Herald Story picked up by Chinese Official News Agency Xinhua: By a Correspondent HARARE - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe met U.S. Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson on the sidelines of the 13th Ordinary Session of the African Union General Assembly in Sirte, Libya on Thursday.

The meeting with Carson was the first time in several years that a senior member of the U.S. administration has met President Mugabe, The Herald said on Friday.

Sources who attended the meeting said Mugabe had a frank discussion with Carson who requested the meeting, and was briefed on the process that led to the formation of the inclusive government, its current state and the working relations between the three parties involved.

Mugabe, the sources said, told Carson that the government was working well. The meeting comes in the wake of recent attempts by some in the West to trash the inclusive government by claiming that it was failing to meet set "benchmarks" even though all the parties that signed the Global Political Agreement have given the arrangement a clean bill of health and pledged their commitment to resolving any problems arising from the implementation of the agreement among themselves.

During Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's recent tour of Western capitals, the "benchmarks" were cited as an excuse to maintain the sanctions regime on Zimbabwe and to deny the country development support.

Carson, a career African-American diplomat, served as U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe between 1995 and 1997, and ended his tenure just before the bilateral dispute over land with Britain flared up. - Xinhua Our Comment below

Just as his promotion was announced today, Zimbabwe Newspapers' pro-government polemicist, Ceasar Zvayi, has surpassed himself in writing fiction and misinformation.

Zvayi, who was kicked out of Botswana for trying to spread Zanu (PF) propaganda in its academic institutions, has been promoted to deputy editor of the Sunday Mail.

Today, despite the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) asking the SADC to urgently intervene to address outstanding issues that threaten the unity government, and despite MDC Ministers last week walking out of a Cabinet meeting chaired by Mugabe, Zvayi wrote in the Herald today that the parties to the unity government are happy and do not want any outsiders meddling in their relationship.

His exact words were that they had "given the unity arrangement a clean bill of health and pledged their commitment to resolving any problems arising from the implementation of the agreement among themselves."

Although MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai has said his party is unlikely to pull out of the agreement, the MDC has not made a secret of its unhappiness with Mugabe's refusal to swear-in its government and ministers, his refusal to nullify his illegal appointment of the Reserve Bank Governor and the Attorney General, and his continued stranglehold on the public media.

Tsvangirai only last week gave a warning to "residual elements" in Mugabe's party that their own behavior and their part in the slow pace of implementation of the inclusive government agreements would affect removal of sanctions against them.

In interviews in Norway and France Tsvangirai said he could understand the West's insistence on the meeting of certain benchmarks before full engagement with Zimbabwe, adding that the benchmarks that the West was insisting on were reasonable and were also benchmarks that the Zimbabwean parties had set for themselves.

But Zvayi wrote, from Libya where he accompanied the President, that so-called benchmarks were attempts by some in the West to trash the inclusive Government by claiming that it was failing to meet benchmarks which were being cited as an excuse to maintain illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Zvayi represents the crop of journalist that has been bred on Zanu (PF) propaganda and which knows no better than to regurgitate what their Minister of Propaganda tells them to, and to outdo each other in pleasing the Minister, which in turn is rewarded with promotions, houses, cars and expense accounts.

While all Zimbabweans are clamoring for media reforms, meaning a free Press that does not just report what is in the interests of the government, the Zimpapers Group Editor in Chief, who himself rose through that patronage system, has announced the shuffling of its senior editorial staff ostensibly “to gear for competition and remain on top of the game”.

According to a statement from Zimbabwe Newspapers, Deketeke, who was recently promoted from editor of the Herald, is replaced in his previous role at the Sunday Mail by William Chikoto, who has also been in the system for more than twenty years, implementing Zanu (PF) propaganda (but not as blatantly as Zvayi who is now going to deputise him.)

Itai Musengeyi, currently news editor, becomes assistant editor and Brezhnev Malaba, the editor of the Bulawayo-based daily Chronicle, was promoted to editor of the Sunday Mail – the country’s top selling newspaper.

He is replaced by Innocent Gore, current editor of The Southern Times which is published from Namibia

Malaba will be deputised by Nomsa Nkala, currently editor of the Zimtravel magazine and assistant editor of The Herald. Political editor Munyaradzi Huni moves up to assistant editor.

The Mail’s Sarah Tikiwa replaces Nkala at Zimtravel.

Manica Post editor Makuwerere Bwititi takes Gore’s former job at The Southern Times – a joint venture between Zimpapers and Namibia’s New Era.

Hatred Zenenga, The Herald’s assistant editor, takes over from Bwititi at the Mutare-based regional paper.

Gugulethu Ncube was named as the substantive editor of the Bulawayo-based Ndebele-language weekly, Umthunywa. She had been acting in the role after the paper’s editor Bhekinkosi Ncube was axed for criticising the government.

Deketeke said the changes were in readiness for new players entering the publishing market when the government reforms media regulation.

The state newspapers, particularly the dailies, enjoy a virtual monopoly after the government shut down critical newspapers – most notably The Daily News which was the country’s biggest selling newspaper.

Deketeke said moves to open up the media landscape “presents both opportunities and threats to the dominant role that has been played by Zimbabwe Newspapers over the last 100 years.”