Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance, Herbert Murerwa, on Monday said week-long talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is mulling expelling Harare for debt arrears, are by no means over. Officials from the lending arm of the World Bank began talks with Zimbabwean officials last Monday over its debt arrears.
Zimbabwean lawyers on Monday urged President Robert Mugabe’s government to scrap a Bill that will prevent white farmers from legally challenging land grabs, saying it makes a mockery of the law. ”This a direct and undisguised frontal attack on the independence of the judiciary,” the Law Society of Zimbabwe said.
President Robert Mugabe lashed out on Sunday at church leaders who have been among the most outspoken critics of Zimbabwe’s human rights record. Addressing the funeral of Josiah Tungamirai, Mugabe recalled that the Cabinet minister and retired air force commander had quit a Catholic seminary to join the fight against white rule in what was then Rhodesia.
Josiah Tungamirai, Minister for Black Empowerment and Indigenisation in Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s government, has died while receiving treatment at a clinic in South Africa, state radio announced on Friday. Family members said the retired Air Force of Zimbabwe commander had been having problems with the rejection of a kidney transplant.
Josiah Tungamirai, Minister for Black Empowerment and Indigenisation in Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s government, has died while receiving treatment at a clinic in South Africa, state radio announced on Friday. Family members said the retired Air Force of Zimbabwe commander had been having problems with the rejection of a kidney transplant.
After the Chinese herb mocrea in the 1990s and the African potato five years ago, moringa powder is the latest craze for Zimbabweans battling one of the world’s highest HIV/Aids infection rates. ”Do you want to feel well, have a healthy appetite and live longer?” a pamphlet on a supermarket noticeboard screams in bold print.
Faced with D-Day on September 23 when the International Monetary Fund may expel Zimbabwe, the government put on a brave front, claiming that because South Africa and the IMF had approached it to take a loan, Harare would not accede to political conditions attached to the bail-out.
At least 18 people were killed in western Zimbabwe on Thursday when a bus burst a front tyre and crashed near a bridge while racing another bus, state radio reported. Police spokesperson Bothwell Mugariri told the radio that the accident occurred when two buses from the same bus company ”were racing each other”.
The trial in Zimbabwe of a controversial Anglican bishop hit a snag on Thursday when defence lawyers requested further particulars on the charges he faces. Bishop Nolbert Kunonga of Harare, a staunch supporter of President Robert Mugabe, is accused of incitement to murder, among other offences.
A slate of amendments that critics warn will seriously reduce constitutional protections and freedoms in Zimbabwe cleared a first vote in Parliament on Wednesday. After a stormy debate, lawmakers voted 61 to 28 to approve the Constitutional Amendment Bill.
Zimbabwean officials want custom duties to be paid for about 6 000 blankets given by South Africans to victims of the government’s recent mass demolitions campaign, an aid organisation said on Wednesday. Aid workers have been barred from distributing the blankets until the matter is resolved.
An Anglican bishop who is a strong supporter of autocratic President Robert Mugabe has been brought before an ecclesiastical court investigating charges ranging from inciting murder to besmirching the church. On Tuesday, Jeremy Lewis, acting as prosecutor, postponed pursuing the most serious incitement-to-murder charge.
Zimbabwean officials on Monday began a week of crunch talks with a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is weighing whether to expel the Southern African country from its ranks.
Thousands of Zimbabweans made homeless by the government’s slum clearance are living in ”desperate” conditions, according to a clandestine video smuggled out and released by Amnesty International. The video was made earlier this month at Hopley Farm, outside Harare, and shows a makeshift camp with tents of sheeting.
Three hundred graduates of Zimbabwe’s controversial youth training camps have been hired to work with police in Harare to help curb ”illegal businesses” in the wake of the government’s clean-up campaign. More than 18 000 youths have graduated from the National Youth Service programme, introduced in 2001.
Prospects of a respite are dim for Zimbabweans as the southern African country’s currency continues to tumble and runaway inflation sends prices of basic goods soaring. The council says the food basket for a family of six has increased by more than 200% since January.
The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange on Friday went for a third consecutive day without trading as buyers shunned the bourse over the introduction of a new tax on profits. Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa this week announced a 10% withholding tax on shares sold on the stock market beginning next month.
Members of Zimbabwe’s football team are being rewarded for winning a regional tournament with plots of land cleared of township homes. The team, known as the Warriors, won the Confederation of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) Cup on Sunday with a surprise 1-0 victory over Zambia in South Africa.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is sending a team to Harare next week for talks ahead of a key meeting that will decide whether to expel Zimbabwe from the lending club, the country’s finance minister said on Friday. ”We are being considered at the IMF board meeting on September 9 and these are routine consultations,” said Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa.
My cellphone illuminates the time, beeps at me. 4.45am. I get up in the dark — the power is off again — and fumble my way to the car, scooping up Jasper, my Jack Russell, as I go. He’s comfort, a slab of warmth across my lap as I wait. There are rumours of petrol at some shack of a garage out on the fringes of the industrial sites, owned by some crony with ties to the army. I ought to have a conscience: I don’t.
Legislators for Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change on Thursday caught police by surprise and flouted Zimbabwe’s security laws when they took part in a low-key march in Harare against an ”anti-people Budget” presented to Parliament earlier this week and pending constitutional changes.
The Zimbabwe government says it acted in the public interest when it launched a controversial urban clean-up campaign in May that was later condemned by the United Nations, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported Wednesday.
Ruling-party legislators in Zimbabwe are pushing constitutional amendments critics say will strengthen President Robert Mugabe. A Bill before Parliament will establish a 40-seat Senate, strip land owners of all rights of appeal if their property is seized and allow the government to deny its critics passports, lawyers say.
Municipal authorities are to launch a new clean-up campaign in Harare to get beggars and street kids out of the Zimbabwean capital, an official has told state television. The state-controlled Newsnet said scores of beggars and street children rounded up during the clean-up campaign that ended in late July are ”back in full force”.
Simbarashe Muchemwa points at a heap of broken asbestos and charred metal sheets — remnants of his makeshift furniture shop in Harare’s Glen View township — and shakes his head. ”This was my means of livelihood. It’s a loss that will take me years to recover from,” says the 30-year-old father of three.
Zimbabwean lawyers on Friday braced for a fight with the state over proposed constitutional changes published by the Zimbabwean government last month and aimed at barring white farmers from challenging land grabs in court and preventing people deemed anti-government from going overseas.
Hundreds of private schools will be forced to shut down in Zimbabwe if a Bill allowing the government to set fees and recruit teachers is passed, teachers and school associations warned on Thursday. The Education Amendment Bill was presented in May, allowing the education minister to set school fees, impose a school uniform and determine the recruitement for all teachers.
Zimbabwean authorities are blocking aid to about 2Â 300 people resettled on a farm outside Harare following a government demolitions campaign, rights and church groups said on Wednesday. ”The people are living in the open with little food, no shelter. Access to these people has not been easy,” said Alouis Chaumba, director for the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace.
Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano has been appointed the African Union’s mediator for Zimbabwe, tasked with brokering talks between the ruling party and the opposition, a state-run newspaper reported on Wednesday. The report was confirmed by AU spokesperson Adam Thiam in Addis Ababa.
About 6 000 members of the Zimbabwean military are to receive plots under the government’s land reform programme, President Robert Mugabe said on Tuesday. Mugabe told thousands gathered at a Harare stadium to mark Defence Forces Day that some members of the military had been given land under the programme launched five years ago.
Members of Zimbabwe’s armed forces have been given farm land and housing plots in a government effort to boost morale among troops, President Robert Mugabe said on Tuesday at an address to mark Defence Forces’ Day. Mugabe said his government has made ”tremendous efforts to ensure that morale remains high”.
Ronald Matsito has been unable to pick up the pieces since his home of 15 years and his small hardware shop were bulldozed two months ago during the Zimbabwe government’s clean up campaign. ”I can’t see a way forward,” says Matsito (55) a father of five who lives in Mufakose. ”I’ve lost everything.”