Harare

The Zimbabwean government has now set its sights on foreign newspapers circulating in Zimbabwe. Officials are making threatening noises about foreign publications, including the Mail & Guardian, which they deem to be hostile to the ruling establishment.

Journalists from three banned newspapers would not be able to find work under a government proposal to tighten a section of Zimbabwe’s sweeping media laws, warns the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. The coalition says that such a move would be another blow to press freedom in the troubled southern African country.

More than two million Zimbabweans will suffer from food shortages this year, according to a new report that cast further doubt on government forecasts of a bumper harvest. The report draws its conclusions from a survey done in April, and since then the government has said it is expecting a bumper harvest and will not be appealing for international food aid.

The trial of 70 suspected mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe for allegedly plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea will begin on July 19, a magistrate said on Wednesday. The 70 men were arrested on March 7 when their plane was making a stopover in Harare to pick up weapons, allegedly en route to Equatorial Guinea to topple long-time President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Police arrested 78 women over the weekend when they tried to hold a protest to mark World Refugee Day and draw attention to the plight of Zimbabweans who they say are living like refugees, their lawyer said on Monday. The women, some of them bystanders, were arrested in Bulawayo on Saturday where activists from Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) were attempting to stage a demonstration.

Zimbabwe’s first national Aids conference came to a close on Friday with a call for united action to curb the pandemic affecting one in four Zimbabweans. Aids kills an average 3 000 people per week, out of the 1,8-million infected in the southern African country.

Seventy South African suspected mercenaries being held in Zimbabwe are to apply on Monday for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court after a Pretoria judge refused to order their extradition. The men claim they will not have a fair trial if tried in Equatorial Guinea — the country where the alleged coup was to take place.

The publisher of a banned Zimbabwean newspaper said on Friday that he will go to court next week to challenge the closure of his weekly. Kindness Paradza, publisher of the outspoken Tribune newspaper, said the Harare High Court will on Monday hear his challenge to the year-long closure of the paper announced on June 10 by a state-appointed media commission.

Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge on Wednesday denied that Zimbabwe was snubbing a top UN official on a food assessment mission who was scheduled to meet with government ministers this week. Mudenge told journalist at a press conference, ”You all read big things into small things.”

Poverty and malnutrition are undermining Zimbabwe’s battle against HIV and Aids.
Doctors who have been examining the impact of anti-retroviral drugs in Zimbabwe have found that the anti-Aids drugs are too expensive in a country where some three-quarters of the population live in poverty.

A Finnish woman and her white Zimbabwean husband, both in their fifties, narrowly escaped with their lives on Monday after a savage beating by President Robert Mugabe’s youth militia using iron bars and rocks to try and force them out of the village they live in.

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe has bought 12 fighter jets and 100 military vehicles from China, the opposition shadow defence minister Giles Mutsekwa said on Sunday. The cost of the equipment has not been disclosed but Mutsekwa estimated the deal at around -million.

Seventy suspected mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe three months ago on charges of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea briefly appeared before a magistrate court on Thursday but were not given a trial date. A defence lawyer said the failure to set a trial date showed that the state had no case against the men.

The publisher and three news directors at Zimbabwe’s banned independent newspaper, The Daily News, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of publishing without a licence. The four are facing charges under Zimbabwe’s tough media laws that oblige all news organisations and journalists to be registered by a state commission.

Zimbabwe’s government plans to nationalise farmland by cancelling the titles to all productive land and replacing them with 99-year leases, a senior cabinet minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday. ”In the end all land shall be state land and there will be no such thing called private land,” Lands Minister John Nkomo told the state-owned Herald.

The Zimbabwe government, which has said it has produced enough grain to feed its people, is importing millions of dollars worth of the staple maize grain, a local privately owned paper said on Wednesday. ”Yes, we are importing maize,” Samuel Muvhuti, the acting chief executive officer of the country’s sole state-owned grain marketer, the Grain Marketing Board old the Daily Mirror.

The government in Zimbabwe has proposed new contracts for all internet service providers (ISPs) that will force them to block content or report ”malicious messages” to the authorities. The proposed contract obliges ISPs to ”take all necessary measures to prevent” content inconsistent with Zimbabwe laws to be carried on its network.

A white farmer went before Zimbabwe’s top court on Thursday to challenge parts of the controversial land reform laws under which his property was seized and given to black farmers. George Quinnell and his wife, who owned a farm north of Harare, have been deprived of their only source of income since they were forced to leave their land in December 2002.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe ruled out bringing forward general elections due in March next year, saying they will be held as scheduled to ensure a level playing field, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The 80-year-old leader said it would be ”undemocratic” to call an early poll.

The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, angrily denies that his country needs food aid and rejected charges that his government inflicts human rights abuses in an interview with Sky News released on Monday. In the interview, the first Mugabe has given to British media for several years, the leader clung to his position that the Blair government is responsible for whatever problems his country is facing.

Zimbabwe police on Friday arrested Bornwell Chakaodza, editor of the independent weekly Standard newspaper, and one of his reporters, for the second time in three days, his staff said. ”They came to his house at 7am and took him to the police station,” said David Masunda, deputy editor of the Standard.

About 3 000 Zimbabwean ruling-party supporters on Thursday gathered in Parliament to denounce a prominent white opposition lawmaker who brawled with a government minister during a heated debate in the house. The demonstrators waved placards slamming Movement for Democratic Change lawmaker Roy Bennett.

The editor of Zimbabwe’s independent Sunday paper and a reporter were briefly arrested on Wednesday under the country’s security laws for a story deemed to endanger public safety. Bornwell Chakaodza, the editor of The Standard, was arrested over a story in which family members of a slain mining boss blamed government officials for the death.

Zimbabwean men have become increasingly involved in caring for Aids patients, challenging the stereotype that caring for the terminally ill is women’s work. For 48-year-old Luckson Murungweni, until recently it would have been inconceivable that he would one day be actively involved in caring for the chronically ill.

Zimbabwe’s inflation rate fell by 78,7% in April to 505%, an official newspaper reported on Monday, as the country presses on with efforts to bring inflation down to less than 200% by the end of the year. The Herald attributed the drop to the launch of a new monetary policy in December 2003.

At least 64 opposition supporters have been arrested this week in Zimbabwe’s western region of Lupane ahead of legislative by-elections at the weekend, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe’s government has increased the salaries of its 140 000 workers by 300%, half of the workers’ original demands, a Cabinet minister and union officials announced on Wednesday. Government workers had in January asked for a 600% pay hike to match inflation levels, but the government rejected the demand.

Zimbabwe’s government on Wednesday said the grain harvest will reach more than 2,8-million tons this year, enough to meet the country’s needs, but the opposition said the forecast was ”absurd.” The Movement for Democratic Change estimates that Zimbabwe may face a maize deficit of between 600 000 and 900 000 tons this year.

Zimbabwe has revoked 13 exclusive mining prospecting rights for three companies, including giants Rio Tinto and Anglo American, the government has announced. According to the latest weekly government gazette, the cancelled rights had been granted between two and three years ago.

The Zimbabwe government has told international donors it will not need emergency food aid this year because it expects a bumper harvest, state media reported on Tuesday — a few days after United Nations food agencies had to suspend a crop assessment in Zimbabwe when local administrators interrupted their work.