Mugabe defends township 'clean-up campaign'

A two-day general strike got off to a slow start today with most Zimbabweans seemingly heeding police warnings not to participate in the protest against the forced removal of tens of thousands of informal traders and shack dwellers from city streets.

In an address to parliament, President Robert Mugabe defended the three-week blitz as “a vigorous clean-up campaign to restore sanity” in urban areas. The opposition has said it is a strike on its urban support base.