Harare

Cracks in Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Changes (MDC) widened on Monday as more than two dozen members defied their leader’s call to boycott Senate polls. MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said 27 party members registered as candidates for the 50 contested seats.

Trade in foreign currency at commercial banks in Zimbabwe following the easing of tight exchange controls has got off to a slow start, according to local reports on Tuesday. The state-controlled Herald reported that only two commercial banks were on Monday buying foreign currency at rates between Z 000 and Z 000 to the US dollar.

A Zimbabwean opposition lawmaker on Monday said his party received ,5-million in illegal funding from three foreign states, the latest blow in a bitter feud threatening to split the main opposition apart. A spokesperson for Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai has denied the lawmaker’s claims.

A meeting called on Saturday by Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to discuss a split threatening to destroy his party ended with a resolution to boycott next month’s senate elections. However, key members of the national executive of the Movement for Democratic Change known to be in favour of participating in the November 26 poll, were absent.

Zimbabwe has discarded its 21-month-old controlled foreign currency auction system in favour of free market trading, its central bank governor announced on Thursday. The central bank in January 2004 introduced the auction system, in which it determined the rate in a bid to narrow extreme differences between the official and parallel rates with the United States dollar and other international currencies.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition movement, which risks a split over whether to contest next month’s controversial Senate polls, on Wednesday began crisis talks to close ranks, party vice-president Gibson Sibanda said. He denied, however, that there are cracks in the party.

Zimbabwe’s police chief says the authorities are ”dangerously underfunding” the police force, which does not have enough money to pay decent wages or buy new uniforms. Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri told a parliamentary committee in Harare on Tuesday that as a result morale in the police force was low and law enforcers are tempted to take bribes, the private Daily Mirror reported.

As economic hardships and food shortages bite in Zimbabwe, thieves are mounting armed raids on potato farms near the capital Harare, the state-controlled Herald reported on Monday. Thieves armed with axes, spears and slingshots in large groups of up to 80 people have assaulted guards, killed their dogs and stolen potatoes worth one billion Zimbabwe dollars.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is set to visit all of the country’s ten provinces in a bid to bolster support for a boycott of next month’s senate elections. The move by the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change comes amid a deepening crisis in the party, with the majority of members in the party’s national council in favour of participating in the polls.

Simmering divisions within Zimbabwe’s main opposition party over whether to contest controversial Senate elections broke into the open last week, risking a split in the party that would hand a victory to President Robert Mugabe. The Movement for Democratic Change could score an own goal by splitting over a relatively minor issue.

Zimbabwe’s stocks of locally produced anti-retrovirals are running low, the state daily said on Thursday. The Herald said that stocks of the locally manufactured life-prolonging drugs have dwindled due to shortages of foreign exchange needed to import raw materials.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition on Wednesday announced it will boycott next month’s polls to a newly created Upper House of Parliament, saying elections in the country are a farce and breed ”illegitimate outcomes”. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said democracy in Zimbabwe is still a farce.

A court in Zimbabwe on Monday provisionally barred the eviction of about 400 squatters from a suburb in the capital, Harare, a human rights lawyer said. Zvikomborero Chadambuka, of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, said the High Court in Harare ordered that his clients should not be evicted from Mbare suburb.

China’s embassy in Harare has appealed to the Zimbabwean government to protect its nationals following the murder of a Chinese man in the capital. In a statement, the embassy noted with concern that several Chinese nationals and companies had been ”plundered by armed robbers”, the state-controlled Herald reported.

Zimbabwean police late on Wednesday released an opposition lawmaker and at least 16 of his constituents who were arrested earlier in the day for walking to work to protest chronic fuel shortages, their lawyer said. Gilbert Shoko and opposition supporters were arrested as they walked to the city centre, their lawyer said.

Zimbabwe will soon start growing the oil-rich jatropha tree to manufacture its own blend of diesel as the country battles to overcome acute fuel shortages, state radio reported on Wednesday. The jatropha plant — a small deciduous tree that can grow in arid areas — has seeds rich in vegetable oil that can be burned as a substitute for diesel.

A former veteran of Zimbabwe’s independence war has come under fierce criticism for setting up a fund to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association said it had taken over the fund set up by controversial former guerrilla Joseph Chinotimba who wanted to raise Z-billion (,1-million).

Zimbabwe has paid another -million to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the country tries to clear its debt arrears with the international lender, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. In early September, Zimbabwe made a surprise payment of -million to the IMF.

The editor of Zimbabwe’s only private daily has been suspended, according to a report posted on the website of the state-run broadcaster late on Monday. Ibbo Mandaza, the founder, chief executive and editor-in-chief of the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror, has been suspended with immediate effect, the report said.

Zimbabwean police have arrested 14 706 vagrants, street vendors and illegal foreign currency dealers in the capital, Harare, over the past two weeks, a newspaper reported on Monday. The arrests come as police battle to enforce an urban clearance campaign launched five months ago that saw the arrest and subsequent release of about 46 000 street traders.

The governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has called for a halt to farm invasions, describing those who try to seize land as ”criminals”, a newspaper reported on Friday. ”The invasions are totally unacceptable and should be stopped forthwith by whoever is doing it,” Governor Gideon Gono said.

Public hospitals in Zimbabwe are finding it difficult to conduct HIV/Aids tests because of a lack of essential laboratory chemicals, the state-run Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday. Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. An estimated one in four Zimbabweans is HIV-positive.

Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank on Tuesday said its surprise -million loan payback to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came from ”free funds” and export earnings. Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono said that Zimbabwe had not rejected loan assistance from South Africa, part of which would be used to pay back the IMF loan.

A massive brain drain is depriving Zimbabwe of health professionals, teachers, accountants, scientists and engineers, according to a government report quoted in a newspaper on Tuesday. Half a million Zimbabweans, mainly professionals in the health and education sector, have migrated, according to the study by the Scientific and Industrial Research Centre.

Zimbabwean soccer officials on Monday appealed to eight club players who went missing after a tour in Britain to return home, saying their careers could end if they fail to comply. Zimbabwean football went into crisis over the weekend after six players failed to catch a flight from London back to Zimbabwe after an exhibition tour.

Eight Zimbabwean soccer players have gone missing in London following a controversial trip to the United Kingdom to play a match, a newspaper reported in Harare on Saturday. Two soccer officials have also disappeared, the state-controlled Herald reported.

Four of Harare’s top police officers have been sent on leave and replaced by war veterans, the state-controlled Herald reported on Friday. Nomutsa Chideya, the town clerk, said that four senior managers in the municipal police department had been sent on ”indefinite” forced leave starting on Thursday.