Harare

South Africa’s new Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, made a four-hour visit to Zimbabwe on Tuesday for talks with President Robert Mugabe and his deputy that she said will help Pretoria ”synchronise” its policies with Harare. It was her first official trip to Zimbabwe since her appointment three weeks ago.

South Africa’s Anglican archbishop of Cape Town believes Zimbabwe is facing a ”humanitarian crisis” following the government’s campaign of shack demolitions that has left at least 300 000 people homeless, his spokesperson said.

A United Nations envoy who investigated Zimbabwe’s razing of townships will report to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in about two weeks, a spokesperson said on Monday. On Monday, police moved into Harare’s plush suburbs where they ordered the demolition of staff quarters, garages and other outbuildings built without approval.

South African church leaders were ”shocked” on Monday by conditions at a holding camp housing people displaced by Zimbabwe’s controversial government clean up operation, said Matthew Esau, the spokesperson for the archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulo Ndungane.

A former senior intelligence officer has quit Zimbabwe’s ruling party over the demolitions campaign that has left hundreds of thousands homeless, saying the governing clique is ”punishing the people” for no reason. Meanwhile, police have denied reports of four deaths during the demolition of a township.

Armed paramilitary police swept through a Harare township, pulling down more than 100 prefabricated wooden cabins — including one in which screaming children had taken refuge, witnesses and opposition activists said on Tuesday.

The giant prehistoric Balancing Rocks that stand 16km from the centre of Harare are one of the great symbols of Zimbabwe, etched on to banknotes and pictured in every tourist guide. Immediately across the road from the rocks is a new symbol of the nation, one that is unlikely to feature in any guidebook.

A United Nations envoy has extended her investigation of a so-called urban renewal drive that has destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans to a second week. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s deputy minister of housing says the demolition of slums is part of the country’s national housing plan.

Zimbabwe’s demolition of illegal homes and backyard shacks is likely to be touched on at this week’s meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, of the leaders of the world’s richest countries, as they discuss a multibillion-dollar plan to wipe out poverty and debt in Africa.

A special United Nations envoy sent to investigate Zimbabwe’s controversial campaign of shack demolitions praised President Robert Mugabe’s government for its ”vision”, the state-run Herald newspaper claimed on Friday.

Zimbabwean authorities on Tuesday more than doubled the price of fuel in a bid to ease critical shortages, state television reported. The price of petrol was hiked from 3 600 Zimbabwe dollars (R2,60) per litre to Z 000 (R6, 70) per litre. The cost of a litre of diesel was increased from Z 650 (R2,40) to Z 600 (R6,40).

At least 300 000 children have dropped out of school in Zimbabwe since a government-driven campaign to demolish shacks and other unauthorised homes was launched nearly six weeks ago, a teachers’ union said on Tuesday. Pupils are skipping class to help guard property and possessions which had been left in the open.

Zimbabwe has freed from jail an outspoken white opposition lawmaker, Roy Bennett, who was serving a one-year jail sentence for shoving a minister to the ground, his lawyer said. ”He has been released. He was freed some 20 minutes ago,” said lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa.

An envoy for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has arrived in Zimbabwe to investigate a so-called urban renewal campaign that has destroyed the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans. Opposition parties say the blitz is intended to punish its supporters who voted against the government in recent parliamentary elections.

The government’s campaign to clear the homes, businesses and even gardens of the poor from its cities has sparked more violence, a pro-government newspaper reported on Wednesday even as state radio claimed those displaced were being provided for.

At least eight people have been arrested in two towns in eastern Zimbabwe after they tried to stop police demolishing their makeshift homes, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. Residents of Marondera and Wedza fought running battles with the police, who are carrying out a controversial clean-up campaign, the Daily Mirror said.

Zimbabwe police have extended a demolition campaign targeting the homes and livelihoods of the urban poor to the vegetable gardens they rely on for food, saying the crops planted on vacant lots are damaging the environment. ”They are sleeping in the open air — tiny children and people dying of Aids,” says parish priest Oskar Wermter.

Police in Zimbabwe say they are taking their controversial clean-up campaign to prosperous suburbs of the capital, where they will target ”illegal property developments” and houses that have been turned into offices, the state-run Herald newspaper said on Monday.

The Zimbabwean government has started targeting rural areas in a sweeping blitz on crime and shanties that has already left tens of thousands homeless and destitute in the country’s major towns. Bands of armed police have gone on the rampage, demolishing and torching backyard shacks and makeshift shop stalls in a campaign that has drawn widespread international condemnation.

A member of a suspected spy ring arrested in December last year in Zimbabwe on charges of selling information about President Robert Mugabe’s party to South Africa has been released on bail, a daily reported on Saturday.

Jonathan Moyo, President Robert Mugabe’s once-fiercely loyal information minister, is now conveniently speaking out against his former boss. Moyo has slammed the ruling Zanu-PF party for ”engaging in sunset politics” and attacked its policy of razing shanty towns — which has made 250 000 people homeless — as ”barbaric”.

Zimbabwe has extended the destruction of informal homes and businesses from the cities to rural areas, police told state radio on Friday. A police spokesperson said his force has started tearing down shacks and kiosks found at major crossroads in the Midlands area, as well as homes built without permission.

Police in central Zimbabwe have begun evicting people who settled on former white-owned farms without government permission as part of a countrywide ”clean-up” campaign. Hundreds of white farmers were evicted at the height of the controversial land reform programme when their farms were taken over by militant war veterans.

Zimbabwe’s HIV/Aids prevalence rate has declined from 24,6% two years ago to 21,3%, due to greater Aids awareness and changed sexual behaviour, according to a new study quoted in the state-run daily, The Herald. Zimbabwe is one of the countries hardest hit with at least 3 000 people dying weekly from Aids-related illness.

Zimbabwe police say they have razed more than 20 000 shacks and other structures in what President Robert Mugabe calls an urban clean-up campaign — but what critics at home and abroad have decried as an assault on the poor.

Nearly 100 refugees from various African countries are being detained in Zimbabwe as part of an ongoing police blitz in illegal housing, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. ”Operation Restore Order”, backed by President Robert Mugabe, is believed to have left an estimated 200 000 people homeless and bread supplies scarce.

Police fought running battles on Saturday with supporters of a strike called to protest against the forced eviction of slum dwellers in Zimbabwe. Riot police fired tear gas at protesters in the Chitungwiza township south of the capital, Harare, according to one of the strike organisers.

President Robert Mugabe on Thursday defended the razing of townships and the arrest of thousands of street traders, which has left at least 200 000 people homeless, as a ”vigorous clean-up campaign to restore sanity” to Zimbabwe’s cities.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe opened a session of Parliament on Thursday with a speech defending an unpopular police crackdown on street traders and shack dwellers.He said the clean-up campaign is necessary to ”restore sanity and order” to urban areas.