Harare

The United Nations on Wednesday balked at claims by a Zimbabwean Cabinet minister that the world body had designed a substandard home to house victims of a clean-up blitz that left hundreds of thousands homeless. The state-run Herald said the minister described the house as ”below human dignity”.

A Zimbabwean Cabinet minister has condemned as ”sub-standard” a model of a home built by the United Nations for victims of a government clean-up blitz that left hundreds of thousands homeless. President Robert Mugabe has said through his spokesperson that ”tents just don’t augur well with our culture”.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claimed on Tuesday that President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party plans to eliminate him and blame his death on infighting within his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Tsvangirai said the ruling Zanu-PF is plotting a ”heinous crime blamed on intra-MDC conflict”.

The director of a Dutch-based independent radio station broadcasting in Zimbabwe was arrested on Monday just hours after the release of three of the station’s journalists. The police detained John Masuku, director of the Voice of the People radio station, at the Harare central police station where he had been summoned.

Zimbabwean police on Monday released three journalists working for a Dutch-based independent radio station following their arrest for breaching the country’s strict broadcasting laws, their lawyer said. The journalists, of the Voice of the People radio station, were arrested on Thursday when police raided their office.

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has suspended five senior members of his party, deepening serious splits in the party. Nelson Chamisa, the spokesperson for Tsvangirai’s faction of the Movement for Democratic Change said a disciplinary committee had decided to suspend five senior party officials, including Secretary General Welshman Ncube and the party’s President, Gibson Sibanda.

Police raided the offices of an independent radio station on Thursday in Harare and arrested three reporters, a senior staff member said. More than a dozen police offices conducted the raid at the central Harare offices of Voice of the People and also seized documents and computers, said managing editor Shorai Kariwa.

Zimbabwe’s high court on Thursday declared ”unlawful” the seizure of a leading newspaper publisher’s passport under new measures to punish government critics. ”We went to the high court today [Thursday] and Justice Chinembiri Bhunu declared that the conduct was unlawful,” lawyer Sternford Moyo said, referring to the seizure of Mail & Guardian publisher Trevor Ncube’s travel document by immigration officials on Thursday last week.

He may be revered by some and reviled by others, but Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s skills as an orator are rarely in doubt, prompting a local record company to put his speeches on tape for ”good home entertainment”, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The compilation is entitled Mugabe Speaks.

Members of Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party said on Wednesday they will launch a fresh bid to win legal backing for their decision to suspend party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The MDC has been bogged down in infighting over Tsvangirai’s decision to call a boycott of the recent Senate elections.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has called on his country’s citizens to ”celebrate” the return of their land at a ruling party conference. Addressing members of his ruling party’s central committee in the small southern Zimbabwe town of Esigodini, Mugabe said the country needed to boost harvests.

Zimbabwe Cricket chairperson Peter Chingoka and managing director Osias Bvute will be charged with contravening the Exchange Control Act, police said Wednesday. Chingoka and Bvute were arrested Tuesday and remain in police custody.

President Robert Mugabe told top United Nations humanitarian envoy Jan Egeland that Zimbabweans are not ”tents people”, after the world body offered temporary shelters to thousands displaced by a wave of shack demolitions, the state-run Herald reported on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe Cricket chairperson Peter Chingoka and managing director Osias Bvute were arrested and placed in custody, police said on Tuesday. News of the arrests followed a meeting earlier of about 40 people on Tuesday at Harare Sports Club aimed at solving the crisis which has engulfed cricket in Zimbabwe.

Two leading Zimbabwe cricketers and a well-known official were released from police custody on Monday after being questioned for two days on taxation and foreign currency issues. Arrested on Saturday, they were held under the Exchange Control Act over their earnings from test matches and international match fees.

Picking their way through muddy puddles, United Nations envoy Jan Egeland and his team on Monday toured a suburb of the Zimbabwean capital Harare where thousands are living in plastic shacks after being made homeless by the government’s controversial urban clean-up campaign.

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested a cricket official and two national team players over allegations of illegal foreign currency transactions amid a crisis in Zimbabwe cricket. The manager, Mohammed ”Babu” Meman, and the players, Vusi Sibanda and Waddington Mwayenga, were arrested on Saturday, said the state-controlled Herald.

Britain on Friday joined a major food aid campaign for Zimbabwe to help three million people in the next six months, the United Nations World Food Programme said. Despite differences with the government of President Robert Mugabe, Britain donated £10-million (-million) to buy 40 000 tonnes of food.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe on Wednesday blamed former colonial ruler Britain for ”compromising” his country’s battle against HIV/Aids by trying to block anti-Aids funds from global organisations. ”We have suffered further setbacks through the unjustified British-led international demonisation of our country,” he said.

A Zimbabwe court has handed down its first decision based on a recent constitutional amendment banning white farmers from legally challenging land grabs, state media said on Wednesday. A high court in Zimbabwe has allowed three black farmers back onto a farm from which they had been evicted by the white owners, overturning its earlier decision.

Zimbabwe’s senior cricket players are boycotting the national team while their chief administrators are being investigated by the government-appointed Sports and Recreation Commission. The announcement came two days before the national selectors were to meet to select a squad to travel to Bangladesh in January for the Asian Cup.

President Robert Mugabe’s party in Zimbabwe has won all but seven seats in a controversial new Senate, crushing the challenge posed by a severely weakened opposition party, final results showed on Monday. The ruling party secured 43 seats in the 66-seat Upper House, while the main opposition party won seven.

Zimbabwe’s embattled leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has suspended its own leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, from his position, according to internal party correspondence. MDC vice-president Gibson Sibanda said the suspension is for misconduct charges.

Election observers have predicted a low turnout in Zimbabwe on Saturday for a Senate vote amid apathy, a split within the opposition and concern the poverty-stricken country cannot afford the new Upper House of Parliament. The government estimates annual costs of the Upper House at about Z-billion (-million).

A group of Zimbabwe national team cricketers who met after the resignation of captain Tatenda Taibu are to consider their own positions over the weekend. They are scheduled to meet again on Monday after making up their own minds whether to stay with the Zimbabwe team or seek new careers — inside or outside the game.

As Zimbabweans go to the ballot on Saturday to elect members to a new and controversial Upper House of Parliament, the buzz is not about the polls but rather on chronic food shortages and the economic meltdown. The country’s major labour movement said the Senate is a waste of scarce money.