Zimbabwe has scrapped a scheme allowing fuel purchases with foreign currency, removing one of the few remaining ways for people to acquire petrol in a country struggling with a crumbling economy. The facility is also used by foreign diplomats and officials working for international aid organisations.
Zimbabwe police say more than 200 opposition activists and officials arrested on Saturday are suspects in recent petrol-bomb attacks on police stations, shops and some government supporters. Riot police, armed with pistols and batons, raided the Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) head office in Harare on Saturday.
A Zimbabwe court agreed on Wednesday to extradite a Briton wanted on coup-plot charges in Equatorial Guinea, rejecting defence arguments he would not receive a fair trial. Simon Mann, a former British special forces officer, has been held in Zimbabwe since he was convicted in September 2004 of attempting to purchase weapons without a licence.
Zimbabwe’s central bank on Thursday introduced a new foreign-currency bond to raise money to tackle a serious drought threatening the country, but turned down demands for a general devaluation of the local currency. In an emergency policy statement, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono also offered new price incentives for tobacco and gold producers.
Fear crippled a national strike called by Zimbabwe unions on Tuesday as workers, companies and shops heeded government warnings to continue with business in an economy verging on collapse. The government says the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called the strike as part of a plot by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change to oust it.
Zimbabwe riot police arrested the country’s top opposition leader on Sunday as they suppressed a planned prayer rally in a crackdown on protests against President Robert Mugabe. Witnesses said heavily armed police fought skirmishes with rock-throwing opposition supporters in the Harare township of Highfield.
Armed Zimbabwe riot police sealed off a stadium on Sunday to block an opposition prayer meeting that officials have banned, calling it a political protest against President Robert Mugabe. Teams of police officers, many of them armed with shotguns and tear-gas canisters, patrolled around the stadium in the Harare township of Highfield.
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/ 20 February 2007
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe turns 83 on Wednesday, fit for his age and combative in the face of a crumbling economy, social unrest and a looming battle over who will succeed him. Mugabe will celebrate his birthday with a huge party on Saturday. But gathering clouds risk overshadowing the festivities.
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/ 19 February 2007
Zimbabwean riot police patrolled a restive Harare township on Monday to stop possible unrest, a day after crushing an opposition rally amid fears of a new street campaign against President Robert Mugabe. Tension has been rising in recent months over Zimbabwe’s deteriorating economy and skyrocketing cost of living.
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/ 31 January 2007
President Robert Mugabe’s government should immediately sell more than a dozen state firms to help raise money for the embattled economy, Zimbabwe’s central bank governer said on Wednesday. The privatisation of loss-making state firms would yield up to -billion this year, easing a foreign-currency crunch, Gideon Gono said in a monetary policy statement.