8 August 2009 / REUTERS, PRETORIA
While praising South Africa as a leading nation the United States hopes to work with in Africa, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday urged government officials in Pretoria to press for reform in neighboring Zimbabwe.
On the second leg of a seven-nation African tour, Clinton met with South Africa's Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane to make the case for greater pressure on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to comply with a power-sharing agreement reached with a political rival. At a news conference following their meeting, Clinton said the chaos just across its northern border in Zimbabwe was a crisis for South Africa. Decades of Mugabe's authoritarian rule have seen a once-prosperous country become an economic shambles. Inflation once hit 500 billion percent, a world record, though the abandonment of the Zimbabwe dollar in favor of the US and South African currencies has seen inflation ease in recent months.
