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/ 18 September 2002
Zimbabwe’s consumer price index (CPI) rose by 135,1%in the year to August, after climbing 123,5% in July, figures from the Central Statistical Office showed on Wednesday.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has used its press-gag laws against another journalist, charging a local reporter with ”publishing falsehoods”.
Senior Zimbabwean officials, including the two vice-presidents and relatives of President Mugabe, have taken farms under the government’s land reforms, according to the country’s Commercial Farmers’ Union. The reforms were promoted as a scheme to benefit landless farmers.
South African and Nigerian envoys were holding separate talks on Monday with officials of Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the Foreign Affairs Department said.
ZIMBABWE’S Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said on Monday that President Robert Mugabe had no trouble travelling to the United States for a UN meeting, despite sanctions that normally should bar him from entering the country.
POLICE arrested and charged a columnist for Zimbabwe’s only independent daily newspaper on Monday, bringing to eight the number of journalists arrested under harsh new media laws critics say are aimed at stifling free speech in the country.
Zimbabwe government’s will abolish the thriving foreign exchange bureaux, at a time when parallel market rates for foreign currency have reached record highs, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa said on Thursday.
ZIMBABWE’s ruling party officials called off talks with the opposition over disputed presidential elections, saying there was nothing to discuss as long as the opposition was challenging the vote in court, the state Herald newspaper reported on Friday.
Some 17,2% of ballots cast in Zimbabwe’s March 9-11 presidential election were ”directly problematic,” the Human Rights Forum of local and international rights groups said on Wednesday.
A former intelligence officer at the Libyan embassy in Harare, Yousef Murgham, has been deported, the state controlled daily The Herald reported on Friday.
Lawyers for Zimbabwean retired judge Fergus Blackie who is facing charges of corruption and obstruction of justice, were on Saturday trying to secure his release through the Zimbabwean High Court.
The steady decline of Zimbabwe’s economy that began four years ago is to continue with real gross domestic product set to fall by up to 12% this year and seven percent in 2003, says the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
President Robert Mugabe on Monday ordered white farmers defying eviction orders to pack up and leave but said loyal farmers willing to cooperate with his government would not be left completely landless.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s successor will not be named until 2006, the state-run Sunday Mail said in an apparent bid to quash speculation the 78-year-old longtime leader could be replaced.
THE Zimbabwe government has warned it will crack down on non-governmental organisations, churches and opposition officials involved in ”subversive” activities.
A Zimbabwean prosecutor told a court in Harare on Monday that a US journalist charged with publishing falsehoods may not be jailed if convicted in a landmark trial under a tough new press law.
The Zimbabwe government has greeted with triumph news that a Commonwealth troika had decided to spare it from further sanctions, calling the decision a victory over colonialism.
A Zimbabwean judge refused on Sunday to release a retired colleague who has been jailed since Friday and accused of bias against President Robert Mugabe’s government.
A white-owned Zimbabwean farm where gunfire had broken out early on Tuesday was calm after police arrived at midday, although about 70 pro-government militants remained on the farm.
A bomb exploded early on Thursday at the offices of Zimbabwe’s Voice of the People (VOP) shortwave radio, destroying one of only two independent radio stations that broadcast inside the southern African country.
Zimbabwe militants hound priest into hiding
Zimbabwe police have picked up a senior opposition member for questioning over last week’s bombing of the offices of a private radio station.
Zimbabwe’s economy lurched into new crisis on Friday as the country’s currency fell 60% in a week and its once world-leading tobacco industry appeared to be heading for oblivion.
Police in Zimbabwe have arrested a 65-year-old retired white judge who ordered the detention of a radical Zimbabwean cabinet minister earlier this year.
President Robert Mugabe has ruled out any possibility of talks with the country’s white farmers, and told them their rights to own property were second to blacks, state radio reports.
Food shortages are worsening in Zimbabwe and aid agencies are struggling to meet demands for emergency relief supplies, the UN’s food agency said in a statement on Thursday.
Police in Zimbabwe’s grain belt are delivering orders to white farmers to get off their land by Sunday, in a move that may finally remove nearly all of them from the area.
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) alleged on Sunday that voters in a key southwestern by-election have been bribed with food and intimidated into voting for the ruling party.
The Zimbabwe government has slammed white farmers who defied orders to cease operations on Monday, saying they were ”unrepentant racists and fascists” bent on attracting attention at the G8 summit.
The United Kingdom should honour its commitments and compensate white Zimbabwe farmers who had lost land during the Zimbabwean land distribution programme, says Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge.
The Zimbabwe government is considering freezing salaries next year to keep prices down, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Five young Zimbabwean opposition activists who were allegedly assaulted and tortured in police custody at the weekend, were granted bail and released on Monday.