Harare - Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his ministers returned to the coalition government's weekly cabinet meeting Wednesday after a three-week absence. The nine-month-old power-sharing government between the country's powerful president, Robert Mugabe, and Tsvangirai appeared in danger of collapsing in mid-October when the prime minister pulled out of cabinet meetings out of frustration with Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.
Leaders of neighbouring states at a summit in Mozambique last week convinced Tsvangirai to call off the boycott to try to avert the government's collapse.
James Maridadi, Tsvangirai's spokesman, confirmed that the prime minister and 16 ministers of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party attended the meeting with Mugabe and his 21 ministers.
Regional political bloc the Southern African Development Community gave Mugabe and Tsvangirai 30 days to settle their differences.
Maridadi said Tsvangirai told the cabinet he expected cooperation, sincerity and hard work.
Tsvangirai has repeatedly accused Mugabe of failing to meet major undertakings in terms of the power-sharing agreement signed by the two leaders last year.
Elsewhere Thursday, the judge in the terrorism trial of senior MDC politician Roy Bennett dismissed preliminary applications by the prosecution and the defence relating to the state's evidence.
The defence accuses the state of basing its case on evidence it says was obtained under torture.
Bennett is charged with the possession of weapons for the purposes of banditry, terrorism and insurgency allegedly targeting Mugabe's administration.
The MDC says the case is a trumped-up attempt to keep Bennett, the deputy agriculture minister-designate, out of the unity government.
The trial was adjourned until Thursday.
