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/ 22 November 2006
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team will visit Harare next month for an assessment mission that could lead to the expulsion of debt-ridden Zimbabwe from the global lending body, officials said on Wednesday. Although no exact date has been set, officials said that a delegation will embark on a visit early next month.
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/ 31 October 2006
Supporters of Robert Mugabe launched a move on Tuesday to oust anti-government union leaders as a new report by a rights group slammed the violence used to suppress opposition to the Zimbabwean president. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has been at the vanguard of the opposition to Mugabe’s 26-year rule for more than a decade.
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/ 26 October 2006
A white former police reservist on Thursday pleaded not guilty to charges of hoarding arms as part of an alleged plot to topple veteran President Robert Mugabe as he went on trial in Zimbabwe. Lawyers for Peter Hitschmann told the court in Mutare, 270km east of Harare, that an initial confession had been forced out of the defendant while he was tortured.
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/ 15 October 2006
Zimbabwe, shunned by the West, is trawling ever wider for business partners, but analysts say new deals are unlikely to yield meaningful benefits for the country. The Zimbabwe Central Bank summoned reporters to a press conference last week to attend the signing of a series of memorandums of understanding with Russian conglomerate Rusaviatrade said to be worth -million.
Zimbabwe’s junior information minister, Bright Matonga, and a co-accused were granted bail of Z-million () on Wednesday following their arrest for corruption. Police detained Matonga as well as Charles Nherera, chairperson of the state-owned Zimbabwe United Passenger Company, late on Tuesday in the capital.
Becoming a millionaire in Zimbabwe is easy these days, but wallets and purses have given way to car boots and suitcases as the crucial accessory for carrying wads of nearly worthless cash. As the country battles hyper-inflation and grinding fuel and foreign exchange shortages amid a seven-year economic slump, ordinary citizens have resigned themselves to wry humour to deal with the situation.
Zimbabwe’s main labour union begins on Friday a two-day meeting to decide whether to go ahead with planned mass strikes to protest against galloping inflation and grinding poverty. Zimbabweans are battling to make ends meet as the country goes through its seventh consecutive year of economic recession and astronomical inflation, which hit an all-time world record rate of 1 042,9% last week.
Zimbabwe on Wednesday postponed the release of monthly figures that were expected to show the country’s inflation cross the 1 000% threshold, one of the highest rates in the world. Samuel Undenge, deputy minister for economic development, said the results were not released "because of a logistical issue" but would be announced "in due course".
Zimbabwe is ready to allow the return of white farmers who were driven off their farms under President Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme, the agriculture minister told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday. But minister Joseph Made denied that the new openness toward white farmers marked an about-face in land-reform policies that have been widely criticised as a failure.
Zimbabwe celebrates 26 years of independence from Britain on Tuesday with a shadow of seven years’ economic woes hanging over its freedom day. Zimbabwe gained independence from colonial master Britain on April 18 1980 after a protracted liberation war against white Rhodesian settlers, with President Robert Mugabe then winning plaudids for his conciliatory attitude to minority whites.