Zimbabwe’s Mugabe skirts retirement talk at burial of friend

By Cris Chinaka HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's veteran President Robert Mugabe on Saturday avoided the controversial subject of his future as he buried a senior political colleague and friend who had been pressing him to retire. Mugabe, 92 and one of Africa's longest serving leaders, is eligible to seek re-election at the end of his current five-year term in 2018, but has increasingly looked frail, stoking a scramble in his ruling ZANU-PF party to succeed him. In an hour-long speech on Saturday at the state funeral of Cephas Msipa, a former cabinet minister and ZANU-PF member, Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, largely dwelt on his comrade's role in the 1960s-70s liberation struggle.