Harare

A Zimbabwean court has ruled that four directors of the country’s only private daily should stand trial for publishing last month without a license. The four — who own the Daily News — were arrested last month after they resumed publication following a court ruling that they must be issued with a license.

The Zimbabwe government has ordered police to arrest all striking state hospital doctors. Mariyawanda Nzuwah, head of the Public Services Commission, said the doctors face contempt of court charges for ignoring a labour tribunal order that they should end their strike because it was illegal.

The Zimbabwe government, facing critical foreign currency shortages, has deployed riot police in the capital Harare to stop illegal street dealing. The state-run Herald said that the police were now on patrol at an international bus terminus in the city centre, which is a haven for illegal money changers.

Zimbabwe’s High Court this week concluded hearing a landmark opposition challenge to President Robert Mugabe’s victory in last year’s presidential election.
It was not immediately clear when Judge Ben Hlatshwayo would make his ruling in the case brought by the MDC, but legal sources said it could take weeks, even months.

The High Court in Zimbabwe on Monday began hearing a challenge by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai against President Robert Mugabe’s victory in last year’s disputed polls. The hearing comes 18 months after Tsvangirai first filed a petition against the election.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is due in court on Monday to challenge President Robert Mugabe’s contested victory in last year’s polls. Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), wants a rerun of the election that returned his 79-year-old rival to office.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe plans sweeping changes to his cabinet and the central bank in a bid to kickstart the faltering economy, state media reported on Saturday. Mugabe blames the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for failing to stem the black market in foreign currency.

Hundreds of nurses at Zimbabwe’s state hospitals have called off a strike after the government promised to address their demands for steep pay increases, according to a newspaper report. The government said it would respond to the nurses’ demand for a 7 000% increase within one week.

A Zimbabwean magistrate’s court on Wednesday placed four directors of the independent newspaper The Daily News on remand, quashing a defence bid to have the charges against them dropped. The four are facing charges of contempt of court and publishing the newspaper without a licence.

The publisher and three directors of The Daily News in Zimbabwe were to appear in court on Tuesday after being arrested for publishing without a licence, but the hearing was delayed for no stated reason. Company lawyer Gugulethu Moyo speculated police were merely seeking to punish the owners of the newspaper.

Zimbabwe police on Monday charged four more directors of The Daily News for publishing the country’s only independent daily without a licence, the paper’s legal adviser said. Publisher Samuel Nkomo was also being charged with ”obstructing the course of justice”.

A director of Zimbabwe’s Daily News was arrested on Sunday, a day after police again shut down the troubled southern African country’s only independent daily newspaper. The arrest of Washington Sansole in Bulawayo came after police occupied the paper’s offices in the Harare on Saturday and briefly detained 18 staff members.

The trial of Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, set to resume next week, has been postponed for the second time. The marathon trial, which started in February this year, was supposed to see Tsvangirai being cross-examined by state lawyers on his role in allegedly plotting the assassination of President Robert Mugabe.

Police in Zimbabwe have released 78 civil rights protestors arrested earlier this week for demonstrating for a new Constitution, a rights group official said on Friday.

White farmers in Zimbabwe now own just three percent of the country’s land, according to a long-awaited audit of the country’s controversial land reform programme. According to an audit published in the Herald newspaper, white farmers own 1 377 farms, or roughly 1,2-million hectares.

Zimbabwe’s annual auction of tobacco, once the motor of one of Africa’s most vigorous economies, closed on Monday at its lowest volume in nearly 50 years, with even an even gloomier future for the next season’s crop. Sales on all three auction floors ended with 80,2-million kilogrammes of smoking leaf — less than half last year’s 166-million kilogrammes.

A judge hearing an appeal by Zimbabwe’s only private daily newspaper, shut down by the government, questioned on Friday why the country’s media law was not applied when the paper was refused a licence last month.

Up to 70% of male Zimbabwean prisoners have sex with other males in jails where the HIV prevalence rate is estimated to be 60%, the state-owned Ziana news agency said on Tuesday.

Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate rose 29 points last month to 455,6% from the August rate of 426,6%, with meat and bread prices rising sharply, official data showed on Tuesday. The rise was seen mainly in the average prices of meat, bread, cereals, fruits, vegetables and beverages.

A senior journalist for Zimbabwe’s Financial Gazette, Cyril Zenda, has reported to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) that he was robbed and attacked by a vigilante group in Harare last week. Zenda told MISA-Zimbabwe that he was spotted by a vigilante group known as Chipangano when he got off a bus at the main bus terminus in Harare.

South Africa’s High Commissioner to Zimbabwe was on Thursday barricaded into a former white-owned farm by angry black settlers, state television reported. The television said the incident occurred when High Commissioner Jeremiah Ndou visited a farm in Mashonaland West, northern Zimbabwe with a television crew from the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

Scores of workers, among them labour leaders, were arrested on Wednesday in Zimbabwe’s capital when they gathered to protest at high taxation, inflation and alleged rights abuses. The protesters were rounded up by heavily armed riot police and made to sit down on the pavement in downtown Harare before they were taken away in police cars.

The Zimbabwe government has said it played no part in the controversial shutting down of the country’s only independent daily paper, a fierce critic of President Robert Mugabe, and vowed not to meddle in the embattled paper’s fate. ”We have no time to waste with things like this,” Information and Publicity Minister Jonathan Moyo said.

The food crisis in Zimbabwe is worsening, with a majority of the country’s districts having exhausted their food stocks, according to a United Nations report. An estimated 5,5-million Zimbabweans will require emergency food aid by early next year, out of a regional total of 6,5-million.

The Daily News, Zimbabwe’s independent newspaper that was banned by President Robert Mugabe’s government late last month, on Thursday continued its battle in the country’s courts to be allowed to resume publishing. In the past week, 16 of its journalists have been charged with ”publishing an illegal newspaper”.

Hopes by Zimbabwe’s only private daily to resume operations have been shattered after the High Court dismissed its application to have equipment seized by police returned. Judge Tendai Uchena dismissed the application but gave no reason for his decision.

Fuel prices in Zimbabwe have been increased for the fourth time this year, climbing by up to 75%. The new prices will apply to ordinary motorists while public transport companies and government departments will continue to buy their fuel at a highly subsidised rate.