In Brief

ZIMBABWE’S President Robert Mugabe, who turned 93 this week, celebrated his birthday yesterday with a lavish party attended by thousands of loyalists at a school outside the second city of Bulawayo.

Zanu-PF party hosted the event for Mugabe, who has held power since 1980.

Now the world’s oldest national leader, his actual birthday on Tuesday has been celebrated in a weeklong extravaganza with state media filled with tributes and praise.

The annual party — reported to cost up to $1-million (about R13-million) — included a feast of many courses and vast birthday cakes, angering many Zimbabweans in a country of severe food shortages.

Locals in Matobo were upset that the event was held at a school near the place where many victims of Mugabe’s deadly crackdown on dissidents in the early 1980s are thought to be buried.

At least 20 000 people are believed to have been killed in the massacres by North Korean-trained Zimbabwean troops, according to rights groups. — AFP