Harare

Zimbabwe’s main labour body on Tuesday vowed to go ahead with a national job boycott planned for April despite a threatened crackdown by President Robert Mugabe’s government. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions said it had decided last weekend to mobilise workers to stay away from work on April 3 and 4.

Teachers across Zimbabwe have called off a three-week strike for better wages and working conditions after the government agreed to a near four-fold increase in their pay, union officials said on Friday. ”We have called off the strike,” Raymond Majongwe, secretary general of the radical Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, said.

Zimbabwe’s veteran leader Robert Mugabe reiterated on Tuesday there was no vacancy for the country’s presidency, warning ambitious government colleagues to stop jostling to succeed him. In a defiant interview marking his 83rd birthday, Mugabe also lashed out at ”corrupt” ministers in his Cabinet.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe turns 83 on Wednesday, fit for his age and combative in the face of a crumbling economy, social unrest and a looming battle over who will succeed him. Mugabe will celebrate his birthday with a huge party on Saturday. But gathering clouds risk overshadowing the festivities.

In early February, Zimbabwe broke a 13-match losing sequence by beating Bangladesh, leaving their record going into the World Cup standing at 15 defeats in 16 matches. All of those defeats were against Kenya, Bangladesh and South Africa’s second string and included a 5-0 whitewash in Bangladesh at the end of 2006.

Zimbabwean riot police patrolled a restive Harare township on Monday to stop possible unrest, a day after crushing an opposition rally amid fears of a new street campaign against President Robert Mugabe. Tension has been rising in recent months over Zimbabwe’s deteriorating economy and skyrocketing cost of living.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has accused Britain of refusing dialogue with its former colony, and said he expects ties to improve after Tony Blair steps down in 2007. ”The Blair government is a queer government, and Blair behaves like a headmaster, old fashioned, who dictates that things must be done his way,” said Mugabe.

A top official from Equatorial Guinea has assured a court in Zimbabwe that alleged British mercenary Simon Mann will receive a fair trial if he is extradited to the oil-rich Central African country, reports said Friday. Jose Olo Obono, Equatorial Guinea’s Attorney General, said his country would not impose the death penalty, reported the Herald newspaper.

Zimbabwean police arrested two union leaders in the capital Harare for inciting teachers to go on strike, a police spokesperson said on Thursday. On Monday last week, teachers across the Southern African country began an indefinite industrial action to press for better salaries and working conditions.

President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party has been rocked by a controversial plan to extend his rule by two years, and analysts said despite resistance by some of his lieutenants, the veteran leader will eventually bulldoze the proposals through. Mugabe’s controversial plan to stay in office will see him extend his current term, which ends next year, to 2010.

Zimbabwe’s annual inflation leapt to a new record 1 593,6% in January, showing no respite in a crisis marked by chronic shortages of foreign exchange, food and fuel and unemployment of more than 80%. Inflation, which the government has dubbed its number one enemy, is the highest in the world.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe suggested on Wednesday his government would not tolerate protests against plans to extend his rule, saying such actions were being spearheaded by ”deranged” people. Mugabe spoke to journalists soon after swearing in new ministers following an overnight mini-reshuffle.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday sacked Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa and promoted several deputies in a Cabinet reshuffle announced through state radio. Mugabe picked former minister of indigenisation Samuel Mumbengegwi as Murerwa’s replacement.

Zimbabwe’s splintered opposition should unite to block plans by President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party to extend his rule by another two years to 2010, the head of a faction said Tuesday. ”We are saying ‘no’ to Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF,” declared Arthur Mutambara, leader of the splinter Movement for Democratic Change.

Zimbabwe’s white commercial farmers expressed relief on Monday after the government made good on its pledge to allow them to harvest their crops before evicting them. President Robert Mugabe’s government had given white farmers, and an unspecified number of black people illegally occupying farms, until February 3 to vacate their land.

The empty chairs in the classroom at Hatcliffe, a township north of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, are a familiar sight in many schools in the economically-blighted country. A few weeks after schools opened for the year’s first term, six pupils in a class of 34 had not shown up and schoolteacher Aaron Maturure was beginning to worry.

A farming pressure-group in Zimbabwe on Saturday urged the country’s remaining white farmers to face arrest rather than submit to a government deadline to move off their land. The government had given many of the 400 or so remaining white farmers until Saturday to leave their farms to make way for new black farmers.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s spokesperson on Friday accused the editor of an independent newspaper of staging a ”cheap sideshow” by claiming he was sent an envelope containing a bullet. George Charamba accused, Bill Saidi — acting editor of the Standard — of trying to distract the public from his paper’s ”monumental editorial failure”.

Zimbabwe’s remaining white farmers were anxious on Friday ahead of a February 3 deadline for many to leave their farms, a farming official said. Many of the more than 400 whites still farming out of an original 4 500-strong community have been given until Saturday to vacate their farms to make way for new black farmers.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition party staged a protest on Thursday against President Robert Mugabe’s plan to extend his rule by two years to 2010. Hundreds of provincial and district leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change marched through Bulawayo, witnesses said, marking the first major public protest over Mugabe’s leadership proposal.

The editor of a private Zimbabwean weekly newspaper received an envelope with a bullet and a stern warning after it published a cartoon lampooning poorly paid soldiers, a senior journalist said on Thursday. The Standard is one of the few remaining independent newspapers after authorities invoked strict media laws to shut down four papers.

President Robert Mugabe’s government should immediately sell more than a dozen state firms to help raise money for the embattled economy, Zimbabwe’s central bank governer said on Wednesday. The privatisation of loss-making state firms would yield up to -billion this year, easing a foreign-currency crunch, Gideon Gono said in a monetary policy statement.