President Robert Mugabe's own ruling ZANU-PF party wants him to step down and plans to hold a rally in Zimbabwe's capital Harare on Saturday to make the point.
Mr Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, faces the starkest challenge ever to his rule after the army seized power on Wednesday, saying it was targeting "criminals" around the nonagenarian leader.
On Friday, ZANU-PF called for Mugabe to resign, the main state newspaper The Herald reported -a clear sign that the aged leader's authority has collapsed after the army takeover.
The newspaper said ZANU-PF branches in all 10 provinces had met and had also called for Mugabe's wife Grace to resign from the party. It was her ambitions to succeed her husband that triggered the political crisis.
A senior member of ZANU-PF said the party wanted their long-time president gone.
"If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday," the source said. "When that is done, it's impeachment on Tuesday."
The Herald reported that ZANU-PF would convene a special Central Committee meeting on Sunday to "realign the revolutionary party with current political developments".
Pointedly, the military said it "fully supports" a "solidarity march" — apparently separate from the ZANU-PF event — in the capital, Harare, on Saturday, part of an apparent groundswell of anti-Mugabe sentiment unleashed by the dramatic events of the past few days. The army said it had been "approached by several private volunteer organisations seeking to freely move and express their desires" and they could do so if they were orderly and peaceful.
Harare has been calm as the coup has unfolded but the armed forces also issued a warning against looting.
The army appears to want Mugabe to go quietly and allow a transition to Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose sacking last week as vice president sparked the army action.
One goal the generals have is to prevent Mr Mugabe from handing power to his wife, Grace, 41 years his junior, who appeared on the cusp of power after Mr Mnangagwa was pushed out.
Mugabe, 93, who calls himself the grand old man of African politics, appears to be running out of options. The army is camped on his doorstep. Grace Mugabe is under house arrest and her key political allies are in military custody. All the main pillars of Mugabe's rule have turned on him or have offered no support.
The police have shown no resistance, while Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of Zimbabwe's influential war veterans, said on Friday that Mugabe would not be allowed to resist the military and remain in power. And now ZANU-PF, which built a cult of personality around its leader, has deserted him.
Mr Mugabe is revered by some as an elder statesman and independence leader but also reviled by many in Africa and abroad who accuse him of resorting to violence to retain power while running a once promising economy into the ground.
The economy collapsed after the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000. Unemployment is now running at nearly 90 per cent and chronic shortages of hard currency have triggered inflation, with the prices of imports rising as much as 50 per cent a month.
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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Started: 2021
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Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
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Investment raised: $4 million
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
