Updates on Indonesia's Volcanic Eruption

Volcanic Ash Is Keeping Bali's Airport Closed for the Second Day in a Row

(KARANGASEM, Indonesia) — A volcano gushing towering columns of ash closed the airport on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali for a second day Tuesday, disrupting travel for tens of thousands, as authorities renewed their warnings for villagers to evacuate.

Mount Agung has been hurling clouds of white and dark gray ash about 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) above its cone since the weekend and lava is welling in the crater, sometimes reflected as an orange-red glow in the ash plumes. Its explosions can be heard about 12 kilometers (7 1/2 miles) away.

The local airport authority said Tuesday that closure for another 24 hours was required for safety reasons. Volcanic ash poses a deadly threat to aircraft, and ash from Agung is moving south-southwest toward the airport. Ash has reached a height of about 30,000 feet as it drifts across the island.

“I don’t know, we can’t change it,” said stranded German tourist Gina Camp, sitting on a bench at the airport. “It’s the nature and we have to wait until it’s over.”

She decided to look on the bright side, saying she planned to go back outside to enjoy another day on the island.

Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency raised the volcano’s alert to the highest level Monday and expanded an exclusion zone to 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the crater in places from the previous 7 1/2 kilometers. It said a larger eruption is possible, though a top government volcanologist has also said the volcano could continue for weeks at its current level of activity and not erupt explosively.

Agung’s last major eruption in 1963 killed about 1,100 people.

Authorities have told 100,000 people to leave homes that are in close proximity to the volcano, though as of Monday tens of thousands stayed because they felt safe or didn’t want to abandon livestock. They have also warned people of the danger of mudflows from the volcano as it’s now rainy season in Bali.

Villager Putu Sulasmi said she fled with her husband and other family members to a sports hall that is serving as an evacuation center.

“We came here on motorcycles. We had to evacuate because our house is just 3 miles from the mountain. We were so scared with the thundering sound and red light,” she said.

• 
• 
• 
•   

Slide 1 of 16: A general view shows Mount Agung erupting seen at night from Kubu sub-district in Karangasem Regency on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 28, 2017. Indonesian authorities extended the closure of the international airport on the resort island of Bali for a second day over fears of a volcanic eruption. / AFP PHOTO / SONNY TUMBELAKA (Photo credit should read SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP/Getty Images)

Full screen

1/16 SLIDES © Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

A general view shows Mount Agung erupting at night from Kubu sub-district in Karangasem Regency on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 28, 2017. 

2/16 SLIDES © Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

A fisherman drives a traditional boat as Mount Agung erupts from Kubu sub-district in Karangasem Regency on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 28, 2017. 

3/16 SLIDES © Juni Kriswanto/AFP/Getty Images

Passengers gather at the Ngurah Rai International airport in Denpasar, Bali on November 28, 2017 to wait for possible flights out following Mount Agung's volcano eruption. 

4/16 SLIDES © Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

A farmer moves his cattle as Mount Agung erupts seen from Kubu sub-district in Karangasem Regency on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 28, 2017.

5/16 SLIDES © Wira Suryantala/Antara Foto/Reuters

Tourists try to obtain flight information following the closure of Ngurah Rai airport, due to the eruption of Mount Agung, in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia on November 28, 2017.

6/16 SLIDES © Firdia Lisnawati/AP Photo

A view of the Mount Agung volcano erupting in Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 27, 2017.

7/16 SLIDES © Johannes P. Christo/Reuters

A tourist watches as Mount Agung volcano erupts at Lempuyang Temple in Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia November 27, 2017.

8/16 SLIDES © Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

A farmer works in a field as Mt. Agung volano looms in the background in the Rendang sub-district of Karangasem Regency on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 24, 2017.

9/16 SLIDES © Firdia Lisnawati/AP Photo

A family on a motorcycle passes by the Mount Agung volcano erupting in the background in Karangasem, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 27, 2017.

10/16 SLIDES © Nyimas Laula/Reuters

Passengers stand near the flight information board after Indonesian and regional authorities heightened flight warnings, following the eruption of Bali's Mount Agung volcano at Ngurah Rai International airpot in Bali, Indonesia, November 26, 2017.

11/16 SLIDES © Donal Husni/NurPhoto/Getty Images

View of Mount Agung Volcano Erupting in the morning from Amed Beach.

12/16 SLIDES © Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

Balinese Hindus take part in a ceremony, where they pray near Mount Agung in hope of preventing a volcanic eruption, in Muntig village of the Kubu sub-district in Karangasem Regency on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 26, 2017.

13/16 SLIDES © Keyza Widiatmika/NurPhoto/Getty Images

General view of Mount Agung during an eruption seen from Kubu sub-district in Karangasem Regency, on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 25, 2017.

14/16 SLIDES © Ketut Nataan/AP Photo

A flight information board shows cancelled flights at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, Indonesia, Monday, Nov. 27, 2017.

15/16 SLIDES © Johannes P. Christo/Reuters

Balinese Hindus walk after praying as Mount Agung volcano erupts at Besakih Temple in Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia on November 26, 2017.

16/16 SLIDES © Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images

General view of Mount Agung during an eruption seen from Kubu sub-district in Karangasem Regency, on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on November 26, 2017.

16/16 SLIDES

Slideshow by Photo Services
The family had stayed at the same sports center in September and October when the volcano’s activity was high but it didn’t erupt then. They had returned to their village about a week ago.
“If it has to erupt, let it erupt now rather than leaving us in uncertainty. I’ll just accept it if our house is destroyed,” she said.
Volcanologist Erik Klemetti at Dennison University in Ohio said Agung’s 1963 eruption was big enough to cool the earth slightly but it’s unclear whether this time it will have a similar major eruption or simmer for a prolonged period.
“A lot of what will happen depends on the magma underneath and what it is doing now,” he said.

The closure of the airport has stranded tens of thousands of travelers, affecting tourists already on Bali and people who were ready to fly to the island from abroad or within Indonesia. Airport spokesman Ari Ahsanurrohim said more than 440 inward and outward flights were canceled Tuesday and about 59,500 travelers were affected, similar numbers to Monday.

Bali is Indonesia’s top tourist destination, with its Hindu culture, surf beaches and lush green interior attracting about 5 million visitors a year.

A Chinese tour service, Shenzhen PT Lebali International, had about 20 groups totaling 500 to 600 travelers from the Chinese cities of Wuhan, Changsha and Guangzhou in Bali, according an executive, Liao Yuling, who was on the island.

“They are mostly retirees or relatively high-end, so they don’t say they are especially anxious to rush home,” she said by telephone.

If the airport stays closed, Liao said they would head by ferry and bus to Surabaya on Java where the company’s charter flights could pick them up.

“We are not really affected, because the volcano is too far away,” said Liao. “We only can say we saw pictures of it on television.”

Indonesia’s Directorate General of Land Transportation said 100 buses were deployed to Bali’s international airport and to ferry terminals to help travelers stranded by the eruption.

The agency’s chief, Budi, said major ferry crossing points have been advised to prepare for a surge in passengers and vehicles. Stranded tourists could leave Bali by taking a ferry to Java and then traveling by land to the nearest airports.

Ash has settled on villages and resorts around the volcano and disrupted daily life outside the immediate danger zone.

“Ash that covered the trees and grass is very difficult for us because the cows cannot eat,” said Made Kerta Kartika from Buana Giri village. “I have to move the cows from this village.”

Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and has more than 120 active volcanoes.

Robert Mugabe accumulated riches

Robert Mugabe accumulated riches as Zimbabwe crumbled. Here's what we know about his money 6 / 27

 

00:33

01:59

SETTINGS

OFF

HD

HQ

SD

LO

"Zimbabwe Ruling Party Fires Robert Mugabe as Leader" will play after this ad - 0-1:0-1

Zimbabwe Ruling Party Fires Robert Mugabe as Leader

Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe, who is widely assumed to have enriched himself and his family while his country suffered enormous economic hardships, is clinging to power as his country works to unseat him after 37 years of rule.
It’s still not clear if he will step down willingly. According to CNN,  the military has agreed to give the 93-year-old longtime president “full immunity for himself and his wife, Grace Mugabe, and for him to keep several of his properties.”
That immunity may be necessary, because Mugabe stands accused of numerous crimes, including amassing untold wealth, much of it at the expense of his countrymen.
“It’s long been suspected that Robert Mugabe, his family, and close associates have been dipping their hands into state coffers, or otherwise plundering Zimbabwe’s immense natural resource wealth for their own benefit,” Jeffrey Smith, executive director of democracy group Vanguard Africa, told Money in an email.
Robert Mugabe’s Wealth and Properties
In 2011, Wikileaks published a cable written a decade earlier by the U.S. embassy in Harare that stated, “The full extent of Mugabe’s assets are unknown, but are rumored to exceed $1 billion in value, the majority of which are likely invested outside Zimbabwe.”
The overseas assets are “rumored to include everything from secret accounts in Switzerland, the Channel Islands, and the Bahamas to castles in Scotland.”
The Mugabe family indisputably own a property in Hong Kong valued at more than $5 million and have gone to court to claim it.
“Media reports suggested the house was bought months before Bona Mugabe, the daughter of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe began studies at the University of Hong Kong,” the South China Morning Post said in 2015.
The Guardian has also reported real estate purchases in the Mugabe name in “Malaysia, Singapore and possibly Dubai.”
In Zimbabwe, the Wikileaks cable said, the Mugabes are said to have six residences, “including a multi-story mansion” then under construction, and a number of farms around the country.
That mansion may refer to the property known as The Blue Roof, which Zimbabwe news group The Citizen says is worth more than $9 million and features “25 bedrooms, a large outdoor pool, two lakes, a massive dining room that can seat more than 30 guests, a large master bedroom with super king-size bed and a multimillion-dollar radar system.”

• 
• 
• 
• 

Robert Mugabe wearing a uniform: The origins of the alleged Mugabe fortune remain obscure.

Full screen

1/4 SLIDES © Jekesai Njikizana—AFP/Getty Images

The origins of the alleged Mugabe fortune remain obscure.

2/4 SLIDES © Mike Clarke—AFP/Getty Images

The front entrance to JC Castle, which contains a property owned by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace in Hong Kong's Tai Po district.

3/4 SLIDES © Mike Clarke—AFP/Getty Images

The front entrance to JC Castle

4/4 SLIDES © Jekesai Njikizana—AFP/Getty Images

President Robert Mugabe kisses his wife and first lady Grace Mugabe

4/4 SLIDES

Expensive Toys and Tastes
The Citizen also catalogs what it says are other Mugabe family toys and trinkets:
- A custom-made Mercedes “able to withstand AK-47 bullets, landmines and grenades. It also features a CD and DVD player, internet access and anti-bugging devices.”
- A Rolls Royce Phantom edition that is so exclusive, “only 18 were ever manufactured.”
- A 100-carat anniversary ring ordered by Grace Mugabe worth $1.35 million.
Grace Mugabe, whom the Guardian says is known locally as “the First Shopper” or “Gucci Grace,” may have once gone on a $75,000 shopping spree in Paris, the paper says.
Mugabe’s 91st birthday menu, according to Zimbabwe’s Chronicle newspaper, was said to have included elephant, buffalo, sable antelope, impala, and a lion.
Where the Mugabes Get Their Money
The origins of the alleged Mugabe fortune remain obscure. According to the Economist, in the early 2000s, Robert Mugabe’s regime “seized most of Zimbabwe’s white-owned commercial farms. The president promised to give the land to the landless, but instead gave much of it to his wealthy cronies.”
After Congo’s brutal five-year civil war, he maintained close relationships with high-profile figures who had ties to Congolese commercial interests, according to the Economist.
These individuals, in turn “are presumed to have channeled some of that wealth to Mugabe,” according to the diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks.
Then there is Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Co., a company formed just in the last few years by Mugabe that watchdog group Global Witness has accused of being linked to “to a decade of disappearing diamond wealth.”
“While an estimated two billion dollars worth of potential diamond revenue went missing, [ruling party] bigwigs, like Mugabe, have been building mansions and importing fleets of luxury cars,” Vanguard’s Smith told Money.
Mugabe has publicly responded to the allegations stating, “We have not received much from the diamond industry at all,” and that he would not trust a private firm to handle the mining.
And more broadly, the Mugabes have denied reports about their wealth.
“He is the poorest president the world over,” Grace Mugabe said in 2014 according to The Guardian, though she added in the same breath, “I have never seen him asking for money from anyone.”
They have also been keen to avoid any photos taken of their holdings.
“The couple’s home in Harare is said to be extraordinarily opulent, so much so that when their daughter Bona was married there, photographers were said to have been ordered not to take any pictures that showed the property in the background,” The Guardian reported.
The Mugabe children have been less discreet. One has been seen on Snapchat pouring champagne over an expensive watch, eliciting outcry on social media.

Resolute anti-Iran stand from Arab League

Saudi wants resolute anti-Iran stand from Arab League

© The Associated Press Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, center right, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, left, meet with foreign ministers at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Nov. 19, 2017. The foreign… CAIRO — Saudi Arabia on Sunday asked fellow Arab nations to take a "serious and honest" stand against Iran, saying that showing leniency toward Tehran would only encourage it to press on with its "aggression" and "meddling" in the internal affairs of Arab countries.
Addressing a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said the pan-Arab organization needed to take a decision to be "non-compromising" in dealing with Iran. He cited a ballistic missile fired by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen earlier this month that was intercepted near the Saudi capital, Riyadh, as an example of how far Iran has gone with its aggressive policy in the region.
"Showing leniency toward Iran will not leave any Arab capital safe from those ballistic missiles," he said. "We are obliged today to take a serious and honest stand... to counter these belligerent policies so that we can protect our security," said Al-Jubeir.
He said his country was targeted by a total of 80 ballistic missiles fired by Yemen's Iranian-backed Shiite rebels since the kingdom in 2015 led a coalition to fight them alongside the internationally recognized government there.
Saudi Arabia, he added, will not stand idly by in the face of Iran's "blatant aggression."
Arab diplomats said a Saudi draft resolution put forward to the Arab ministers is proposing a declaration of solidarity with the kingdom and stating Arab support for actions it might take to safeguard its national security in the face of Tehran's policies. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
The Saudi draft also includes a warning to Iran against continuing its present policies in the region and orders Arab diplomats to request a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss what it called Iranian "threats," added the diplomats.
The draft appears to be in synch with Saudi Arabia's hardening of its rhetoric against Iran since the Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, fired that missile on Nov. 4. Along with that attack, the resolution cited the bombing of an oil pipeline in Bahrain also this month as an example of Iran's threat to regional security.
Iran denies arming the Houthis, who say they locally produced the missile.
The Houthis remain in control of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and most of the country's north, while government forces and their allies, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, have driven them out of most of the country's south.
Syria is another battlefield of the proxy conflict between Shiite Iran and Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia; Riyadh has been supporting groups fighting forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. Iran, on the other hand, has supported Assad's government, providing it with billions of dollars' worth of economic and military aid since the civil war there began in 2011. Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah, a Shiite guerrilla group, and an assortment of Iranian-linked Shiite militias from places like Iraq and Afghanistan, have been fighting on the Syrian government's side.
The Saudi draft is unlikely to win the support of everyone in the Arab League.
For example, Shiite-majority Iraq, bound to Iran by close military and religious ties, is likely to oppose a resolution that condemns or vilifies its neighbor. Lebanon's Iranian-backed guerrilla group Hezbollah is a key member in Beirut's government, which makes it unlikely for the country to support an anti-Iranian resolution. Both Iraq and Lebanon were represented by mid-level diplomats in Sunday's meeting.
Qatar, which has been at loggerheads with Saudi Arabia, partially over its close ties with Iran, is another country unlikely to endorse a resolution that finds Iran guilty of fomenting instability in the region. Saudi Arabia and its allies Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have been boycotting Qatar since June over allegations that it backs militant Islamic groups and maintaining close ties with Iran.

Gene Editing

Scientists Have Made Their First Attempt at Gene Editing Inside a Human Patient

 

© John Green—San Jose Mercury News/Getty Images Test tubes of DNA to be used for gene editing of stem cells at Stanford University in Stanford Calif., on Dec. 18, 2015. (OAKLAND, Calif.) — Scientists for the first time have tried editing a gene inside the body in a bold attempt to permanently change a person’s DNA to try to cure a disease.
The experiment was done Monday in California on 44-year-old Brian Madeux. Through an IV, he received billions of copies of a corrective gene and a genetic tool to cut his DNA in a precise spot.
“It’s kind of humbling” to be the first to test this, said Madeux, who has a metabolic disease called Hunter syndrome. “I’m willing to take that risk. Hopefully it will help me and other people.”
Signs of whether it’s working may come in a month; tests will show for sure in three months.
If it’s successful, it could give a major boost to the fledgling field of gene therapy. Scientists have edited people’s genes before, altering cells in the lab that are then returned to patients. There also are gene therapies that don’t involve editing DNA.
But these methods can only be used for a few types of diseases. Some give results that may not last. Some others supply a new gene like a spare part, but can’t control where it inserts in the DNA, possibly causing a new problem like cancer.
This time, the gene tinkering is happening in a precise way inside the body. It’s like sending a mini surgeon along to place the new gene in exactly the right location.
“We cut your DNA, open it up, insert a gene, stitch it back up. Invisible mending,” said Dr. Sandy Macrae, president of Sangamo Therapeutics, the California company testing this for two metabolic diseases and hemophilia. “It becomes part of your DNA and is there for the rest of your life.”
That also means there’s no going back, no way to erase any mistakes the editing might cause.
“You’re really toying with Mother Nature” and the risks can’t be fully known, but the studies should move forward because these are incurable diseases, said one independent expert, Dr. Eric Topol of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in San Diego.
Protections are in place to help ensure safety, and animal tests were very encouraging, said Dr. Howard Kaufman, a Boston scientist on the National Institutes of Health panel that approved the studies.
He said gene editing’s promise is too great to ignore. “So far there’s been no evidence that this is going to be dangerous,” he said. “Now is not the time to get scared.”

Woe From Head to Toe

Fewer than 10,000 people worldwide have these metabolic diseases, partly because many die very young. Those with Madeux’s condition, Hunter syndrome, lack a gene that makes an enzyme that breaks down certain carbohydrates. These build up in cells and cause havoc throughout the body.
Patients may have frequent colds and ear infections, distorted facial features, hearing loss, heart problems, breathing trouble, skin and eye problems, bone and joint flaws, bowel issues and brain and thinking problems.
“Many are in wheelchairs … dependent on their parents until they die,” said Dr. Chester Whitley, a University of Minnesota genetics expert who plans to enroll patients in the studies.
Weekly IV doses of the missing enzyme can ease some symptoms, but cost $100,000 to $400,000 a year and don’t prevent brain damage.
Madeux, who now lives near Phoenix, is engaged to a nurse, Marcie Humphrey, who he met 15 years ago in a study that tested this enzyme therapy at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, where the gene editing experiment took place.
He has had 26 operations for hernias, bunions, bones pinching his spinal column, and ear, eye and gall bladder problems.
“It seems like I had a surgery every other year of my life” and many procedures in between, he said. Last year he nearly died from a bronchitis and pneumonia attack. The disease had warped his airway, and “I was drowning in my secretions, I couldn’t cough it out.”
Madeux has a chef’s degree and was part owner of two restaurants in Utah, cooking for US ski teams and celebrities, but now can’t work in a kitchen or ride horses as he used to.
Gene editing won’t fix damage he’s already suffered, but he hopes it will stop the need for weekly enzyme treatments.
Initial studies will involve up to 30 adults to test safety, but the ultimate goal is to treat children very young, before much damage occurs.

How It Works

A gene-editing tool called CRISPR has gotten a lot of recent attention, but this study used a different one called zinc finger nucleases. They’re like molecular scissors that seek and cut a specific piece of DNA.
The therapy has three parts: The new gene and two zinc finger proteins. DNA instructions for each part are placed in a virus that’s been altered to not cause infection but to ferry them into cells. Billions of copies of these are given through a vein.
They travel to the liver, where cells use the instructions to make the zinc fingers and prepare the corrective gene. The fingers cut the DNA, allowing the new gene to slip in. The new gene then directs the cell to make the enzyme the patient lacked.
Only 1 percent of liver cells would have to be corrected to successfully treat the disease, said Madeux’s physician and study leader, Dr. Paul Harmatz at the Oakland hospital.
“How bulletproof is the technology? We’re just learning,” but safety tests have been very good, said Dr. Carl June, a University of Pennsylvania scientist who has done other gene therapy work but was not involved in this study.

What Could Go Wrong

Safety issues plagued some earlier gene therapies. One worry is that the virus might provoke an immune system attack. In 1999, 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died in a gene therapy study from that problem, but the new studies use a different virus that’s proved much safer in other experiments.
Another worry is that inserting a new gene might have unforeseen effects on other genes. That happened years ago, when researchers used gene therapy to cure some cases of the immune system disorder called “bubble boy” disease. Several patients later developed leukemia because the new gene inserted into a place in the native DNA where it unintentionally activated a cancer gene.
“When you stick a chunk of DNA in randomly, sometimes it works well, sometimes it does nothing and sometimes it causes harm,” said Hank Greely, a Stanford University bioethicist. “The advantage with gene editing is you can put the gene in where you want it.”
Finally, some fear that the virus could get into other places like the heart, or eggs and sperm where it could affect future generations. Doctors say built-in genetic safeguards prevent the therapy from working anywhere but the liver, like a seed that only germinates in certain conditions.
This experiment is not connected to other, more controversial work being debated to try to edit genes in human embryos to prevent diseases before birth — changes that would be passed down from generation to generation.

Making History

Madeux’s treatment was to have happened a week earlier, but a small glitch prevented it.
He and his fiancee returned to Arizona, but nearly didn’t make it back to Oakland in time for the second attempt because their Sunday flight was canceled and no others were available until Monday, after the treatment was to take place.
Scrambling, they finally got a flight to Monterey, California, and a car service took them just over 100 miles north to Oakland.
On Monday he had the three-hour infusion, surrounded by half a dozen doctors, nurses and others wearing head-to-toe protective garb to lower the risk of giving him any germs. His doctor, Harmatz, spent the night at the hospital to help ensure his patient stayed well.
“I’m nervous and excited,” Madeux said as he prepared to leave the hospital. “I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, something that can potentially cure me.”

What's Left of the Mugabes'

Behind Mugabe’s Rapid Fall: A Firing, a Feud and a First Lady

 

 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

a group of people standing in front of a crowd: Grace Mugabe, left, arriving at a rally in Harare earlier this month.

Full screen

1/6 SLIDES © Jekesai Njikizana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Grace Mugabe, left, arriving at a rally in Harare earlier this month.

2/6 SLIDES © Aaron Ufumeli/European Pressphoto Agency

Delegates at the extraordinary ZANU-PF party central committee meeting in Harare on Sunday.

3/6 SLIDES © Jekesai Njikizana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The wife of new president of the ZANU-PF party, Auxilia Mnangagwa, was congratulated on her reinstatement to the party on Sunday in Harare.

4/6 SLIDES © Jekesai Njikizana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Christopher Mutsvangwa, center, head of the war veterans association, celebrated the dismissal of the president of the ruling ZANU-PF party on Sunday in Harare.

5/6 SLIDES © Jekesai Njikizana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Emmerson Mnangagwa, center, arriving at a funeral ceremony at the National Heroes Acre in Harare in January.

6/6 SLIDES © Jekesai Njikizana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Robert Mugabe inspecting an honor guard at a Heroes Day event held at National Heroes Acre in Zimbabwe in August.

6/6 SLIDES

HARARE, Zimbabwe — The rapid fall of Zimbabwe’s president, whose legendary guile and ruthlessness helped him outmaneuver countless adversaries over nearly four decades, probably has surprised no one more than Robert Mugabe himself.
For years, he was so confident of his safety — and his potency — that he took monthlong vacations away from Zimbabwe after Christmas, never facing any threat during his long, predictable absences. Even at 93, his tight grip on the country’s ruling party and his control over the military made his power seem impervious to question.
But in just a matter of days, Mr. Mugabe, who ruled his nation since independence in 1980, was largely stripped of his authority, even as he still clung to the presidency.
Sign Up For the Morning Briefing Newsletter
In a much-anticipated speech on Sunday night, Mr. Mugabe, instead of announcing his resignation as most of the country had expected, stunned Zimbabwe by refusing to say he was stepping down. While he conceded that his country was “going through a difficult patch,” he gave no sign that he recognized, or accepted, how severely the ground had shifted under him in such a short time.
Earlier in the day, the governing ZANU-PF party, over which he had always exercised total domination, expelled Mr. Mugabe as leader, with cheers and dancing erupting after the vote. He was given a deadline of noon on Monday to resign or face impeachment by Parliament.
Just days earlier, on Wednesday, soldiers put him under house arrest, and his 52-year-old wife, Grace Mugabe, whose ambition to succeed him contributed to his downfall, has not been seen in public since.
But in his speech, Mr. Mugabe even declared that he would preside over his governing party’s congress in a few weeks. After 37 years in control of the nation, he was refusing to let go easily.
A Fateful Firing
The chain of events leading to Mr. Mugabe’s downfall started on Nov. 6, when he fired his vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, a close ally of the military, and then tried to arrest the nation’s top military commander a few days later. Mr. Mugabe had finally come down against the military and its political allies in a long-running feud inside the governing party.
“He crossed the red line, and we couldn’t allow that to continue,” said Douglas Mahiya, a leader of the war veterans’ association, a group that has acted as the military’s proxy in the country’s political battles while allowing uniformed generals to remain publicly neutral.
A few hours after he was fired, Mr. Mnangagwa, fearing arrest, fled with a son into neighboring Mozambique, where he has strong military ties. He eventually made his way to South Africa, allies said.
July Moyo, a close ally of Mr. Mnangagwa, said the vice president had prepared himself for the possibility of being fired. “He accepted that things can turn very bad, so he had conditioned himself,” Mr. Moyo said.
Several hours before the vice president escaped to Mozambique, Christopher Mutsvangwa, the head of the war veterans’ association and one of Mr. Mnangagwa’s closest allies, had boarded a plane to South Africa.
Over the following days, Mr. Mutsvangwa met with South Africa intelligence officers, he said, warning them of a possible military intervention in Zimbabwe. He said he had tried to persuade South African officials not to describe any intervention as a “coup” — an important concession to get from South Africa, the regional power.
Though this account could not be verified with South African officials on Sunday, the South African government did not mention the word “coup” in its official statement after the military intervention occurred on Wednesday.
“I knew that the way they were driving, the military, inevitably, there would be one at one stage or another” Mr. Mutsvangwa said, referring to a military intervention.
While Mr. Mutsvangwa worked on South African officials, Zimbabwe’s longtime top military commander, Gen. Constantino Chiwenga, was in China on an official trip. He was tipped off while abroad that Mr. Mugabe had ordered him arrested upon his return home, according to several people close to the military. The police were going to grab the general as soon as his plane touched down, on Nov. 12.
But as General Chiwenga prepared to land, soldiers loyal to him infiltrated the airport. His troops — wearing the uniforms of baggage handlers — surprised and quickly overwhelmed the police. Before departing, the general is said to have told the police officers that he would “deal” with their commander, a Mugabe loyalist.
Within just a couple of days, tanks had rumbled into the capital and soldiers had effectively deposed Mr. Mugabe.
Fierce Infighting
The president’s decision to fire his vice president and arrest the general was the culmination of a long — and increasingly vicious and personal — battle inside ZANU-PF, the party that has controlled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. The so-called Lacoste faction was led by Mr. Mnangagwa, whose nickname is the Crocodile, and was backed by the military and war veterans.
The rival faction was led by the president’s wife and supported by the police, whose loyalty Mr. Mugabe had ensured by, among other moves, naming a nephew to a top command. This faction included mostly younger politicians with no experience in the war of liberation and was christened Generation 40, or G-40, by Jonathan Moyo, a fearless, extremely ambitious politician widely regarded as the mastermind behind this group.
As Lacoste and G-40 fought each other to eventually succeed Mr. Mugabe, the president did not give either side his declaration of support. To both factions, the biggest factor was Mr. Mugabe’s age and increasingly visible frailty. It was only a matter of time before “nature will take its course” and “the old man goes,” as the political class said.
Time was on Lacoste’s side. Once nature did take its course, power would naturally slip to Mr. Mnangagwa and his military backers, they believed.
Mr. Mnangagwa remained largely quiet, refraining from responding to attacks, and treated Mr. Mugabe with extreme deference. Whenever Mr. Mugabe flew home from a trip, state media invariably showed Mr. Mnangagwa greeting the president on the tarmac, displaying an almost obsequious smile and body language.
To the younger members in G-40, time was against them. Their biggest asset, Mrs. Mugabe, would lose all value once her husband died. So they were in a rush to get a transfer of power while Mr. Mugabe was still alive.
Just a few months ago, Mr. Moyo confided in a friend that he was “less than confident” about G-40’s standing with the president. Despite his efforts to win over the president through Mrs. Mugabe, Mr. Moyo still remained unsure about the “old man’s standing vis-à-vis Mnangagwa and Chiwenga,” said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the conservation had been private.
“He felt he had to disqualify Mnangagwa very soon because the old man was still tentative,” the friend said.
The First Lady and the Fall
Mr. Mugabe’s downfall was rooted in his wife’s decision to become a political force in mid-2014, most politicians and experts believe.
“Mrs. Mugabe’s entry into politics caused elite rupture in Zimbabwe,” said Tendai Biti, a lawyer, opposition politician and former finance minister in a coalition government a few years ago. “This coup was the result of a disagreement between people eating at the same table, whereas most coups in Africa are done by people eating under the table and receiving crumbs.”
Why Mrs. Mugabe, now 52, suddenly dove into politics is not exactly clear. Married for decades to Mr. Mugabe, she had been known as “Gucci Grace,” someone interested in shopping and leading a lavish lifestyle. She was a typist in the presidential pool when she and Mr. Mugabe began an affair while the president’s first wife, Sally, was dying of cancer. Unlike the much-beloved first wife, the second Mrs. Mugabe was widely disliked among Zimbabweans.
Some politicians and experts point to the hand of Mr. Moyo, the originator of the G-40 name, for Mrs. Mugabe’s political intentions.
In ZANU-PF’s ever-shifting alliances, Mr. Moyo had a checkered past. In 2004, he was expelled from the party after planning a power play with — critically — none other than Mr. Mnangagwa himself, who managed to escape politically unscathed. Feeling betrayed by Mr. Mnangagwa, Mr. Moyo vowed never to work with him again, setting off a decade-long feud that fed into the recent military takeover.
Mr. Moyo, reportedly admired by Mr. Mugabe for his intelligence, was rehabilitated, rejoined the party and was given ministerial positions in the cabinet.
But in June 2014, Mr. Moyo was again on the outs. At a funeral for a party stalwart at National Heroes Acre, a burial ground and national monument in Harare, the capital, Mr. Mugabe criticized Mr. Moyo for causing dissension in the party. The president referred to him as a “weevil” — an insect that eats corn, Zimbabwe’s staple food, from the inside.
“Even in Zanu-PF, we have the weevils,” the president said. “But should we keep them? No.”
To secure his survival, Mr. Moyo urged Mrs. Mugabe to enter politics, according to politicians, friends and analysts.
“He preyed on her fears,” said Dewa Mavhinga, a Zimbabwe researcher for Human Rights Watch, referring to Mr. Moyo. “You’re a young wife with an old husband in his sunset moments. You have to guarantee your future. You need people who are loyal to you. And who better to protect your interests than yourself.”
Very rapidly, Mrs. Mugabe and her allies orchestrated the removal of rivals, including Joice Mujuru, a vice president, as well as Mr. Mutsvangwa, who had been Mr. Mugabe’s minister of war veterans affairs.
But even as the president’s medical trips to Singapore were getting increasingly frequent, he was not making a final decision on his succession.
Time was running out.
And so, Mr. Moyo, shortly after expressing his growing frustrations to his friend, appeared to go for broke. In July, in a meeting of party leaders, he launched a direct attack on Mr. Mnangagwa, presenting a 72-minute video said to show his rival’s duplicity and desire to topple the president.
At the same time, Mrs. Mugabe intensified her faction’s attacks, describing Mr. Mnangagwa as a “coward” and “coup plotter.”
At a rally in the city of Bulawayo early this month, some youths, presumably from the rival Lacoste faction, began heckling Mrs. Mugabe, calling her a “thief.”
“If you were paid to boo me, go ahead,” she said. “I am the first lady, and I will stand for the truth. Bring the soldiers and let them shoot me.”
The heckling visibly angered Mr. Mugabe, who immediately accused Mr. Mnangagwa of being behind it.
“Did I err in appointing Mr. Mnangagwa as my deputy?” the president said. “If I erred, I will drop him even tomorrow.”
Two days later, he fired Mr. Mnangagwa, opening the path for Mrs. Mugabe to become vice president and, once nature took its course, her husband’s successor.
Mrs. Mugabe and her allies had finally won. But the victory would soon prove Pyrrhic.
As the Lacoste faction solidified the takedown of Mr. Mugabe, party officials on Sunday removed Mrs. Mugabe as head of the ZANU-PF Women’s League and barred her from the party for life. Mr. Moyo, too, was barred forever. Mr. Mugabe’s second vice president, Phelekezela Mphoko, who had served for three years, was fired.
The ending was much sweeter for Mr. Mnangagwa: On Sunday, the party named him as its new leader.