Zimbabwe’s Mugabe says to expect fair and free elections
Proclaiming a “dawn of a new era,” Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who heads the Zanu-PF party, has been meeting with members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the past six months. The negotiations, which have conducted largely in secret, are designed to pave the way for peaceful, free and fair elections next year, BBC News reports. Presidential and parliamentary elections in March 2008, is a prime opportunity for the southern African nation to invite “friendly and objective” members of the international community to observe the polls, BBC reports. Mugabe says that successful elections would undermine attempts of a “sinister campaign” by Britain, its former colonizer, to isolate Zimbabwe and ban it from the upcoming Europe-Africa summit in Lisbon. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has vowed to boycott the summit if Mugabe attends, and Spain and host Portugal have asked the president to stay home.

Ethiopia admits biting off more than it can chew in Somalia
Ethiopia, which acknowledged recently that it finds itself stuck in a war in neighboring Somalia, is asking other nations to help end the conflict. Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in December to help rid the nation of an Islamist insurgency. “Ethiopia has single-handedly been playing its role by bearing the huge responsibility that the international community and countries failed to accomplish in collaboration or individually,” a statement from Ethiopia’s Information Ministry read. Today, Ethiopian officials and several regional leaders will host Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the capital, Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is trying to make it clear that it needs other countries to send in peacekeeping troops. To date, Uganda is the only nation to contribute peacekeeping forces to the U.N.-backed African Union Mission in Somalia. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told his parliament in November that Ethiopian forces were stuck there for the time being, CNN reports. “The deployment of the peacekeeping force was among the major pledges made by the international community,” the government said. “However, deployment of the peacekeeping contingent was not carried out as promptly and as it was expected.” CNN reports that “Ethiopia’s invasion installed Somalia’s internationally recognized, U.N.-backed transitional government in Mogadishu after a decade and a half of near-anarchy. Ethiopian troops quickly routed the provisional government set up by the Islamic Courts Union, which had wrested power from Somali warlords and claimed control of the capital Mogadishu six months earlier.” The United States, which supported the invasion, believes that the Islamists are harboring suspected al Qaeda operatives, including those who planned the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

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