Bulawayo

South Africa beat Zimbabwe by five wickets in the first one-day international at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo on Wednesday. Zimbabwe posted 206 all out from their regulation 50 overs, but South Africa reached that target with 19 balls to spare and five wickets in hand.

Zimbabwe’s national intelligence agency on Monday began deploying its secret agents within the army and police to purge officers suspected of backing opposition plans to revolt against the government. Central Intelligence Organisation Director General Happyton Bonyongwe expressed concern over the leakage of sensitive information to the opposition.

Zimbabwe Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri says more than 10% of the country’s police officers will quit within the first quarter of the year, disgruntled over poor salaries and working conditions. In a confidential memo, Chihuri warns that attempts to prevent the officers from leaving could spark open rebellion.

Zimbabwe police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri has warned that President Robert Mugabe’s government faces revolt by disgruntled junior security officers following the awarding by Harare of hefty salaries to youths from a controversial national-service training programme.

President Robert Mugabe has directed Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation to infiltrate internet service providers to monitor private communication and flush out journalists using the internet to feed ”negative information” about his government to the international media, sources say.

Zimbabwe acting Information Minister Paul Mangwana says he is ready to ask Parliament to repeal parts of the government’s tough media legislation, but only if journalists submitted to him the offending sections of the law they want changed. Zimbabwe’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act is among the harshest media laws in the world.

A leading business official has said Zimbabwe’s struggling industry looks set to recover after the central bank eased exchange controls to let exporters retain the bulk of their earnings in bank accounts. ”Give it another 12 months and we will be back on our feet,” said Callisto Jokonya, president of the main Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries.

An alleged coup plot against President Robert Mugabe was to be carried out in two phases with the first phase seeing the ouster of vice-president Joseph Msika and Zanu-PF chairperson John Nkomo, the High Court heard on Friday. The trial entered its fourth day on Friday.

Senior Zanu-PF leaders loyal to former parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa allegedly met in November 2004 to plot a parliamentary coup that would have seen Parliament order President Robert Mugabe to resign, the High Court heard on Thursday.

The power struggle within Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party over President Robert Mugabe’s succession was brought to the High Court on Tuesday in a case in which former state information czar Jonathan Moyo is suing two senior members of the ruling party for defamation.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday called on President Robert Mugabe to step down to pave way for a transitional government that should lead to the writing of a new Constitution and fresh elections to be supervised by the international community.

A frustrated India toiled all day at Queens Sports Club on the first day of the first Test against Zimbabwe in an unsuccessful bid to rattle through the hosts batting. Zimbabwe ended the day on 265-7, one of their best performances in Test cricket for some time, with captain Tatenda Taibu unbeaten on 61 — his eighth half century in Tests.

Zimbabwe’s young batsmen defied India in the first session of the first Test at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo on Tuesday, making 75 for two. Brendan Taylor went for 13 and Hamilton Mazakadsa for 14, both victims of Zaheer Khan, who bowled with venom and pace. He ended the session with 2-26.

Opener Lou Vincent’s 172 steered New Zealand to the second highest one-day total in history and a 192-run victory over Zimbabwe in the opening match of the triangular series on Wednesday. New Zealand notched 397 for five as Vincent’s innings at the Queens Sports Club beat countryman Glenn Turner’s prior record as the highest one-day score from a New Zealander by one run.

New Zealand piled up a massive score of 397-5 in only 44 overs against a hapless Zimbabwe at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo on Wednesday in the first of a series of one-day international matches that also involves India. Lou Vincent and Stephen Fleming figured in a record partnership of 204 for any Kiwis in this form of the game.

Zimbabwe fought back to have New Zealand at 48 for two at stumps after making 231 on the first day of the second Test at Queens Sports Club on Monday. James Marshall was caught at gully off the bowling of Heath Streak for 10 and then his brother, Hamish, was run out for 13 in a horrible mix-up with Lou Vincent.

Zimbabwe’s tourism industry, once the country’s second largest foreign currency earner, has declined sharply in the past few years as a result of the ongoing economic and political crises. In a bid to combat negative perceptions about the country and encourage visitors to return, tourism officials and the government have roped in an unlikely ally — taxi drivers.

Bumbanani Mlotshwa is a regular in the crowded township pubs of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city. Neither a boozer nor a hawker, he’s on an altogether different mission. Moving from table to table, Mlotshwa spreads the word to all who will listen: HIV/Aids is real, it’s transmitted through unprotected sex, and condoms can save lives.

Two years after Zimbabwean troops returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe’s public remains largely unaware of the activities of the mission. The government has kept a tight lid on information about the controversial deployment, which was allegedly carried out to prevent Congolese President Laurent Kabila from being ousted by rebels.