● ZIMBABWE. Mugabe to meet Tsvangirai over cabinet posts. Zimbabwe?s President Robert Mugabe was set to meet opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Saturday to try to break a deadlock over cabinet posts threatening a crucial power-sharing deal, a senior government official said. Arthur Mutambara, leader of a smaller faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was also due to attend the meeting at Mugabe's State House offices in Harare, he said. Thabo Mbeki's spokesman said the latter would not be going to Zimbabwe to mediate Saturday's talks. Officials from both Tsvangirai's main MDC party and Mutambara's faction declined to comment on the talks.

● IRAQ. Suicide bomber kills 10 persons during US raid. A suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest during a US raid in northern Iraq yesterday killing 10 Iraqis and the bomber, the US military said. Three women and three children were among those killed during the operation targeting a wanted man in Mosul, some 390 km, north of Baghdad. ?This is just another tragic example of how al Qaeda in Iraq hides behind innocent Iraqis,? Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll, spokesman for US forces in Iraq, said in a statement. The statement said that US forces exchanged fire with armed men as they entered the building, but a military spokesman said all the Iraqis were killed by the bomb. The US soldiers later found weapons and explosives in the building.