Voters in western Zimbabwe began voting on Saturday in a by-election seen as a test of strength between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition ahead of next year’s legislative elections. Residents in the remote district of Lupane are casting their ballots to replace an opposition lawmaker reported to have died from torture wounds.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=66346">Resurgent Mugabe looks to the future</a>
Journalists in Zimbabwe still risk arrest and imprisonment if they publish anything the government deems untrue or unfairly critical, with no sign of a let-up in a two-year-old crackdown on the media. Despite calls for a review of the media laws that came into force in 2002, journalists say there is little hope that the regulations will be changed under President Robert Mugabe.
The President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, arrived in Zimbabwe on Wednesday as the government, which is holding 70 men suspected of plotting to topple Nguema, altered its list of designated extradition countries to include the West African nation.
Prices of some commodities, particularly furniture and electrical goods, have started dropping drastically in Zimbabwe, but a crisis in the banking sector continues to hound depositors. Economists say businesses are trying to raise cash to invest on the money market, where interest rates have shot to more than 700%.
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/ 7 November 2003
Zimbabwe’s High Court this week concluded hearing a landmark opposition challenge to President Robert Mugabe’s victory in last year’s presidential election.
It was not immediately clear when Judge Ben Hlatshwayo would make his ruling in the case brought by the MDC, but legal sources said it could take weeks, even months.
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/ 28 October 2003
The publisher and three directors of The Daily News in Zimbabwe were to appear in court on Tuesday after being arrested for publishing without a licence, but the hearing was delayed for no stated reason. Company lawyer Gugulethu Moyo speculated police were merely seeking to punish the owners of the newspaper.
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/ 24 October 2003
A court in Zimbabwe said on Friday the country’s only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, which was shut down last month by the government, must be given a licence to operate. The court ruled that the controversial government media commission had been ”improperly constituted”.
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/ 18 October 2003
A judge hearing an appeal by Zimbabwe’s only private daily newspaper, shut down by the government, questioned on Friday why the country’s media law was not applied when the paper was refused a licence last month.
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/ 28 September 2003
Flipping through the classified advertisements of Zimbabwe’s state-run daily paper The Herald, it is now common to see prices of houses and apartments for sale or lease being quoted in US dollars. Cars are similarly being sold in US dollars or British pounds.
The SA National Taxi Council (Santaco), a body representing over 100 000 taxi owners, committed itself on Tuesday to a minimum wage and basic conditions of employment in the industry, the Department of Labour said.