Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has signed into law a Bill giving local owners the right to take majority control of foreign companies, including mines and banks, a government newspaper reported on Sunday. Analysts fear the move could sound the death knell for an economy that is struggling with the world’s highest inflation rate of more than 100Â 000%.
Accompanied by a village choir, waving fists and miniature ruling party flags, the crowd of several thousand thunders out four words in a constant refrain: "Long live comrade Mugabe." A poet punctuates his recital with long pauses before chanting a string of praises for Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.
European Union member states and the United States have been excluded from a list of observers who will be invited to monitor the March 29 general elections in Zimbabwe, the government announced on Friday. The only European country that had been invited to send monitors was Russia, while the Commonwealth was also left off the invitation list.
President Robert Mugabe, on the campaign trail ahead of March 29 elections, acknowledged acute shortfalls in local food production and said Zimbabweans were being sent to neighbouring countries to speed up the delivery of imported food, state radio reported on Thursday.
A Namibian court on Thursday halted the seizure of four farms owned by German citizens, saying the government had acted unconstitutionally. German land owners Guenther Kessl and Martin Riedmaier last year took the Lands Ministry to court, arguing that expropriation orders discriminated against foreign investors.
Zimbabwe is seeking to rush in maize imports from Southern African states, President Robert Mugabe told an election rally on Wednesday, saying the country faced an emergency. Concerns over widespread food shortages deepened after a government report on Tuesday showed Zimbabwe would fail to meet its targeted harvest this year.
Simba Makoni’s decision to enter the presidential race is a ploy by former colonial power Britain to divide Zimbabweans, a state-controlled newspaper reported President Robert Mugabe as saying on Wednesday. Mugabe told ruling Zanu-PF supporters at a rally that voters have to ”bury British regime-change schemes”, the Herald reported.
Britain said on Tuesday it would support a ban on a tour next year by the Zimbabwe cricket team in protest at President Robert Mugabe’s rule, but the decision was up to the sport’s authorities. The BBC’s Inside Sport said the government was looking at several options to stop next year’s tour.
The British government is considering stepping up the pressure on Zimbabwe by banning its athletes from competing in Britain, the BBC has reported. The Inside Sport programme reported that the ban could notably prevent the Zimbabwe cricket team from touring England next year.
Former Zimbabwe finance minister Simba Makoni has said there will be no backlash against veteran President Robert Mugabe if he topples him at this month’s general election. ”President Mugabe is someone who has a very special place in our history,” Makoni said in an interview, ruling out retribution against Mugabe.
Reviving Zimbabwe’s moribund economy would require inflation-battered citizens to swallow the bitter pill of reduced state spending and higher interest rates to attract foreign cash, analysts say. The ousting of veteran President Robert Mugabe is essential to pave the way for reforms to put the country back on track, they believe.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s deputy, Joyce Mujuru, has thrown her weight behind the veteran ruler’s bid for a sixth term, dispelling speculation linking her to Mugabe’s rival, Simba Makoni. Mujuru was quoted by the state-owned Herald newspaper on Monday as saying: ”Firstly, you should vote for comrade Mugabe”.
Robert Mugabe’s iron grip on his ruling Zanu-PF party is being broken ahead of this month’s presidential election as senior party figures throw their weight behind an unprecedented challenge to Zimbabwe’s president from his former finance minister, Simba Makoni.
Zimbabwean orphans Evans (13) and Edmond Mahlangu (8) crossed a mountain range on foot to get to Mozambique where they are slowly recovering on life-saving Aids drugs in short supply back home. ”We walked for a day in the mountains. We had to keep quiet because of the guards,” recounted the boys’ 17-year-old sister, Emmaculate.
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/ 29 February 2008
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Friday predicted victory in presidential and parliamentary polls next month as he launched the election manifesto of his ruling Zanu-PF party. ”We certainly are going to win,” the 84-year-old leader told thousands of supporters at a rally in the capital, Harare.
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/ 29 February 2008
The head of Zimbabwe’s prison service has ordered his officers to vote for President Robert Mugabe and said he will resign if the opposition wins next month’s election, official media reported on Friday. The Southern African country holds joint presidential, parliamentary and council elections on March 29.
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/ 27 February 2008
Police in Zimbabwe are ready to use force to quell any violence during national elections next month and any unrest after the poll, the official media reported on Wednesday. President Robert Mugabe is accused of holding on to power by using intimidation and rigging to ensure previous election victories.
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/ 26 February 2008
There was no dictator in Zimbabwe, just unwelcome outside interference, its ambassador to South Africa Simon Khaya Moyo said in Pretoria on Tuesday. Britain and the United States were financially backing the opposition because they wanted President Robert Mugabe out of power over his land reforms, Moyo said.
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/ 26 February 2008
There is no dictator in Zimbabwe, just a lot of outside, unwelcome interference in the country’s affairs, the country’s ambassador to South Africa, Simon Khaya Moyo, said in Pretoria on Tuesday. ”Only the people of Zimbabwe can, through the ballot, tell the world who they think has their interests at heart,” he said.
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/ 25 February 2008
Zimbabwean presidential hopeful Simba Makoni said on Monday he would not form a coalition with the main opposition party because it would alienate dissenters in President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party. ”There are a large number of people in Zanu-PF who share my proper vision,” Makoni said in an interview.
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/ 24 February 2008
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe celebrated his 84th birthday on Saturday at a rally aimed at boosting support before elections next month. A laughing Mugabe, wearing a garland of flowers and surrounded by supporters, hit out at the country’s ”enemies” who have criticised his presidency. Mugabe’s actual birthday was on Thursday.
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/ 23 February 2008
As many as 10 000 people began gathering on Friday in a town in southern Zimbabwe for President Robert Mugabe’s 84th birthday celebrations, state radio reported. Organisers of Saturday’s ceremonies said they raised about Z-trillion for the bash — the equivalent of about R1,9-million at the dominant black-market exchange rate.
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/ 22 February 2008
President Robert Mugabe should retire before he faces defeat in elections next month, an aide to a rival whom the Zimbabwean leader branded a ”prostitute” said on Friday. Mugabe hurled the insult at former finance minister Simba Makoni on Thursday in a television interview and vowed to humiliate the opposition.
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/ 22 February 2008
President Robert Mugabe on Thursday compared ex-finance minister Simba Makoni to a ”prostitute” and said he was surprised by Makoni’s decision to challenge him in March presidential elections. In his first reaction to Makoni’s announcement to stand for the presidency in polls on March 29, Mugabe said his decision was ”absolutely disgraceful”.
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/ 21 February 2008
In an unusual show of unity, the two secretary generals of the two factions of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have described the dialogue that was meant to resolve the country’s meltdown as ”dead”, painting a dire scenario for Zimbabwe after its upcoming elections.
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/ 20 February 2008
Zimbabwe’s annual inflation vaulted to 100Â 580,2% in January to set a new world record, but it is still unlikely to cause sleepless nights to President Robert Mugabe’s government facing elections in about five weeks’ time. The jump in inflation is alarming even in the context of Zimbabwe’s extraordinarily collapsing economy.
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/ 20 February 2008
Zimbabwe police have banned the carrying of weapons in public in the capital and the southern town of Masvingo to prevent violence in the upcoming joint presidential and legislative polls. ”Police will use their discretion on any tool that people will be carrying such as walking sticks for the elderly, the blind and disabled, said Harare police commander Isaac Tayengwa.
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/ 18 February 2008
Zimbabwe’s ruling party, shaken by internal divisions and a potentially strong election challenge to President Robert Mugabe, will expel candidates running against its official nominees in the March vote, the official media said on Monday. An independent observer group, meanwhile, has reported widespread vote-buying attempts.
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/ 18 February 2008
The chance of a free and fair election in Zimbabwe is ”good” if all the agreements reached as part of the political facilitation process are implemented, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Monday. Zimbabwe is due to hold joint parliamentary and presidential elections on March 29.
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/ 15 February 2008
With only weeks to go before the Zimbabwean elections, there has been no let-up in the slanted coverage of the campaign by the country’s public broadcaster, according to the independent Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe. It said that it noted with concern that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation showed no sign of observing Zimbabwean law.
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/ 15 February 2008
United States President George Bush cited the London July 7 bombings in an interview broadcast on Thursday night to justify his support for waterboarding, an interrogation technique widely regarded as torture. In an interview with the BBC he said information obtained from alleged terrorists helped save lives
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/ 14 February 2008
Zimbabwe’s annualised inflation rate rose to a record 66 212,3% in December, dealing another blow to President Robert Mugabe’s efforts to pull the once prosperous African nation’s economy out of a deep crisis. Mugabe has made the battle against inflation the cornerstone of his government’s effort to reverse an economic slide.