President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has refused to sign a controversial new law that would have barred foreign rights groups from operating in the country, a newspaper said on Thursday. Meanwhile, United Nations envoy Joaquim Chissano arrived in Zimbabwe for talks with Mugabe on Thursday.
President Robert Mugabe has told United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan that Zimbabwe will welcome food aid as long as it is not tied to any political conditions. Between two million and five million Zimbabweans face starvation unless 1,2-million tonnes of grain are imported quickly.
Lawyers for Zimbabwe’s former finance minister asked the high court on Tuesday to throw out the charges against Chris Kuruneri of funnelling foreign currency to build a mansion in neighbouring South Africa. Kuruneri was arrested in April last year at the height of the Zimbabwean government’s anti-graft crusade.
Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai appeared in a magistrate’s court on Tuesday for a routine remand hearing on a treason charge over protest marches he led nearly two years ago. His lawyer complained that the state has taken too long to bring the Movement for Democratic Change leader to trial.
President Robert Mugabe has appointed Didymus Mutasa, the head of the country’s secret police, to oversee Zimbabwe’s controversial land-redistribution programme, the government said on Friday. The land-redistribution programme has been dogged by allegations of favouritism and corruption.
Zimbabwe’s state security and immigration officials have been delaying the release of 62 mercenaries from the Chikurubi prison since Monday. The lawyer for the men, Jonathan Samkange, told the Mail & Guardian on Thursday afternoon that ”technically my clients have been released from the custody of prison authorities. They were handed over to immigration who are treating them as illegal immigrants.”
Efforts by Zimbabwe’s banned Daily News newspaper to get back on the streets hit another snag on Thursday when the paper was told to provide more details before it can receive a licence from the state media commission, an executive for the paper said.
Little has changed one year after Zimbabwe earned itself a place on a list of the world’s worst places to be a journalist, published by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Another of the country’s few independent publications, The Weekly Times, was forced to close shop earlier this year, after having its licence withdrawn by the state.
The Zimbabwe government, keen to stem the flight of professionals from the economically-ravaged country, will force some graduates to work in government service. Many professionals will be bonded to government institutions after they graduate in a bid to stop them leaving for better-paid jobs outside Zimbabwe
Union leaders urged Zimbabweans to take action to stave off famine and collapse, warning that they may not make it to next year’s May Day due to worsening food shortages. Zimbabwe has over the past two weeks faced crippling shortages of fuel and power and water outages, while basic foodstuffs such as maize grain are in short supply.
Petrol queues stretched more than two miles through Harare on Friday as President Robert Mugabe’s government effectively admitted that Zimbabwe faced shortages of vital supplies including its staple food, maize. Mugabe has now acknowledged that the chaos stemming from his seizures of white-owned farms has left less than half the country’s farmland under cultivation.
Cars waited in lines 3km long for fuel in Zimbabwe on Friday where a fuel shortage has grown so severe that the usually uncritical state-run broadcaster reported motorists’ pleas for the government to solve the crisis. The shortage is aggravated by a lack of hard currency in a country hit by drought and political turmoil.
Picture a township of 100 000 people going two weeks without water, suffering sewerage bursts, no fuel, and power blackouts that often last half the day.
That is the reality in Mabvuku/Tafara township, one of at least seven Harare suburbs afflicted by the progressive collapse of basic services.
Zimbabweans are reeling under a serious shortage of basic commodities and erratic power supplies following the March 31 parliamentary elections, and experts partially blame this on dwindling foreign exchange reserves and a poor harvest. Captains of industry and trade union leaders say the shortages were anticipated.
Zimbabwe’s new information minister has indicated that the government will take a more tolerant approach to domestic and foreign media and consider protests at current draconian controls. He said his ministry will ”work toward inculcating a culture of trust between all media houses and the government”
Failures in generators at power stations and a fault in a line connecting Zimbabwe with a power grid in the Democratic Republic of Congo were responsible for two days of nationwide electrical blackouts, officials told state radio on Friday. Many areas of the capital, Harare, were without power for 12 hours on Friday.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in power since his country’s independence from Britain in 1980, has reaffirmed he will retire in 2008 and stressed that he is not grooming an heir, a state-owned daily reported on Friday. ”I will never groom a successor,” he said. ”We will never do that. We will never make that mistake.”
Zimbabwean police on Thursday charged a second journalist from a privately owned weekly with publishing false information in an article alleging a scandal over ballot boxes and papers from last month’s elections, a lawyer said. The Standard‘s editor was charged on Wednesday in connection with the same article.
Zimbabwe’s leading opposition party on Wednesday effectively severed ties with the South African government, saying that officials from the neighbouring country could no longer be considered neutral mediators. ”We haven’t broken off talks, but we will not engage with [SA officials] in any capacity where they purport to be facilitators on the Zimbabwean crisis,” said the Movement for Democratic Change’s secretary general, Welshman Ncube.
Police on Tuesday questioned the editor of a privately owned Zimbabwe weekly newspaper after it published an article alleging a scandal over ballot boxes and papers from last month’s elections. The editor was summoned to Harare’s main police station to answer questions about an article stating that police arrested a district administrator found with seven ballot boxes and ballot papers at his home.
President Robert Mugabe on Monday marked 25 years of independence for his country by telling the West to mind its own elections and leave Zimbabwe alone. ”Our elections have not needed Anglo-American validation. They are validated by fellow Africans, and friendly countries from the Third World,” Mugabe said.
Zimbabwe has invited five heads of state and two prime ministers from the Southern African region for its 25th anniversary of independence celebrations. Presidents Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania are expected to attend the silver jubilee celebrations on Monday.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday named a new 30-strong Cabinet, recycling most of the loyal stalwarts who have presided over the Southern African nation for last two decades. Among the few new faces is the former ambassador to the United Nations, Tichaona Jokonya, who was named Information Minister and replaces the controversial Jonathan Moyo sacked early this year.
A quarter of a century after independence, the Chimurenga — or freedom struggle — is still part of Zimbabwean life. President Robert Mugabe continues to make use of this heroic period in the young country’s history to lend legitimacy to his rule.
A Zimbabwean court on Thursday acquitted two British journalists from the Sunday Telegraph newspaper accused of illegally covering last month’s parliamentary elections. ”I find both of them not guilty and I will acquit them,” said Magistrate Never Diza. They still face charges of staying in Zimbabwe beyond their seven-day tourist visas.
President Robert Mugabe thanked China for helping Zimbabwe during its ”time of need” after six trainer jets were delivered to the cash-strapped country on Wednesday, state media reported. The six Karakorum 8 (K-8) jets at Thornhill base near Gweru will be used to train air-force pilots, The Herald reported.
Zimbabwean officials late on Wednesday defied a judge’s order to release two British journalists on bail, two weeks after they were detained near a polling station during Zimbabwe’s parliamentary election. Toby Harnden and Julian Simmonds, of The Sunday Telegraph, have pleaded not guilty to charges of violating Zimbabwe’s Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has acquired six fighter jets ”to deal with any challenges”, state radio reported on Wednesday. It did not disclose the supplier or the price tag, but the report first named them as the ”K-8” and then the ”K-fighter”. Egypt bought K-8 trainers from China at a price tag of -million each, according to a former editor of Africa Defence Journal.
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Lawmakers from Zimbabwe’s main opposition party took up their seats in Parliament on Tuesday despite their refusal to accept the outcome of elections that they say were rigged by President Robert Mugabe’s party. The group of 41 deputies from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were among 150 lawmakers who were sworn in one by one.
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Zimbabwe’s main opposition party said it will take its seats when the country’s new Parliament is inaugurated on Tuesday, despite branding the March 31 parliamentary polls as a massive fraud. ”Our parliamentarians will be there at Parliament today,” said a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesperson.
President Robert Mugabe’s government is to compensate hundreds of white farmers whose land was seized under Zimbabwe’s land-reform programme, a state-run newspaper said on Monday. ”Government has completed fixing compensation for 822 farms compulsorily acquired,” The Herald said.
One of Zimbabwe’s pre-eminent writers, Yvonne Vera, has died aged 40 of meningitis, her friends said on Saturday. Renowned for her poetical novels dealing with issues her fellow writers would rather skirt, Vera was considered one of the most gifted writers to emerge from Zimbabwe.