ZIMBABWE: Sounding out the ministries

A month after Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai agreed to share power in Zimbabwe, Thabo Mbeki, the recently ousted South African president who brokered the deal, returned to the fray in an effort to break a stalemate over the allocation of government ministries. See article

Mbhazima Shilowa, a former premier of South Africa’s richest province, Gauteng, resigned from the ruling African National Congress to join other rebels led by a former defence minister, Mosiuoa Lekota. They may found a new party after a split between supporters of Mr Mbeki and those of Jacob Zuma, the country’s probable next president.

Fighting intensified in north-east Congo between forces of the national army and rebels loyal to a Tutsi general, Laurent Nkunda, whom the Congolese accuse of getting help from neighbouring Tutsi-led Rwanda, which denies the charge. Relations between the two countries worsened. United Nations peacekeepers seemed unable to hold the ring. See article

Thousands of Iraqi Christians in the turbulent northern city of Mosul fled their homes, fearing for their lives after a dozen had been killed, apparently by extreme Sunni Islamists. The government in Baghdad said it had sent more than 1,000 extra police to protect the religious minority. About one-third of the country’s 800,000-odd Christians have fled since the American-led invasion in 2003.

In The Economist