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/ 20 January 2008
Nationwide power failures shut down basic services across Zambia and Zimbabwe for hours on Saturday and Sunday as anger mounted in South Africa over power cuts that have wreaked havoc in the continent’s economic hub. There was no immediate explanation for Saturday night’s blackout.
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/ 20 January 2008
Zimbabwean authorities have passed changes to the country’s tough security laws after veteran President Robert Mugabe gave his final seal of approval, a state daily reported on Saturday. The government also passed revised electoral laws ahead of Zimbabwe’s upcoming presidential and legislative polls expected in March.
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/ 19 January 2008
Cuba will support crisis-riddled Zimbabwe, which is being ”punished” by the West for seizing white-owned farms, the Cuban ambassador was quoted as saying in Harare on Saturday. Cosme Torres Espinoza told reporters that there were similarities in the way the United States treated Cuba and Zimbabwe.
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/ 18 January 2008
Zimbabwe’s central bank introduced new higher value banknotes on Friday that failed to ease a cash shortage that has kept commercial banks busy with long queues of desperate residents wanting to withdraw money. Banknotes have joined a growing list of basic items in short supply in the crisis-hit country.
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/ 18 January 2008
Publishers of a popular Zimbabwean daily, which was ordered to close more than four years ago, have been invited to apply for authorisation to begin publishing again, government-run media said on Friday. The <i>Daily News</i> was a virulent critic of President Robert Mugabe’s government before being closed down in September 2003.
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/ 18 January 2008
South African President Thabo Mbeki met his Zimbabwean counterpart on Thursday after local media reports that he was stepping in to break a deadlock in talks aimed at ending Zimbabwe’s political and economic crises. Mbeki met with Robert Mugabe at a hotel for four hours and also met with members of the political opposition.
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/ 17 January 2008
Zimbabwe’s opposition urged South African President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday to try to persuade his counterpart, Robert Mugabe, to delay elections due in March, opposition and government sources said. Mbeki held three hours of talks with Mugabe at State House in Harare before then meeting with officials from the main opposition.
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/ 16 January 2008
New banknotes, including a Z$10-million bill, will go into circulation in inflation-ravaged Zimbabwe this week, the central bank’s governor said on Wednesday. Less than a month after announcing a similar move, Gideon Gono said the new notes would provide much-needed relief to consumers who often have to go shopping with sacks of cash.
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/ 16 January 2008
Zimbabwe’s civil-protection unit issued new warnings of floods expected to further harm the stricken economy as fears grew in neighbouring Mozambique that floods there would be worse than in 2001, when 800 people died. Zimbabwe state radio said on Wednesday that flooding risks were on the increase.
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/ 16 January 2008
Zimbabwe’s main opposition said on Wednesday it planned a protest next week to demonstrate against a crumbling economy and press for a new Constitution it says will guarantee free and fair elections scheduled for March. Opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said earlier this month the party might boycott elections scheduled for March.
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/ 15 January 2008
Zimbabwe’s central bank governor is due to appear before a special parliamentary committee next week to give evidence on top officials allegedly hoarding vast sums of cash, official media said on Tuesday. Since late last year thousands of Zimbabweans have struggled to get their money out of banks.
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/ 14 January 2008
Zimbabwe will prohibit foreign observers deemed to be biased from overseeing its upcoming presidential and legislative elections, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said on Monday. ”Our stance on foreign observers is that they are not a legal requirement,” Chinamasa was quoted as saying by the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
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/ 14 January 2008
Zimbabwean police disrupted several Anglican Church services in Harare on Sunday, arresting at least three priests and a number of parishioners opposed to a pro-government bishop. The priests were dragged out of church because they were conducting services without the authorisation of the police or that of Bishop Nolbert Kunonga.
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/ 13 January 2008
Kennedy Tsambo’s faith in Zimbabwe’s banking system finally hit breaking point over Christmas when he spent an ultimately fruitless three days queuing to withdraw cash in order to buy a bus fare home. ”This was not a donation that I was queuing for, it’s my own money which I should be able to withdraw as and when I like,” said the 37-year-old.
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/ 11 January 2008
Zimbabwe has drafted in soldiers to help move food aid and medicines to hundreds of flood victims in the north of the country, reports said on Friday. An army vehicle and army personnel are in Muzarabani in Mashonaland Central province, where several hundreds of villagers were displaced by floods in December, the Herald said.
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/ 10 January 2008
Impoverished Zimbabwean farmers have to show they are loyal members of the ruling party if they want free equipment that the government is offering, and opposition supporters have been threatened with dogs, independent democracy monitors said on Thursday.
At least 50% of medical drugs are out of stock in Zimbabwe’s pharmacies because of critical shortages of foreign currency, making life harder for struggling Zimbabweans, it emerged on this week. The few available drugs have shot up in price, putting them well out of the reach of most white-collar workers.
Police were called to churches around the Zimbabwean capital Harare last weekend to halt skirmishes between supporters of a bishop who is a close ally of President Robert Mugabe and followers of a rival cleric. Tensions rose after followers of Anglican Bishop Nolbert Kunonga insisted on holding services even though authorities have decreed Kunonga is no longer a member of the church.
Tusker is dead, shot by rangers after New Year’s revellers at a safari camp provoked the elephant into trampling several cars, conservationists said on Monday. Tusker, a towering 50-year-old bull, was shot on Sunday at the Charara camp on the shores of Lake Kariba, 370km north-west of Harare.
Several firms and shops in Zimbabwe face prosecution after they breached price ceilings imposed by a state pricing watchdog, a state daily reported on Monday. ”We are aware of some manufacturers and service providers who are contravening the pricing regulations,” the Herald quoted the chairperson of the national pricing commission as saying.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has awarded a hefty salary hike to Zimbabwe’s magistrates and prosecutors, who have been on strike since October, official media reported on Sunday. Zimbabwean workers have been hit hard by an economic crisis critics blame on Mugabe’s policies and has seen inflation jump to nearly 8 000%, the highest in the world.
Four more people have drowned in Zimbabwe, bringing to 31 the numbers killed in flooding caused by a month of heavy rains, which have also claimed two lives in neighbouring Mozambique, according to various reports on Friday. In Zimbabwe, three people travelling in an ox-drawn cart were swept away by floodwaters in an area in northern Mashonaland West province.
A diarrhoea outbreak has hit Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, following weeks of uncollected garbage, sewer blockages and erratic water supplies, the state-owned Herald daily reported on Friday. More than 400 cases of diarrhoea have been recorded in Mabvuku and Tafara, two of the capital’s suburbs, but there is no confirmation of deaths.
The main faction of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Thursday vowed to boycott presidential and legislative polls in March if the nation’s Constitution was not overhauled. Mugabe has said that elections will be held in March and that the opposition would only have themselves to blame if they do not adequately campaign.
Some of Zimbabwe’s striking state doctors have returned to work on humanitarian grounds but most are still holding out for higher pay, the head of the doctors’ union said on Thursday. Amon Siveregi, president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors’ Association, said the industrial action had not been called off, contrary to reports in the state media.
China has pledged 5 000 tonnes of food aid this year to Zimbabwe, where more than four million people will soon require aid, the official Herald newspaper reported on Thursday. Deputy Chinese ambassador Ma Deyun also said that her country and Zimbabwe wanted to increase trade to -million in 2008 as China expands its presence in Southern Africa.
Talks between President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Zimbabwe’s opposition are deadlocked because the ruling party is refusing to implement a new transitional constitution, main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claimed on Wednesday. ”Mugabe and Zanu-PF want a false election,” Tsvangirai said. ”We are deadlocked on key issues.”
At least 700 villagers have had to abandon their homes in south-eastern Zimbabwe as floods wreak havoc in many parts of the country, state radio said on Wednesday. Helicopters have been flying relief supplies to villagers in the Chipinge and Middle Sabi areas, who left their homes after the Save River burst its banks at the weekend, reports say.
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/ 31 December 2007
Zimbabwe’s central bank chief announced on Monday that he was extending a deadline for consumers to exchange their Z 000 bills, just hours before they were to cease being legal tender. The legal status of the Z 000 bearer cheque notes is ”now reinstated”, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono announced at a news conference.
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/ 31 December 2007
President Robert Mugabe’s spokesperson has accused former colonial power Britain and other Western countries of sabotaging Zimbabwe’s efforts to turn around its economy by offering a safe haven to criminals. The comments came after an MP from Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, David Butau, fled to Britain last week.
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/ 30 December 2007
Zimbabwe’s state-employed junior doctors and nurses are on strike for higher pay, putting further strain on the country’s crumbling public healthcare facilities. Doctors and nurses have staged a series of strikes in recent years as their salaries have been steadily eroded by the world’s highest inflation rate.
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/ 30 December 2007
A legislator in Zimbabwe’s ruling party has fled to Britain, fearing arrest in a police probe of foreign-currency payments he made last month, official media reported on Sunday. The state-owned Sunday Mail quoted unnamed sources as saying police wanted to interview David Butau, the Zanu-PF MP for a northern constituency.