser, but many poor countries neglect to do so. Prof Lankov says this seems to be the case in North Korea.The poor health and nutrition has widespread consequences "but North Korea does not admit this because they fear this will affect their image too much".Should there ever be a reunification of the two Koreas though, there would be massive health problems for officials to deal with for decades to come, Prof Lankov warns.

Toto Riina, Mafia 'boss of bosses', dies in jail aged 87

Notorious Sicilian Mafia "boss of all bosses" Salvatore "Toto" Riina has died from cancer in jail, aged 87.

Riina was serving 26 life sentences and is believed to have ordered more than 150 murders.

The head of the feared Cosa Nostra spent nearly a quarter of a century on the run before being jailed in 1993. He ordered more murders from jail.

As well as kidney cancer, he was said to have been suffering from a heart condition and Parkinson's disease.

Riina had been in a medically induced coma and his family had been given special permission to visit him in the prisoners' wing of the hospital in Parma, northern Italy.

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The secret lives of the Mafia hunters

How did Riina become the 'boss of bosses'?

Riina was born in 1930 to poor farmers in Corleone, Sicily - the birthplace of Don Corleone, the fictional Godfather in Francis Ford Coppola's film trilogy.

His father was killed when he was 13 and at 19 he joined the local Mafia, committing murder to gain entry. He spent six years in prison.

When he got out, he helped local mobster Luciano Leggio kill Corleone's Mafia boss. Along with childhood friend Bernardo Provenzano, he then led a hit squad targeting Mafia boss Michele "the Cobra" Cavataio in Palermo, giving the Corleone clan a foothold in the Sicilian capital.

When Leggio was arrested in 1974, Riina became boss.

Under his leadership, the clan came to dominate the Cosa Nostra crime group in the 1970s, as its fortunes blossomed, buoyed by a booming trade trafficking heroin to North America.

He was a wanted man, but evaded justice for 24 years, remaining all the while on the island of Sicily.

What marked him out?

The Mafia is notorious for brutality, but Riina was the most savage of all, earning him the nickname "The Beast".

"He was the fiercest and the nastiest mobster in the mafia probably in history," Francesco Bongarra, a journalist with Italian news agency Ansa, told the BBC.

While his cruelty propelled him up the ranks it was also key to his downfall, and to a pivotal point in Mafia relations with the Italian state.

In 1981, Riina began a two-year drive dubbed "The Slaughter" to eliminate his rivals, causing many mobsters to fear for their own lives and those of their families.

Many broke their code of silence and began to co-operate with investigators, resulting in a breakthrough case which saw hundreds of mafiosos convicted.

Riina did not take this lying down. In 1992, within two months the two leading judges in the case, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, had been blown up.

But six months later, Riina was arrested.

What has happened since his incarceration?

In detention, Riina's savagery continued.

He ordered the murder of a 13-year-old boy kidnapped to try to prevent his father revealing information about the Mafia. The boy was strangled and his body dissolved in acid.

And, partly in protest at his arrest, his associates carried out a series of bombings in Rome, Milan and Florence in 1993, leaving 10 people dead.

Riina had been imprisoned under the "Article 41-bis prison regime" imposing tight security measures on Mafiosos intended to completely cut off prisoners from their criminal contacts.

The regime includes strictly limited visits from his family. Petitions for him to be released into house arrest for his last days were met with angry protests from the relatives of some of his many victims.

Earlier this year, Riina was recorded on a wiretap saying he "regrets nothing... They'll never break me, even if they give me 3,000 years" in jail, reported AFP news agency. And indeed he has never broken his silence.

Riina leaves behind a wife, Antonietta, and four children, including his eldest son, Giovanni, who is serving a life sentence in jail for four murders.

Zimbabwe latest: Defiant Mugabe makes first public appearance

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has made his first public appearance since the country's army took over on Wednesday.

He attended a graduation ceremony in the capital, Harare.

Mr Mugabe had been under house arrest for days. The army made its move after a power struggle over his successor.

The military said on Friday it was "engaging" with Mr Mugabe and would advise the public on the outcome of talks "as soon as possible".

Mr Mugabe's attendance at the graduation is an annual tradition but few expected to see him there, the BBC's Andrew Harding reports from Zimbabwe.

Mr Mugabe walked slowly up a red carpet and joined the crowd in singing the national anthem, then opened the graduation ceremony at Zimbabwe's Open University, where he is chancellor.

One of the people he conferred a degree upon was Marry Chiwenga, the wife of the general who detained him on Wednesday, the state broadcaster reports.

Neither the 93-year-old president's wife, Grace Mugabe, nor Education Minister Jonathan Moyo - an ally of hers whose house was reportedly raided by the military - were present.

The army acted after Mr Mugabe sacked Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa last week.

Mr Mnangagwa was seen as a potential successor and his sacking paved the way for Grace Mugabe - who is four decades younger than him - to take over the presidency instead.

It was thought she had left the country but it emerged on Thursday that she was at home with Mr Mugabe.

Bonds are hard to break

Analysis by Joseph Winter, BBC Online Africa editor

Although the army is obviously calling the shots in Zimbabwe, in public they still refer to Robert Mugabe as "his excellency, the president" and even "commander-in-chief".

This is why he has been allowed to attend the graduation ceremony. This is partly to keep up the pretence that they have not staged a coup but they also have a genuine, deeply felt respect for him going back more than 40 years.

All of Zimbabwe's security chiefs have worked with Mr Mugabe since they fought together in the 1970s war of independence - and the bonds forged in that struggle are difficult to break.

In many ways, Zimbabwe's military remains the armed wing of Zanu-PF, as it was when they were all rebels fighting white-minority rule in the then Rhodesia.

Furthermore, in Zimbabwean culture, the elderly are treated with respect and no-one wants to be seen to be treating a 93-year-old in an undignified manner, especially a man even opposition figures refer to as the "father of the nation".

How did we get here?

Military vehicles were spotted on roads leading to the Zimbabwean capital Harare on Tuesday, sparking rumours that something was afoot.

Later, soldiers seized the headquarters of Zimbabwe's national broadcaster ZBC and loud explosions and gunfire were heard.

Major General Sibusiso Moyo then read out a statement on national television, assuring the nation that President Mugabe and his family were safe.

The military was only targeting what he called "criminals" around the president, he said, denying that there had been a coup.

What's the reaction in the country?

Zimbabweans have been posting on Facebook and Twitter that there has been no dramatic effect on normal life.

People say that shops have opened as normal but there are few people on the streets of the capital.

Some Zimbabweans spoken to by the BBC have welcomed the news, with one man expressing his thanks to the army for "taking out the tyrant".

What has the reaction been across Africa?

Botswana's President Ian Khama told Reuters news agency that regional leaders did not support Mr Mugabe staying in power, adding: "We are presidents, we are not monarchs"

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari called for calm and "respect for the constitution", and said that every attempt should be made to save the country from "political instability"

The African Union, a key regional bloc, said the takeover "seems like a coup" and demanded a return to constitutional order

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