Harare

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Saturday lashed out anew at homosexuality and also promised to stamp out corruption, which he said was destroying the crisis-ridden southern African nation. ”I’m morally revulsed by homosexuality,” Mugabe told a thanksgiving ceremony.

Zimbabwe’s information minister has dismissed new United States sanctions that target him and other members of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party, saying ”imperialist” Washington could go to hell, a newspaper said on Thursday.

The United States is trying to remove Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe from power with millions of condoms as weapons, state radio in that country said on Wednesday. It said the US is behind the condoms that carry a sticker advertising ”revolutionary condoms” and a message urging Zimbabweans to ”get up, stand up!”.

Zimbabwe’s Daily News is due to challenge the Southern African country’s tough media laws before the Constitutional Court, a lawyer for the paper said on Tuesday. Mordecai Mahlangu said the Daily News, which was shut down by armed police in September, would ”ask for leave to be heard on the constitutional challenge”.

Zimbabwe will repay its long-standing debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid losing membership in the global lender, the state news agency quoted Information Minister Jonathan Moyo as saying on Monday. An IMF board last year said it was initiating the withdrawal of Zimbabwe from the body.

The treason trial of Zimbabwe opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai over an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe ended on Thursday but judgement was not expected for months. The year-long trial wound up with both the defence and state counsel wrapping up their arguments.

A national strike called by Zimbabwe’s largest trade union movement on Wednesday to press for changes in the management of the country’s national pension fund had little effect in the capital, Harare. The city centre was bustling, with the majority of banks, shops and businesses functioning normally.

Prosecutors in Zimbabwe on Tuesday rejected evidence by the defence in the treason trial of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, saying it simply tried to cover up a plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. Prosecutor and acting Attorney General Bharat Patel described the evidence by defence witnesses as ”not quite clear”.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe said he was not prepared to hold talks with the main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai because his Movement for Democratic Change party is a front of the Western powers. He also called some opposition party members, including Tsvangirai, shallow-minded.

Zimbawe’s President Robert Mugabe, who is turning 80 on Saturday, announced on Friday he would retire from power within five years. ”In five years, [I will be] here, still boxing, writing quite a lot, reading quite a lot and still in politics, I won’t leave politics, but I will have retired obviously,” he said.

A Zimbabwean High Court judge, Justice Moses Chinhengo, has resigned without giving reasons, becoming the second judge to leave the bench in a month, the state-owned Herald said on Friday.

President Robert Mugabe, one of Africa’s most combative and enduring rulers, shows no sign of mellowing with age as he turns 80 on Saturday. In the days before his birthday, Mugabe spoke mainly of war — war against the alleged efforts of Britain and the United States to topple his regime, and war against ”economic saboteurs” at home.

Prominent Zimbabwean businesswoman and women’s activist Jane Mutasa and her son Terence have been detained on suspicion of corruption, the latest casualties in President Robert Mugabe’s anti-graft blitz. They were detained under Mugabe’s new anti-graft regulations, which allow for detention of up to 30 days without trial.

Court cases expected to determine the future of Zimbabwe’s popular anti-government newspaper the Daily News were postponed on Wednesday to next month, lawyers said. The two-week delay means the status of the paper will remain uncertain following its closure last September and short-lived reopening last month.

The number of women dying from pregnancy complications has kept rising in Africa, from 870 per 100 000 expectant women in 1990 to 1 000 in 2001, international consultant on reproductive health Joseph Kasonde said on Monday.

Opponents of President Robert Mugabe’s regime were in an uproar on Sunday over new laws that allow authorities to hold suspects accused of economic crimes for up to four weeks without bail.

The treason trial of Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, accused of plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe, reopened on Wednesday with an aide to Tsvangirai saying they had been taken for a ride by a Canadian political consultancy firm.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday said his newly appointed Cabinet remained ”a war Cabinet”, but this time to fight an internal war against corruption. ”It’s still a war Cabinet,” Mugabe told reporters shortly after a ceremony to swear in the newcomers to the Cabinet at State House, his official residence.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was due to swear in his newly reshuffled Cabinet — including a new finance minister and an anti-corruption minister — on Tuesday as the government attempts to pull the economy out of a nosedive. Mugabe also announced two new ministries.

Zimbabwe’s Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku on Thursday postponed a ruling on an urgent government application to ban Zimbabwe’s biggest newspaper, the Daily News, but did not announce a new date for a hearing, lawyers said.

Zimbabwe’s highest court threw out a constitutional challenge to the country’s sweeping media laws on Thursday, making it a criminal offense to work as a journalist without a licence. The Supreme Court ruling effectively puts journalists under the direct control of the government.

President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) has retained the parliamentary constituency seat held by former vice president Simon Muzenda who died last year, Zimbabwean state radio reported on Wednesday.

A member of parliament from Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has died from apparent torture wounds, his party has announced. The MDC alleges that the MP was abducted and severely beaten by a group of about 40 ruling Zanu-PF supporters.

The Law Society of Zimbabwe has barred 40 law firms — about one-seventh of the national total — from practising this year until they renewed their licenses or revamped. Among the banned firms is Artherstone and Cook, which recently represented journalists from the Zimbabwe Independent facing defamation charges.

Zimbabwe’s debt-stricken power supply utility faces a crisis as South African and Mozambican utilities demand up-front payment for supplies, the state press said Sunday. Last week, South Africa’s Eskom switched off electricity to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) for two days because of non-payment.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday said the European Union should not target his government, arguing that his embattled country was more democratic than the majority of African nations. Mugabe made the remarks after meeting the outgoing French ambassador to Harare, Didier Ferrand, weeks ahead of the proposed renewal of sanctions by the European Union.

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was on Thursday frantically trying to get a court order to allow it to hold a meeting in the evening to launch a proposed rescue package for the beleaguered economy. The meeting, at which the MDC’s economic blueprint would be launched, has been denied police approval.