World Briefs

12-23-2008 |

Panama Star HARARE – A stalled power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe came under fresh strain on Monday after Western powers said it would be unacceptable if Robert Mugabe were to remain president.

Although the opposition Movement for Democratic Change remains committed to a deal which would allow Mugabe to stay on as president while its leader Morgan Tsvangirai would become prime minister, both the United States and former colonial power Britain said that the 84-year-old had to leave office.

"Power-sharing isn't dead but Mugabe has become an absolute impossible obstacle to achieving it," said Britain's Africa minister Mark Malloch Brown.

KABUL, Afghanistan – President Hamid Karzai pressed America's top military leader Monday on the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan as it prepares to pour up to 30,000 more forces into the country.

Karzai asked Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what kinds of operations the newly deployed troops would carry out and said the Afghan government should be consulted about those operations.

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