Harare

Zimbabwe’s vice-president has said the country’s remaining white farmers would be spared eviction if they toed the line and respected the law, local media reported on Thursday. ”We cannot remove every white man in this country,” Vice-President Joseph Msika was quoted as telling a farmers’ rally.

Zimbabwe’s central bank governor says that the cash-strapped Southern African country last year spent -million importing food to make up for poor harvests, a state-controlled newspaper reported on Wednesday. ”Zimbabwe’s grain imports gobbled up -million last year,” the Herald quoted Gideon Gono as saying.

The price of bread rose by more than 30% as stores in Zimbabwe opened for business on Monday, the latest blow to consumers in the country’s teetering economy. A regular loaf went up to Z 000 (about R3,68), from the government-controlled price of Z 000 (about R2,70).

Police in the Zimbabwean capital Harare arrested 43 demonstrators who tried to march to President Robert Mugabe’s offices on his birthday to demand a new Constitution. The 43, all members of the National Constitutional Assembly, were late on Tuesday being detained at Harare Central police station.

Exiled Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was the brains behind last year’s brutal clean-up campaign in Zimbabwe that left nearly a million people homeless, the independent news service ZimOnline has established. Mengistu reportedly warned Mugabe that the swelling slum population was creating a fertile ground for a mass uprising.

Veteran Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who will turn 82 on Tuesday, said he has the bones ”of someone of 30”. Mugabe, whose health is often subject to speculation, revealed in a late-night interview on state television on Sunday that he undergoes medical check-ups twice a year.

Sixty-three women detained in Zimbabwe during a Valentine’s Day protest were released on bail on Friday after appearing in a Harare court, a lawyer confirmed. The 63 were part of a group of more than 150 women detained on Tuesday in the capital during what they called a ”bread and roses” protest.

Zimbabwe has averted expulsion from the International Monetary Fund with a fresh payment on its debt arrears but is far from gaining good standing with the global lender, economists said on Thursday. ”We have got to make a lot of commitments that we will be able to repay new loans and change a lot of political policies that led to our economic problems,” said economist John Robertson.

Inflation in Zimbabwe soared to 613% in January, the state Central Statistical Office said on Tuesday. Inflation hit a record 623% in early 2004. Last month, the central bank predicted it would reach 800% by March, the highest rate in the world. The highest price increases recorded during the year were for postal services, up 3 000%, bicycles, 2 687%, and medicines, 1 367%.

Banks in Zimbabwe must not enter into contracts with white commercial farmers without asking the government first, the official Sunday Mail reported. National Security Minister Didymus Mutasa said some financial institutions were ”denying new [black] farmers loans … on the basis that the white commercial farmers had title deeds of the farms as collateral,” the paper reported.

Zimbabwean authorities have vowed to forge ahead with land seizures from white farmers who have remained on their properties after the country’s controversial land reforms. Lands Minister Mutasa said that following constitutional reforms passed by Parliament last year ”there is not any white farmer now who is farming legally”.

The Zimbabwe government has rejected a call by the country’s mainly white farming union for an end to land invasions, describing a statement by the Commercial Farmers’ Union as ”hogwash”, the state-controlled Herald reported on Friday. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made said white farmers were ”dreaming” and ”unrepentant”, the paper said.

A court in Zimbabwe has ordered that the state-run media commission reconsider an application by the banned Daily News to begin printing again, the state-controlled Herald said on Thursday. The newspaper has been off the streets since September 2003, when police closed it down for operating without a licence.

Newly set salaries, match appearance fees and performance bonuses have brought an end to Zimbabwe’s professional cricketers’ four-month strike. Sixteen of 23 players offered terms have signed new contracts, four are having medical assessments before getting their offers, two have declined and one has yet to make a decision.

One of Zimbabwe’s new ruling party senators has been picked up for questioning on suspicion of diverting scarce wheat to the lucrative parallel market, the state-controlled Herald reported on Wednesday. Wheat, like maize, is a controlled product but some producers complain they are not getting realistic prices for the commodity in Zimbabwe’s high-inflation environment.

Minister of Finance Herbert Murerwa has predicted improved relations between Zimbabwe and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as IMF experts said the country still has major work to do to gets its economy in order. IMF experts wrapped up a weeklong visit to Zimbabwe over the weekend.

A human chain of villagers pulled a hunter from the jaws of a man-eating crocodile in north-eastern Zimbabwe, state media reported on Monday. Letikuku Sidumbu (32) was attacked by the crocodile while trying to cross the swollen Mubvinzi River in Goromonzi district, east of Harare, during an early-morning hunting expedition with his uncle.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and about 10 officials of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party were early on Thursday morning deported from Zambia where they had gone to attend meetings, MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and eight senior party officials were on Thursday deported from neighbouring Zambia. Spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said he thought the incident was ”politically motivated”. Chamisa dismissed a claim on Zimbabwean state radio that Tsvangirai and his delegation had violated Zambian immigration laws.

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) fact-finding team in Zimbabwe is on Wednesday due to hand over a report to officials from President Robert Mugabe’s government which could question whether the country can retain its membership, state radio reported. The report by the IMF team follows on a week-long visit.

Zimbabwe’s national cricket manager, Mohammed Meman, was fired on Tuesday after 15 years in the job. Meman immediately went to see his lawyer after being given three months’ notice — a move he described as ”an absolute disgrace”. Meman has been in charge of almost all Zimbabwe’s Test and one-day international teams since 1991.

State media in Zimbabwe on Sunday accused a visiting International Monetary Fund team of ”shifting its position” on the debt-riddled country and said the local central bank governor should not try to ”please” the global lender. The Sunday Mail newspaper said Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono should be warned that he is dealing with ”insincere partners”.

Zimbabwe’s National Security Minister, Didymus Mutasa, has warned that ”the net will soon close in” on journalists he claims are threatening national security, a state-controlled newspaper reported on Friday. ”There is a crop of journalists who are selling the country to the enemy by writing falsehoods,” Mutasa said.

Zimbabwe’s leading cricketers were preparing on Thursday to sue the Zimbabwe Cricket Board for unpaid salaries and fees in a civil action. The Zimbabwe Professional Players’ Association has engaged a leading lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, to pursue the board for more than  000 through the Harare High Court.

Five directors of an independent radio station in Zimbabwe were charged on Tuesday with breaching the country’s controversial broadcasting laws, a media watchdog told Agence France-Presse. Under the strict broadcasting laws passed in 2001, radio stations are required to register with a government-appointed board.