Zimbabwe business leaders held out an olive branch to the government on Wednesday over its controversial price controls, pledging to make goods more affordable and accepting there would be no let-up of a crackdown that has seen hundreds of retailers arrested.
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe accused the opposition of trying to foment anarchy on Wednesday as the troubled Southern African nation marked the 27th anniversary of its independence from Britain. In a keynote speech at a packed football stadium in Harare, Mugabe accused opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of being a puppet of the West.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe can expect to come under growing behind-the-scenes pressure to engage with his opponents despite escaping public censure from his peers, analysts said on Friday. Leaders of a 14-member regional bloc held off from criticising the veteran president over the political and economic crisis on their doorstep at a summit on Thursday.
The Zimbabwe government brushed off fresh criticism on Monday over its crackdown on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. After a senior opposition figure trying to leave the country was beaten so badly he had to be hospitalised on Sunday, the European Union and United States issued strongly worded condemnations.
Zimbabwe’s opposition vowed to finish off its campaign to topple President Robert Mugabe as its leader left hospital in a wheelchair on Friday following his beating at the hands of the security services. Senior Movement for Democratic Change officials and other opposition leaders promised to take to the streets again to demonstrate against the government.
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/ 25 February 2007
Zimbabwe’s veteran President Robert Mugabe lavishly celebrated his 83rd birthday on Saturday, with a warning to his opponents planning protests against a proposed extension to his rule. ”Appropriate measures will always be taken to maintain law and order. This is a message we also send to the sponsors and instigators of the opposition,” he said.
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/ 23 February 2007
Organisers of a lavish 83rd birthday party for Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe prepared on Friday to slaughter prize herds of cattle as shops ran short of basics such as cooking oil and bread. Africa’s oldest-serving leader, who has been in power since independence from Britain 1980, turned 83 on Wednesday amid mounting pressure to step down.
An attempt to heal the rift within the ranks of Zimbabwe’s opposition failed on Tuesday when the Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) leader rejected an olive branch offered by the head of a breakaway faction. Once posing the most serious challenge to Presdent Robert Mugabe’s stranglehold on power, the MDC is a now a shadow of its former self as a result of feuding.
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/ 22 December 2006
George Sachirarwe would love to share Christmas with his family in rural Zimbabwe, but he is so strapped for cash he will stay put in Harare instead. ”I would have loved to go home but what would I buy for my parents? I can’t even afford to buy them the most basic goods,” says Sachirarwe, who works as a machine operator at a plastics factory in the capital.
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/ 3 December 2006
Zimbabwe’s embattled finance minister has set a Herculean task of slashing four-digit inflation by two-thirds and getting the ruined economy back on track, but experts say his latest Budget is not up to the job.Presenting the Budget for 2007 on Thursday, Herbert Murerwa forecast marginal growth of 0,5% to 1% and added that the country’s astronomic inflation rate would fall to 350%.