The main faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change launched an investigation on Wednesday into a brutal attack on a prominent lawmaker in a rival opposition faction. The leader of the MDC’s main faction, Morgan Tsvangirai, appointed a panel of lawyers and human rights experts to investigate the attack on Trudy Stevenson.
Zimbabwe says an invitation to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is no longer valid following reports that Annan might use the visit to press President Robert Mugabe to step down after more than two decades in power. ”Zimbabwe is not a UN issue,” Mugabe spokesperson George Charamba was quoted as saying in state media on Thursday.
About 100 women who had protested massive increases in school fees were being held by police on Friday, police and organisers of the protest said. The protesters were arrested in the second city of Bulawayo where they marched eight blocks to government education offices on Thursday to demand the lowering of school fees.
Zimbabweans mark 26 years of independence on Tuesday with little to celebrate amid deepening economic hardships, personal tragedies and a rapidly widening gap between the rich elite and the poor majority. President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party on Monday said it was ”disturbed” that young Zimbabweans, in particular, showed no pride in their nation’s independence from colonial-era white rule.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) is embarking on an ambitious programme to improve the health, education and nutrition of vulnerable children in Zimbabwe, where one child dies of HIV/Aids and another is orphaned every 20 minutes. Unicef said it had received a British donation of £22-million (,4-million) to help children facing some of the worst hardships anywhere in the world.
For the first time in at least 40 years, supplies of Coca-Cola dried up Wednesday in yet another sign of the crippling economic crisis in Zimbabwe, where people suffer acute bread shortages and farmers warn that worse is yet to come. Harare agents for the United States Coca-Cola company said local production of the drink stopped earlier this month, but refused to give official reasons.
Police discovered a weapons cache in eastern Zimbabwe and linked it to a little-known group that state radio identified on Wednesday as the military wing of the main opposition party. A spokesperson for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) rejected allegations it was linked to an armed group.
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/ 14 February 2006
Inflation in Zimbabwe soared to 613% in January, the state Central Statistical Office said on Tuesday. Inflation hit a record 623% in early 2004. Last month, the central bank predicted it would reach 800% by March, the highest rate in the world. The highest price increases recorded during the year were for postal services, up 3 000%, bicycles, 2 687%, and medicines, 1 367%.
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/ 6 February 2006
Minister of Finance Herbert Murerwa has predicted improved relations between Zimbabwe and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as IMF experts said the country still has major work to do to gets its economy in order. IMF experts wrapped up a weeklong visit to Zimbabwe over the weekend.
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/ 3 February 2006
In Zimbabwe’s capital and in need of a bath or a hot meal? Call a friend, though it will likely take several attempts to get through. Persistent power and water outages have revived friendships and socialising in Zimbabwe, homeowners say. People see more of each other during outages that last several days.