Harare

About 50 women from the pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) demonstrated outside the South African embassy in Harare on Thursday, calling for an end to human rights abuses in the country. They were singing protest songs and carrying banners calling for an end to harsh press and public-order laws.

The government of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe will soon lay claim to half of the ownership of all the country’s privately owned mines, the state press reported on Tuesday. The Herald quoted Mugabe as saying: ”We are going to demand that government be given 50% shares in the mines.”

The Zimbabwe government plans to seize farms belonging to bankers who fled the country last year after being accused of mishandling foreign currency. According to a notice published in the state-controlled Herald newspaper on Tuesday, the state will seize nine farms from directors of two banks.

The Harare city council will borrow Z-billion (about R62-million) to restore water to parts of the city that gets only six hours supply a day. The move follows the resignation of all opposition Movement for Democratic Change councillors this month, who said the government was withholding funds.

Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party was ”wasting time” by implementing electoral reforms without taking part in talks with the opposition, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, said on Saturday. Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd of about 15 000 supporters, Tsvangirai said President Robert Mugabe’s decision to implement electoral reforms created a ”challenge” for the Southern African Development Community.

Invoking sweeping security laws, police detained an opposition leader after a series of raids on the homes and offices of government opponents, says Zimbabwe’s main opposition party. Nelson Chamisa, a lawmaker and head of the MDC youth wing, was picked up by police who allege that he held an illegal political meeting.

Zimbabwe police arrested a prominent civil-rights leader on Wednesday for taking part in a protest against a new law clamping down on rights groups, a police spokesperson said. Lovemore Madhuku, the head of the National Constitutional Assembly, was picked up ”for the illegal demonstration held last week”, said a police spokesperson.

Africa’s story should be told by African journalists, not by foreigners who have a tendency to set their own agendas, Zimbabwe’s Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said on Wednesday. He said the current situation ”where the world relied on foreign news agencies for stories about the region was not conducive as there was the risk of distortion”.

Forty-one members of a Zimbabwean civil liberties group, the National Constitutional Alliance, were arrested in Harare on Wednesday, alliance head Lovemore Madhuku said. He said the arrests occurred during a protest against the Zimbabwe NGO Bill, a new law that seeks to ban foreign funding for human-rights organisations.

Large swathes of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, and adjoining towns have gone without water for weeks, forcing residents to store water in often unhygienic drums borrowed from elsewhere in the city. Worst affected are the four-million-strong city’s middle-class eastern suburbs.

A Zimbabwean court on Friday ruled that Briton Simon Mann was guilty of attempting to buy arms for an alleged coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea but absolved 66 other suspected mercenaries. Magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe said: ”The action by the accused [Mann] amounts at the most to attempting to purchase firearms. The accused is found guilty …”

Zimbabwe police have arrested six white commercial farmers in the northern tobacco growing district of Karoi, about 260km north of Harare. Police said the farmers had defied government orders to leave their farms with immediate effect. The country’s Commercial Farmers’ Union did not know if its members had been arrested.

A Zimbabwe magistrate is expected to hand down verdicts on Friday when the trial resumes of 70 suspected mercenaries held on charges of plotting a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. The men, who include Briton Simon Mann, are accused of being at the heart of a conspiracy that allegedly includes Mark Thatcher, son of former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

Zimbabwean intelligence agencies are ”monitoring” cash flows to some foreign embassies in the country. According to a newspaper report, the monitoring is to identify diplomatic missions suspected of funding the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). ”No money is given to us by foreigners,” the MDC said.

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Wednesday it will withdraw from all elections unless the Zanu-PF government abides by electoral protocols ratified by the Southern African Development Community. The MDC has also withdrawn from the Harare City Council.

Zimbabwe’s High Court has ordered the release from custody of Zanu-PF politician and businessman James Makamba, saying all five charges against him should be dropped. Makamba, who has been in prison awaiting charges for six months, was accused of ”externalising” foreign currency.

Sixty-six suspected mercenaries pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of breaching Zimbabwe’s security laws in connection with an alleged plot to topple the president of Equatorial Guinea. The alleged ringleader, Briton Simon Mann, was not among the 66 who pleaded not guilty. He entered separate pleas on July 28.

A Zimbabwe judge was expected on Wednesday to begin handing down sentences as the trial of 70 suspected mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea resumed. ”Today we are expecting judgement, sentencing and trial,” said defence lawyer Jonathan Samkange.

Civic and non-governmental groups in Zimbabwe have vowed to fight a tough new law proposed by the government, which could see them de-registered and cut off from much-needed foreign funding. The proposed Non-Governmental Organisation Bill seeks to tighten regulations around NGOs in the crisis-hit Zimbabwe, whom President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party is accusing of being embroiled in politics aimed at overthrowing his government.

Zimbabwe’s consumer prices dipped 31,7% in July against the previous month but were still 362,9% higher year on year, the official statistics bureau said on Friday. ”The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of July as measured by the all-items consumer price index (CPI) stood at 362,9%, shedding 31,7% points on the June rate of 394,6%,” the Central Statistics Offices (CSO) said.

Zimbabwe’s Sports Minister, Aeneas Chigwedere, accused Britain on Wednesday of pressuring Greece into barring him from attending the Athens Olympics and described the decision as ”completely out of order”. EU member Greece announced on Tuesday it will bar Chigwedere from attending the Olympics.

President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday said military spending will always be a priority to ensure that Zimbabwe’s forces are able to confront ”imperialistic efforts to destabilise the nation”. ”We should always maintain a high level of preparedness,” Mugabe said in a speech.

Nigeria is being used by Britain as a conduit to bankroll Zimbabwe’s main opposition in a bid to unseat President Robert’s Mugabe’s government in next year’s legislative elections, a state-owned paper said on Sunday. The Sunday Mail reported that Nigeria had promised the Movement for Democratic Change at least 200-million Zimbabwe dollars.

Famine has claimed the lives of 152 people, mostly children, in the western Zimbabwe city of Bulawayo, it was reported in Harare on Sunday. The weekly independent Standard newspaper quoted Bulawayo health department records, saying that 29 people had died of malnutrition in July.