Harare (Zimbabwe), Aug. 28 : Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai recently met for a dinner, even as Mugabe announced that he was effectively abandoning power-sharing talks.

The two men met at the five-star Rainbow Towers in Harare shortly after their historic handshake and shared what a close Tsvangirai aide described as an amicable meal. “They got on surprisingly well,” he told The Times.

Berlin  - Germany Wednesday welcomed a power-shift in the Zimbabwean parliament with the election this week of a speaker from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and appealed to President Robert Mugabe to resume talks on establishing a transitional government.

"The German government welcomes this courageous election in the lower house as showing the spirit of change revealed in parliamentary and presidential elections this year is continuing," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Berlin.

Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is about to form a new government on his own, effectively breaking off talks with his pro-democracy opponents, the Movement for Democratic Change, state press reported Wednesday.

"We shall soon be setting up a government," the state-controlled daily Herald newspaper quoted him as saying. "The MDC does not want to come in apparently." He said he would be appoint cabinet ministers who would be "managers." He described his last cabinet as "the worst in history."

Harare - Zimbabwe's new parliament was to be sworn in Monday in the first part of a plan by President Robert Mugabe to try to force opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai into a power-sharing deal on his terms.

The 210 members of the lower House of Assembly are to be sworn in by the clerk of parliament in a colourful ceremony in Harare. Members of the Senate or upper house, will also be sworn in.

Mugabe's move to convene parliament risks derailing talks between his Zanu-PF party and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on the formation of a government of national unity.

London, Aug. 22: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has abandoned a negotiated solution with Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai at the behest of the generals who prop him up.

Sources told The Independent that the embattled 84-year-old Mugabe has now set himself on a collision course with the opposition and international community after declaring he will open parliament next Tuesday despite his failure to agree a power-sharing deal.