Senator Tambudzani Muleya Mohadi, the former wife of Vice President Kembo Mohadi has been imprisoned for 90 days for breaching a court order that barred her from visiting the Vice President’s businesses and properties.
An application for civil imprisonment was brought against Tambudzani by her former husband through his lawyer Norman Mugiya of Mugiya and Macharaga Law Chambers.
The matter was heard on Wednesday afternoon at Beitbridge Magistrate Court by Langton Mukwengi.
Magistrate Mukwengi granted the application for civil imprisonment but suspended the whole term for 24 months. Tambudzani will go to jail if she breaches the contract within that period.
The couple’s divorce application was granted by the High Court in March this year.
Tambudzani who is feared by many in Beitbridge sat in the gallery unmoved as Mukwengi made his ruling. She however, would quietly exclaim as allegations of violence including that she broke keys to buildings were made against her.
She was represented by Julius Maposa of Masawi and Partners Law Firm.
Maposa remained holed in the court room after the ruling in fear of Tambudzani who he claimed could do anything on him if he left the court while she was still outside.
The lawyer told the court that Tambudzani has been harassing the VP and his workers since the divorce.
“She harassed him from head to toe”, said the lawyer.
Editorial|Mthwakazi Republic Party have issued a statement, and several others for that matter, claiming that Ndebele speaking people in Zimbabwe are discriminated on tribal grounds leading to their calls for the cessation of Matabeleland from mainstream Zimbabwe.
In the latest statement published on ZimEye.com, the Mthwakazi Republic Party claims that Ndebele student nurses are deliberately failed at Mpilo Hospital nursing school in Bulawayo and accuse a named hospital official for the vice.
Is this perception real or just imaginary?
Have your say in our morning Twitter poll on the link below:
By A Correspondent- A 26-year-old man Bulawayo man left his neighbors in shock after he slaughtered and braaied his dog in their full view and he also threatened other dogs with a similar fate.
According to sources a drunk Jacob Mwanza, popularly known as “Nyaguza”, had a tendency of not only patting his dog, but fond_ling it as well. He also told his neighbours that one day he would slaughter his dog commonly known as My Lady.
On the day in question Mwanza came home drunk on Wednesday last week and started shouting at his tenants in the family house demanding meat for a braai.
“He shouted and asked for meat for braai when he came home drunk. He then slaughtered My Lady in view of the public,” said MaNcube, one of the residents.
It is understood Mwanza slaughtered My Lady and had a braai until members of the public reprimanded him.
“He slaughtered his dog and had a braai. Residents tried to reprimand him for eating dog meat but Mwanza became radical and ordered the community to respect his rights,”said Brian, one of the residents.
Mwanza told B-Metro that he slaughtered his dog after being inspired by a television show, Ultimate Braai Master.
He denied that he ate dog meat.
“I can’t remember what really happened because I was drunk. I love braai and was inspired by Braai Master show to slaughter my dog but it is a lie that I ate dog meat,” said Mwanza, looking a bit dazed.
“People want to tarnish my image and I know that members of the community have a grudge on me,” said Mwanza.
Student nurses caught celebrating their graduation
Media Statement|We have been inundated with calls and messages from the public following the Mpilo tribal fiasco. A lot of people have expressed gratitude and many thanks to Team MRP for standing up for them. According to information at hand there has been a lot of abuse within the nurse training circles.
A senior official at Mpilo told us that the last professional management staff was that of the late Mahlangu’s executive. The rest are ZANU PF puppets, a Majada who is now a lecturer at NUST is said to be one of the culprits who came to Mpilo through his ZANU PF links and in the business of terrorising Ndebele students and soliciting for bribes, she is one of those fingered in taking bribes from aspiring nurses mostly from Masvingo.
This Majada is said to have marked down 20 Ndebele students most of which are now roaming the streets of Johannesburg in South Africa aimlessly after spending three good years at Mpilo. The information we have also suggest that the current principal tutor knows the story and was part of those who marked and failed down Ndebele students.
The senior official at Mpilo told us that some of them survived by grace of God, even though they were threatened too, the current tutor literally refused to give them confirmation of training letters to go to Harare to register simple because they were Ndebele. They had to take her to the lawyers, she even had the guts to threaten lawyers and Majada is a highly corrupt individual who messed up Mpilo Hospital using ZANU PF links.
A nurse at Brunerbag also confirmed that indeed Ndebele students experienced hell at Mpilo because of these people. The poor Ndebele nurse training students and those who wishes to be nurses some day are actually looking forward to an open and independent commission to look into their matters.
We were given some of the names of those who were deliberately failed for being Ndebele and these include former students Nozimiso Moyo, Prudence Mali, Ntando Ndlovu, another Ntando Ndlovu, Nomaqhawe Mgutshini, Grazyana Mehlomakhulu, Pretty Mikitai a Matabeleland student with Shona roots, Samukeliso Ndlovu, Ziphozethu Mabhikwa and Tretchie Bhebhe.
At UBH at the time there used to be a Mrs Mbuya who was so corrupt to the point of selling exam papers to students to solicit money. The failed students accuses Mrs V Majada ‘former’ principal tutor, Mrs Juliet Dube and current principal tutor Mrs S Moyo for corruption. This is a team that worked together in sidelining and undermining Ndebele students including a Mrs Mashonga who used to fail every Ndebele student in the ward, working with Sister-in-charge Sister Mchena.
While these remain allegations, we don’t expect this to be taken lightly, some of the reason we went to Mpilo to meet management was also to iron out such matters for the good of all of us, the intention was not to publish this but to seat and discuss, we still await their call though we don’t trust they will honor their word hence we had to alert who so ever cares to listen and correct the anomalies at such an important and strategic institution like Mpilo Hospital.
We condemn perpetrators of tribalism and nepotism in the strongest terms and we demand that the nurse training course in Matabeleland be suspended pending investigations into the allegations of tribal segregation and subjugation. Mthwakazi Republic Party remain committed and resilient in defense of Mthwakazi, we still await a reasonable response and a mutual dialogue with the relevant authorities we won’t allow this matter to lie down and or to continue like this.
Paul Nyathi|Sadc Election Observer Mission headed by Zimbabwean Defence and War Veterans Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri is so far the only observer group to have certified the Mozambican elections as free, fair and peaceful.
The group claims the elections were consistent with the regional body’s principles governing democratic elections.
In its preliminary statement issued by Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri in Maputo on Thursday, the regional bloc comprising 61 observers said the political and security situation of presidential, legislative and provincial elections were peaceful with campaign rallies in areas observed proceeding unhindered, a situation that went on until voting day.
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who chairs the Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, appointed Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri to head the Sadc Election Observer Mission.
“The Mission observed that the 15 October, 2019 elections in Mozambique were held in line with the revised SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections (2015),” she said.
“The Mission also observed that CNE (National Electoral Commission) generally discharged its mandate in terms of the Constitution and Electoral Law of Mozambique including conducting training of polling officers, police, judges and journalists.”
However, the Election Observation Mission of EISA (Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa), which observed the Mozambican general elections held on Tuesday, has called for the depoliticisation of the Mozambican election apparatus altogether.
In its preliminary statement on the elections, issued on Thursday, EISA argues that the political parties should be moved out of the election administration bodies.
“While the political party model of election administration may be considered inclusive”, says EISA, “the representation of political parties within the technical structures of the election management body compromises the technical competence, independence and professionalism required of the institution at technical level”.
The politicisation of election bodies dates back to the 1992 peace agreement between the government and the Renamo rebels, when Renamo demanded the right to appoint a third of the future National Elections Commission (CNE). Since then, political parties have played a dominant role inside each and every CNE.
Much worse, the politicisation has extended into the CNE’s executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE). All three parties represented in parliament – Frelimo, Renamo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) – appoint members at every level of STAE, national, provincial, city and district. Thus there are hundreds of political party appointees looking over each other’s shoulders inside the electoral bodies.
EISA says that, after working for 15 years in Mozambique, it believes “that the partisan model of election management needs to be reconsidered for a more independent model”.
Yet whenever suggestions are made to take the political parties out of the electoral bodies (in 2008 and 2012, for example), there is a howl of rage from Renamo. However, the politicisation has not worked in Renamo’s favour. Because Frelimo is the largest party in parliament, it has an effective majority of the political appointees on the political commissions and in the various branches of STAE.
EISA also notes the dispute over the voter registration in the southern province of Gaza, where the number of registered voters is starkly at odds with the 2017 census. There are 330,000 more people on the Gaza electoral register than there are adults of voting age in the projection for 2019 from the census – clearly an impossible figure.
EISA noted that “a credible voter register is the foundation of a credible electoral process”, and regrets that the dispute over Gaza was not solved before the elections.
It suggests that the ten yearly census should be used as the basis for allocating parliamentary seats. It believed that the allocation of seats “on the basis of voter registration figures rather than the population census figures entrenches the practice of politicising voter registration statistics”.
EISA also criticises Mozambique’s lax rules on election finance. The law only mentions the public funding of election campaigns, and has nothing to say about private funding. “There are no ceilings on private donations to campaigns”, EISA noted. “This gap leaves the electoral process open to the undue influence of private donor and illicit funds”.
Muchinguri Kashiri’s mission expressed concern on sporadic armed insurgencies in the northern parts of the country, as well as attacks on civilian vehicles in Manica, Sofala and Cabo Delgado provinces.
It also took note of the isolated incidents of violence and attacks reported in some districts such as Gondola, Gorongosa, Manhiça and Xai-Xai.
“In addition, despite the natural calamities caused by cyclones Idai and Kenneth that largely affected the provinces of Sofala and Cabo Delgado, the Technical Secretariat for the Administration of Elections (STAE) managed to provide tents, which were used as polling stations in areas where infrastructure was destroyed,” said Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri.
“The Mission is of the view that these developments did not compromise the overall conduct of the elections in the country.”
Some challenges were also observed which included the disputes surrounding the registration of voters in Gaza province, the outcome of which is yet to be advised by the Attorney-General, inadequate arrangements in some polling stations to enable the people with physical disabilities and special needs to vote, the tying up of the validity of voter registration to each electoral cycle in terms of the law which the mission felt it might pose financial and administrative challenges.
On access to the media, the mission said despite allegations of bias against the public media by some stakeholders, the mission observed that advertisement of campaign messages was generally extended to political parties in the elections.
State Media|People from all walks of life, including Government officials, yesterday reacted with outrage to a proposal by the Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC) for tertiary institutions to introduce uniforms for female students, ostensibly to avoid sexual abuse.
Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni equated the proposal to the abuse of women.
“We shouldn’t respect the uniform, but the person,” she said. “It means we are saying our men have no respect for women, but uniforms. The issue is not about uniforms, but respect for each other as human beings. There is no reason why we should abuse other people.”
Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira said the idea was not a law.
“Universities Acts have no statutes that regulate wearing of uniforms,” he said.
“However, it is a very free country and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion as this is not a directive.”
University of Zimbabwe’s Zimbabwe Congress of Students Union secretary-general Wilbert Muzaruwetu said the issue was not about what one wore, but perceptions.
Instead, he said, ZGC should do a survey of at least 50 000 people and see if it would come up with such recommendations.
SAYWHAT, a non-governmental organisation, said a dress code for the students would be an act to further reinforce the dictates of patriarchy in which society was always policing the dressing of women.
“Having a dress code cannot be sustainable way of addressing the issue, what needs to be changed are the attitudes of the perpetrators, transformation of gender norm is needed in which men can respect women and their rights irrespective of what they are wearing,” said the organisation in a statement.
“The proposed solutions must not be skewed towards putting the blame on women. Having a dress code is tantamount to direct indictment that women are being sexually harassed because of the clothes they wear.
“There is limited correlation on the two as societies have witnessed that even women who dress in the so-called modesty and decent ways are sexually harassed, while others become victims of rape while dressed in long skirts and dresses.”
The uproar arose after ZGC legal and investigations manager Ms Delis Mazambani is alleged to have said: “During the weekend, the students can then wear whatever they want, but when attending lectures, they need to be guided on how to dress and this makes it easier for lecturers to pinpoint that according to the university’s policy you are not dressed appropriately.”
Following media backlash, ZGC through its chairperson Margret Mukahanana said the message was blown out of proportion, as one of their officials only made reference to the uniform issue as an example during a public lecture with a local university.
“The commission’s series of sexual harassment at tertiary institutions continues this morning (yesterday) at ZOU,” she said in a statement. “Our previous engagements with such institutions have been very successful.
“We look forward to get another progressive meeting with students and staff at ZOU.”
Posters calling for a vote for President Nyusi of Mozambique.
Paul Nyathi|Unofficial results in Mozambique’s elections point to sweeping victories for the ruling Frelimo party and President Filipe Nyusi, prompting some analysts to question the credibility of the polls and warn that the lopsided result may prolong the country’s instability.
Mozambique’s electoral commission has not released any official results yet, but the Sala da Paz consortium of Mozambican civil society organizations said it projects that Nyusi won 71% of the vote, far ahead of 21% for Ossufo Momade, leader of the Renamo opposition party. The estimates are based on the group’s calculations of results posted outside polling stations.
The Frelimo party, in power since the end of Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, looks set to dominate the parliamentary elections and may win most of the 10 provincial governor positions, according to the civic group, the Center for Public Integrity.
Renamo’s Momade is in a tight race for governor of Nampula, Mozambique’s most populous province, according to unofficial results.
Mozambique held general elections Tuesday, with pundits saying it could be the biggest test yet for Frelimo, the party which has been in power since independence. The president said the elections are being closely observed. But civil society groups say thousands of would-be election monitors were denied credentials by the authorities.
Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, probably never stood a chance. It would have needed ghostbusters to really beat the ruling Frelimo in the elections. That’s because legions of “ghost voters” were decisive, if not in securing victory for the ruling party, then at least in giving it the landslide which now looks inevitable.
Part of the rigging was observed right here in Zimbabwe where hundreds of Zimbabwean citizens were bussed from all corners of Masvingo Province to Nemamwa Business Centre where they voted at a Polling station pitched there for Mozambican diaspora voting on Tuesday.
Local tabloid, The Mirror of Masvingo, conducted interviews with some of the unsuspecting voters who said that they were Zimbabweans and actually Zanu PF supporters who were bussed in to vote for Frelimo.
A large number were hungry people from Mucheke high density in Masvingo town who were paid for their service
The voters were brought in ZUPCO and InterAfrica buses and The Mirror witnessed some being paid US$5 each.
Frelimo and Zanu PF are long time allies who waged the war of liberation for Mozambique and Zimbabwe jointly.
Among other alleged acts of election rigging, the tightly Frelimo-controlled electoral authorities registered hundreds of thousands of voters more than the numbers of eligible voters, some election analysts said.
Frelimo’s overkill may well collapse the recent peace deal with Renamo, which has pulled out of the vote count, crying foul.
Though results are not yet official, Frelimo’s apparent triumph – with sitting President Filipe Nyusi likely to win about 71% of the vote and Frelimo a two-thirds majority in Parliament – has surprised many Mozambique observers because the party was widely perceived to be unpopular.
The result has reinforced the belief among many Mozambicans and some outside analysts that the vote rigging was even greater than usual in a country where the ballot has never been regarded as completely secure.
Former president Ian Khama is the wild card in next week’s (October 23) Botswana elections. His bitter public fallout with his successor Mokgweetsi Masisi has made the outcome uncertain and raised some concerns about political and economic post-election stability.
Up to now, it’s been largely a given that the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) will always win, as it has done in the past 11 elections since independence in 1966. But Khama’s angry departure from the party has threatened to end its unbroken run of victories.
Stung by Masisi’s ditching of many of his cherished policies, damaging his legacy, curbing his ex-presidential privileges, and allegedly using undemocratic manoeuvres to win the BDP’s presidential nomination, Khama is backing a new party. The Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) is an ‘ad hoc loose electoral alliance’ with the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), the opposition coalition presenting the greatest threat to the BDP’s chances.
This alliance could hurt the BDP mainly by splitting its rural vote, especially in central Botswana – the seat of Khama’s Bamangwato chieftainship. This has always been the heartland of the BDP.
Khama’s angry departure from the BDP has threatened to end its unbroken run of victories
But it’s complicated. The BPF was formed recently, and by then the UDC had already nominated its candidates. So in many seats the UDC and BPF candidates are standing against each other, which could split the opposition vote enough to give the BDP victory. And the BDP and many analysts believe that associating with Khama and the BPF will conversely dent the UDC’s chances in the urban areas, which are its stronghold, and where Khama isn’t widely popular.
When Khama was in office, the UDC lobbied for him to be arrested on corruption charges. Now they are in the same coalition. Even within the UDC leadership there is some open dissatisfaction about this alliance. Prince Dibeela, deputy leader of the Botswana National Front, the main party in the UDC, told ISS Today in Gaborone recently that it had been a ‘blunder’ to ally with Khama’s BPF.
Pundits also caution against over-simplifying the electoral arithmetic. In the 2014 elections the BDP lost the popular vote, winning around 47%. It was saved by Botswana’s first-past-the-post constituency system which gave it 37 seats to the opposition’s 20.
Even on a constituency-by-constituency basis, the UDC and Botswana Congress Party’s (BCP) combined votes would have given them more seats than the BDP. In 2014, though, the UDC and BCP were separate. Now they have joined forces in the UDC.
The UDC has made many populist promises, such as creating 100 000 jobs in a population of 2.2 million
Will that give the UDC victory next week? Not necessarily. One of the many reasons is that the UDC has also changed since 2014, losing two of its important constituent parties. And if Khama is an unpredictable factor in these elections, so is Masisi. Many believe he has made a reasonably good start at cleaning out corruption and building necessary infrastructure and that he is more engaging than the rather austere former military commander Khama.
The net effect of all these changes could be another victory for Masisi’s BDP, two Batswana analysts said at an Institute for Security Studies seminar this week. Both Keith Jefferis, former deputy governor of the Bank of Botswana and now director of Econsult, and University of Botswana political scientist Leonard Sesa, stressed however that the election was still too close to call.
The UDC and others argue that victory for them would put the seal on Botswana’s democratic credentials as it would be the first time power had passed from one party to another.
Economist Jefferis worries, though, that the UDC has made too many populist promises in its election manifesto, such as creating 100 000 jobs (in a population of 2.2 million), tripling the minimum wage and increasing old-age pensions. He fears that tripling the minimum wage would collapse jobs in an economy where unemployment is already some 30% (including those discouraged from seeking jobs).
The only way the UDC could create 100 000 jobs would be in the public service which already employs 45% of the country’s workforce. And that would collapse the economy.
If the UDC/BPF wins the election, it will struggle to hold together because of internal tensions
Jefferis and Sesa both predicted that if the UDC/BPF won it would have difficulty holding together because of its internal tensions. Even more so if it failed to secure a majority of seats and had to seek more coalition partners.
Even Masisi and the BDP would face major economic challenges if they won, Jefferis said. Although Botswana has lessened its dependence on diamonds, which contributed about half of GDP 20 years ago to about 20% today, it’s still too dependent on the gems, which constitute about 80% of exports. Strong diamond exports inflate the pula and make other exports uncompetitive, aggravating Botswana’s abiding challenge of diversifying its economy.
Jefferis noted that the BDP – like other regional ruling parties – talks a lot about ambitious economic plans such as creating a knowledge economy and harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Instead what Botswana really needs is just to get the basics right – such as fixing roads and traffic lights; avoiding 3 km queues of cargo trucks at the South African border because waybills can’t be accessed online; ensuring schools have textbooks; and cutting back on the public service. Diplomats ISS Today spoke to added a few other vital reforms, such as privatising state-owned enterprises and slashing the state boards that still control much of the economy.
It is striking how many of Masisi’s challenges mirror those of his neighbour South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, including having to retain in his cabinet too many holdovers from the past regime to secure his party base. If Masisi wins, Jefferis says, he has to quickly make the necessary reforms, allowing enough time for them to impact the economy before he faces the electorate again.
For over half a century, Botswana has been an island of peace and stability in a stormy regional sea. But was that stability founded purely on the fact that one party has ruled since independence?
If the BDP is defeated next week, will that change? Will it refuse to accept defeat and provoke an opposition backlash? And if the BDP wins again, will the UDC/BPF cry foul and take to the streets? Most Batswana say no, and they’re probably right. But then again they haven’t really been here before.
Paul Nyathi|He may clearly be the world’s busiest man.
A 94-year-old father of over 100 children, Nulu Ssemakula, recently expanded his household by marrying four new wives in Ruyonza, a largely polygamous village in Uganda.
Ssemakula has been successful in expanding his family boasting of more than 19 wives with whom he has had more than 100 children and is still counting. His youngest child is 10 months old now and the youngest wife, who is 24 years old is pregnant. He currently lives with 66 of his young children. While some of his children have grandchildren, the 94-year-old says he still hopes to have more children and even marry more women.
Ssemakula married his first wife in 1952, who was soon joined by five others. They still live together.
“I unfortunately lost four of my wives while others who needed more than I could afford, I let them go. But they left me with children; I will still marry more if I still have more years and even have more children. In children and wives, is where I find my pleasure. That is my true wealth,”Ssemakula says.
According to Daily Monitor newspaper of Uganda, Ssemakula has set up a mosque and a primary school (Kiyombero Primary School), a coffee huller and a dairy milk cooling machine in the village to cater for his family. Surrounded by the homes of his children and grandchildren, Ssemakula’s home is a relatively huge house with red ironsheets. The house is accessed by only one entry where the old man is often seated on a bench as he watches over his “empire”.
It is a typical agricultural homestead and the family provides the much needed manpower for the vast coffee plantation.
Paul Nyathi|Fudu primary and secondary schools in Nkayi, Matabeleland North Province, have been closed for three weeks after teachers fled in terror when female teachers woke up wearing their male counterparts’ trousers.
Goblins are said to be behind the bizarre incident which has disrupted public examinations at the institutions.
As if that was not enough, one of the male teachers claimed that whenever he was at the school grounds he would fall into a trance and see the shoes of a teacher who they suspected to have been killed by another teacher at the school.
He said since the last week of September they had faced a hellish time at the hands of the alleged spirit of the late teacher.
Now word doing the rounds is that the spirit of the late is hovering at the school and tormenting teachers.
“ There are two teachers who fought for the position of deputy head and subsequently one died mysteriously and we firmly believe that her spirit is the one that is hovering at the school and disrupting lessons,” he said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity a female teacher confirmed that she and her female counterparts woke up wearing trousers.
“I have not seen anything like that! It’s strange. Just imagine about six of us strangely woke up wearing trousers of our male colleagues,” said the female teacher.
As a result teachers fled the school and pupils at both schools have been left stranded.
A teacher said pupils who were sitting for examinations were affected.
“This thing has left pupils who are sitting for final public O-level examinations greatly affected because they have to walk more than 18 kilometres to Mpumelelo High School where it has been arranged they sit for their examinations.
“This has put the pupils’ preparations for end of year examinations into disarray as it has disturbed their preparations and it’s not known whether they will write examinations or not,” said the teacher.
Parents have been left worried and with the aid of the local leadership have sought the services of a witch-hunters.
A villager from Ward 22, Robert Moyo, said each community member contributed $5 to pay the witch-hunters.
“The pupils who have been disturbed are from Ward 22 and Ward 23 and those wards have more than 200 homesteads respectively. We divided ourselves into two groups.
“Some slept at the primary school while some slept at the secondary school.
“We were asked to sing for the whole night and at around 3am they (witch-hunters) conducted cleansing but they failed to get rid of the beings which they claimed are goblins,” he said.
Village head Victor Mloyi said witch-hunters had failed to exorcise the school of the goblins.
“They have tried to root out the beings for a week but they have failed. We are worried. After paying they tell us they cannot root it out.
“Now we are want to engage Chief Sikhobokhobo to plan the way forward,” said Mloyi.
Provincial education director Matabeleland North province Jabulani Mpofu confirmed the incident: “I can confirm that Fudu Primary School and Fudu Secondary have been affected by beings suspected to be goblins. The local leadership has engaged witch-hunters to exorcise the schools.”
He could not be drawn to explain how they would help pupils sitting for end of year examinations.
Serbian government adopted strict stance against war crimes.
Paul Nyathi| Below is a commitment made by the government of Serbia in 2015 on dealing with people suspected of having committed war crimes:
“The Government of the Republic of Serbia is aware that war crimes constitute delicta contra juris gentium and that their prosecution is a concern of the international community as a whole, not just one national judiciary. The Government’s position is that all grave, large-scale and systematically committed war crimes have to be investigated and the perpetrators punished in accordance with international standards, regardless of national, ethnic and religious affiliation or status of the offender and the victim.
In the regard, Advocate Jacob Mudenda, speaker of the parliament of Zimbabwe must not be allowed to leave Serbia without being tried for his war crimes against the people of Zimbabwe.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday threatened to kill people while at a business trade meeting in Bulawayo.
Mnangagwa was addressing delegates at the launch of the Zimbabwe National Trade Policy Vision and Export Promotion Strategy and the 2019 ZimTrade Annual Exporters conference at the ZITF when he said:
“But if you decide to say to yourselves you are bulls, I don’t know who of you will survive. This journey is long you might think that today you have succeeded, but on the day you realise you have not at all succeeded it will be too late. ”
Sibusiso Moyo, Mugabe coup announcer leads the mission
BOTSWANA Movement for Democracy (BMD) president Sydney Pilane has said Zimbabwe, whose 2018 harmonised elections were disputed, has no moral authority to lead the Sadc Election Observer Mission (Seom) supervising polls in that country set for October 23.
Zimbabwe Foreign Affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo was appointed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to lead the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) Election Observer Mission for Botswana’s 2019 general elections as part of Zimbabwe’s responsibility as the chairperson of the Sadc organ on politics, defence and security.
Pilane on Monday said those officials — Moyo and his observer mission — from countries that don’t hold credible elections must not be included in observer missions.
“Those who are observing must come from a credible board. I think there is need to remember that in some Sadc countries no election takes place altogether and how can you rely on judgments of people who come from such states.
“Secondly, some Sadc states cannot hold credible elections and yet they get citizens and officials from those countries included in observer missions. I think these elements came to undermine rather than promote credibility. I think Sadc needs to reflect on those matters. When they send up teams let them be independent and credible teams,” said Pilane.
In his response, Moyo defended the Sadc Election Observer Mission, saying some of them will learn how to hold credible elections in their own countries.
“All countries are expected to participate except the country which is the subject of the observation. There is no country which has got a perfect system so to speak. In fact, stakeholders themselves always indicate certain loopholes. When it culminates into recommendations at the end we then expect the host nation to consider and adopt the recommendations.
“If the membership is from a country that does not hold election, maybe it is a way of learning and maybe in future it will then have elections. We are guided by the AU, UN and Sadc charter. Whether a country has a different background in any case it does not follow,” said Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs minister. Zimbabwe has a history of disputed elections marred by violence.
MDC president Nelson Chamisa has been brawling with Mnangagwa ever since he lost last year’s elections — whose result he vigorously challenged and lost at the Constitutional Court. He even went to the extent of accusing the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission of manipulating the presidential poll results in favour of the Zanu-PF leader. – dailynews
Paul Nyathi|President Mnangagwa has issued an unspecified but tough action on striking hospital doctors, describing them as being stubborn.
Mnangagwa warned the striking doctors who have not been reporting for work for nearly two months, saying that his Government was aware of external forces propping the industrial action.
He was speaking while addressing the first edition of the Rural District Councillors Meeting in Harare on Thursday.
Mnangagwa said Government was aware that some doctors were working with external forces to destabilise the health sector.
“Two months ago, we raised their salaries and they came back again saying the value of the money had been eroded and we offered them a 30 percent increase which they rejected and we increased it to 60 percent which they rejected again,” he said.
“After going through what is happening, we have discovered that there are a few individuals who are getting outside influence and then coming to influence others to continue with the strike. But what we are saying to the doctors is that you are Zimbabweans and the sick people are also Zimbabweans.
“There is no country that doesn’t have problems, so we should sit down and talk while you are at work. But if you insist on being stubborn, we will see where it will get you to. You might think what you are doing is right, but we will see what will happen at the end.”
The doctors have refused to go back to work even after the Labour Court ruled that their actions were illegal and appealed against the Labour Court ruling.
The doctors have responded to Mnangagwa indicating that they will not be intimidated by his threats.
Dr Peter Magombeyi leader of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association Twitted on Friday morning indicating that the doctors will remain resolute on their demands.
30% or 60% of 0 is zero @edmnangagwa. Doctors are subsisting on a salary less than $80(USA)/month Our doctors will remain disabled and no amount of coercion and intimidation will resolve the situation. To our patients: moyo yedu inokushuvai. Hope to review you soon!
Paul Nyathi|Leader of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Associating, Dr Peter Magombeyi has responded to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s assertion that striking doctors are being unreasonable by refusing to accept a 60% salary increase offer from government.
In a Twitter message from South Africa where he is currently recovering after receiving hospital attention for torture and possibly poisoning after being abducted by suspected state security operatives, Dr Magombeyi reminded doctors’ employers that 60% of nothing will still give back nothing.
He reiterated the doctors’ stance that they will not be intimidated to resolve the impasse with government.
30% or 60% of 0 is zero @edmnangagwa. Doctors are subsisting on a salary less than $80(USA)/month Our doctors will remain disabled and no amount of coercion and intimidation will resolve the situation. To our patients: moyo yedu inokushuvai. Hope to review you soon!
Mnangagwa said the striking doctors were working with external forces to destabilise the health sector.
“Two months ago, we raised their salaries and they came back again saying the value of the money had been eroded and we offered them a 30 percent increase which they rejected and we increased it to 60 percent which they rejected again,” he said.
“After going through what is happening, we have discovered that there are a few individuals who are getting outside influence and then coming to influence others to continue with the strike. But what we are saying to the doctors is that you are Zimbabweans and the sick people are also Zimbabweans.
GOVERNMENT has reportedly docked the salaries of some striking doctors who downed tools 47 days ago and refused to go back to work even after the Labour Court declared their job action unlawful.
Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) secretary-general Tawanda Zvakada yesterday said while some striking doctors received their monthly pay, most of them did not.
“We did not receive our salaries. Some did, but the majority did not. We are writing a letter to the Health Services Board (HSB) to ask why,” Zvakada said.
This comes as HSB chairperson Paulinus Sikhosana earlier this month said the government would be implementing the no work, no pay principle on the striking doctors.
“The principle of no work no pay happens everywhere in the world. Every employer knows that if you do not work, you don’t get paid,” Sikhosana said.
The Labour Court ruling said that the striking medical practitioners who downed tools on September 3 should be paid provided they go back to work 48 hours after the judgment, which was issued last Friday.
Health and Child Care minister Obadiah Moyo, during a tour of Harare Hospital yesterday, told the media that government will honour its side of the deal by making sure doctors would get the promised 60 percent allowance increment before the end of this month.
By Simba Chikanza| The Speaker Of Parliament Jacob Mudenda is set to check out of his hotel in Belgrade at 10am.
Yesterday criminal charges were filed against him under the war crimes category here in Serbia. If Mudenda escapes Serbia, these charges are under international law meaning he can be arrested in any corner of the world. (SEE THE LIVE BROADCAST LAST NIGHT).
He was incriminated for acts prescribed under Serbia’s Article 384 (paragraph 2) of the Criminal Code – Non-preventing of Criminal Acts against humanity and other internationaly protected freedoms, commited by responsible political figures.
COMMENT –
We have perhaps the best opportunity in national history since 1980 to effect justice and stop crimes against humanity.
This campaign is for legal expenses here in Serbia. So far Criminal Charges have been filed against Speaker Of Parliament Jacob Mudenda after he in an interview admitted that the military was used to change Zimbabwe’s 2018 election results (filmed LIVE at the IN Hotel, Belgrade 13th Oct). There is more that is needed to be done. VIDEO BELOW –
State Media|SENIOR netball team coach Lloyd Makunde has been sacked ahead of the Africa Netball Cup that gets underway in South Africa today.
The Zimbabwe Netball Association (Zina) executive led by Leticia Chipandu fired Makunde after he complained about his unpaid allowances from the 2019 Vitality Netball World Cup held in Liverpool, England, where he guided the Gems to an eighth-place finish against all odds in their maiden appearance in the global finals.
Zimbabwe has been drawn in Pool B and will open their tournament against Uganda today before facing off with Kenya tomorrow and Tanzania the following day.
Despite preparing the team for the South African trip, Makunde was surprisingly booted out at the last minute and replaced by his deputy Ropafadzo Mutsauki.
Mutsauki was immediately caught up in a selection storm yesterday after an audio of her allegedly talking to a former Harare City player Christine Gandanzara, who turns out for Beta Queens, which is affiliated to the splinter Rainbow Amateur Netball League, went viral.
In the audio, the person identified as Mutsauki is heard telling the player to come back to Harare City if she wants to be included in the national team.
“Just phone Dorothy (Harare City team manager), apologise and tell her you want to return to the team. Once you have done that, I will make sure you are in the squad. Your place (in the squad) is guaranteed as long as you humble yourself and return. I have been calling you on numerous occasions without success and you don’t even bother to return my calls.”
FORMER Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko’s wife Laurinda is among bigwigs that include former ministers, business people and sport personalities who stand to lose their properties if they do not pay Bulawayo City Council’s (BCC) dues within 30 days.
BCC yesterday released a lengthy list of individuals and companies that owe it substantial amounts in rates for their properties.
The defaulting bigwig list includes former Bulawayo Provincial Affairs Minister Mrs Eunice Nomthandazo Moyo, former Minister of Water and Water Resources Development and Management Mr Samuel Sipepa-Nkomo, former Tsholotsho Senator Believe Gaule, former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor, Dr Gideon Gono and RBZ Deputy Governor Dr Kuphukile Mlambo.
Also on the list is former Warriors captain Benjani Mwaruwari, soccer legend Agent Sawu and a Gift Banda, believed to be Njube-Lobengula MP who is also former Njube Sundowns owner and former Bulawayo deputy mayor.
In a third and final public notice yesterday, BCC advised all those whose properties have been listed to make necessary payments within 30 days or risk losing them.
“Notice is hereby given to the owners of the above listed properties to come forward and make necessary payments to council within the next 30 days. Failure to do so will result in council disposing of the said properties in terms of Section 5 of the Title Registration and Derelict Lands Act, Chapter 20:20, which reads as follows; ‘whenever there remains due and unpaid for the space of five years any rate or assessment payable to any municipality or other public body upon any immovable property in Zimbabwe and such property is abandoned, deserted and left derelict and the owner thereof cannot be found, it shall be lawful for the person or body claiming such rate or assessment to apply to the High Court, stating the amount claimed to be due and the grounds for applying for relief under this Act,” reads the notice from council.
Derelict land is land whose rates had not been paid for a period of five years and above.
Most properties that the local authority has threatened to repossess are in the affluent eastern suburbs.
Anzac Investments formerly owned by the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo, the National Railways of Zimbabwe, Zimre Properties, White Pear Farming Co, Bulawayo Glass and Allied Products, constitute some of the companies set to lose their properties. Mrs Mphoko is set to lose property on stand number 14440 Selbourne Park while Mr Sipepa-Nkomo will lose 347 Mahatshula stand. Mrs Moyo’s 43 Whitestone property, Dr Mlambo’s 259 Whitestone stand in Hillside suburb and Cde Gaule’s 2349 stand in Mahatshula have been listed for repossession. Banda is alleged to be in arrears over his 7 Chelsea Court property situated at 38A Jason Moyo Street. Mwaruwari owes council rentals on four properties, 64, 65 and 66 as well as 247 Mqabuko Heights in Matsheumhlophe while Sawu, a former Zimbabwe Saints and Warriors striker who also had playing stints in Switzerland, Cyprus and China owes council on his Whitestone property in Hillside suburb. Chronicle
Mnangagwa arriving in Bulawayo in his huge hired jet
President Emmerson Mnangagwa summoned a private jet from France to fly him the round trip to Bulawayo from Harare, ZimLive can reveal.
The US$30,000-per-hour Boeing 737 flew 11,330km to pick up the Zanu PF leader, whose government is accused of profligacy in the face of a deepening economic crisis.
With doctors on strike over poor pay and public sector workers declaring they are no longer able to report for work after their salaries were wiped out by hyperinflation, the government has so far snubbed growing demands to cap Mnangagwa’s runaway travel bill.
The luxuriously-fitted jet owned by Royal Jet of the United Arab Emirates developed a technical fault in Lyon, France, last week just before Mnangagwa was due to fly to Harare. The government booked him another private jet from Abu Dhabi.
The previously stricken jet, registration A6-RJX, finally took off from Lyon on Wednesday and flew straight to Harare to position for the 35-minute flight to Zimbabwe’s second city, data from flight-tracking websites shows.
Mnangagwa officiated at the ZimTrade Annual Exporters’ Conference in Bulawayo.
“Once again we get a whole luxury aircraft hired from Dubai to fly Mr Mnangagwa from Harare to Bulawayo when doctors can’t even afford to catch a taxi to work,” MDC treasurer David Coltart said. “The callousness and insensitivity of this regime to the appalling suffering of people is now simply disgusting.”
State Media|President Mnangagwa yesterday warned businesses against relentless price increases, saying the Government will be forced to take action against such practices.
He said a meeting will be held next week between the Government and business to find ways of resolving unwarranted price increases.
The President also warned striking doctors, who have been absconding from duty for nearly two months, and said Government was aware of external forces propping up their illegal industrial action.
He was speaking while addressing the first edition of the Rural District Councillors Meeting, where he touched on welfare issues affecting the generality of the population.
“Wherever I am going these days, people are complaining about the ever-increasing prices of basic commodities, saying you promised to whip such business into line. So where is that whip?
“As a father, you don’t discipline your children every time they do something wrong, but just warn before taking any action.
“However, I think we have reached a point where action has to be taken because we don’t see any reason why there is this continuous rise in prices.”
President Mnangagwa said the meeting with the business community, being organised by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, will give the Government an opportunity to appreciate their challenges.
He said the Government secured funding for the establishment of Silo Shops, mainly in rural areas where the most vulnerable live.
“We now have the funding and we have identified seven commodities that would be subsidised,” said President Mnangagwa.
“These include mealie-meal, salt, sugar and cooking oil, among others. These shops target the rural populace who are facing the most difficulties.”
Mnangagwa said Government was aware that some doctors were working with external forces to destabilise the health sector.
“Two months ago, we raised their salaries and they came back again saying the value of the money had been eroded and we offered them a 30 percent increase which they rejected and we increased it to 60 percent which they rejected again,” he said.
“After going through what is happening, we have discovered that there are a few individuals who are getting outside influence and then coming to influence others to continue with the strike. But what we are saying to the doctors is that you are Zimbabweans and the sick people are also Zimbabweans.
“There is no country that doesn’t have problems, so we should sit down and talk while you are at work. But if you insist on being stubborn, we will see where it will get you to. You might think what you are doing is right, but we will see what will happen at the end.”
The doctors have refused to go work even after the Labour Court ruled that their actions were illegal.
President Mnangagwa told the gathering that he will launch a further 100 Zupco buses before the end of this month, as Government continues to work towards cushioning citizens from high transport costs.
“I will be launching these (100 buses) before the end of the month and I have agreed with the Minister (of Local Government Cde July Moyo) that the distribution be done with a bias towards rural areas this time,” he said.
Paul Nyathi|Social media has reacted to an old picture of mobile phone giant service provider Econet Wireless founder, Strive Masiyiwa with the late father Zimbabwe, Joshua Nkomo.
Seemingly, familiar faces are appearing in the picture. Let us know who you know. Check the picture below:
This is what Strive Masiyiwa recently said about his relationship with Joshua Nkomo, commenting on his Facebook thread.
The late Dr Joshua Nkomo loved me like a dear son. In the last years of his life he would just call for me, like a priest, and I would sit there quietly as he reminisced about his life.
Sometimes I read him tracks from a little Bible I carried in my pocket. I keep a picture of him, in which I’m praying for him.
At times I would go into his bedroom and listen to him as he lay there.
Often times he would fall asleep whilst talking and I would just sit there for however long and wait for him to wake up again. I never left even to go and come back.
He once told me that there were so many things in the Unity Accord [that he signed to end the conflict] that he did not like. He gave me intimate details of his anguish that often led me to tears.
“So why did you sign, baba?” I asked quietly.
“I looked at the suffering of the people. You must always try to do something if you see your people suffering.”
Again he said to me: “Don’t allow anger or bitterness to cloud your judgment. See I’m working with Mugabe.”
Those words rung in my ears when I rushed to help end Cholera, not once but twice. It is what propelled me to rush to join the campaign to end the Ebola pandemic in West Africa. It propels me when I think of little Leah Sharibu’s plight in the hands of Boko Haram.
As the cycle of his life ebbed to its end, I would often go to the hospital to see him with his wife, known affectionately as “Mafuyana”.
“When he sees your face, he lights up despite the pain,” she told me once. “I can’t understand his love for you.”
We did not come from the same tribe, nor were we related. He taught me everything about love of nation, and the African continent.
And when he died, she made a special request to President Mugabe, which he granted despite the latter’s deep animosity towards me at the time.
I did something at the Heroes Acre to commemorate our special relationship. Later I set up a scholarship in his memory, that has educated the most brilliant young people from Zimbabwe, and other nations since his death.
Joshua Nkomo is the greatest man I ever had the honor and privilege to know personally. If I can be just 10% to the mentor to you, that he was to me, then my life will be fulfilled considerably.
“I looked at the suffering of the people. You must always try to do something if you see your people suffering.”
State Media|Fired Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Prisca Mupfumira yesterday appeared in court on fresh charges of criminal abuse of office and money laundering after allegedly conniving with a local bank to defraud the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) of millions of dollars.
She was jointly charged with former Secretary for Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Ngoni Masoka.
The charges also emanate from an incident where she used money from the ministry to sponsor people who attended her child’s wedding in Cape Town, South Africa.
Harare provincial magistrate Mr Hosea Mujaya ordered Mupfumira and Masoka to abide by bail conditions that apply to their previous records following prosecutor Mr Michael Reza’s request.
Mr Mujaya deferred the matter to October 22.
The court heard that sometime in 2013, a local bank defaulted in repaying a US$25,3 million investment loan to NSSA that was secured with properties worth around US$32 million.
It is alleged that NSSA took over the bank’s properties that it held as surety to a value of US$25,3 million on a purchase/sale agreement.
As a result of the default, NSSA classified the bank as a high-risk client not worth trading with.
In December 2014, Mupfumira was appointed Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare.
Five days after her appointment, she allegedly held a meeting with the bank’s representatives at the ministry’s offices where minutes were recorded.
On December 16, 2014 Mupfumira and Masoka reportedly held another meeting with the then NSSA general manager James Matiza and the bank’s officials at the ministry offices.
The court heard that Mupfumira instructed NSSA to financially bail out the bank to the tune of US$15 million as it was facing liquidity challenges.
NSSA reportedly declined since the bank had previously defaulted over the US$25,3 million loan advance.
Mupfumira allegedly disregarded all that and went on to give Matiza instructions to seriously consider the bank’s loan request and process a loan of US$15 million to settle the bank’s US$5 million depositors credit and US$10 million for use in housing projects and bring feedback the following day.
No minutes on the meeting were recorded.
NSSA resolved to decline the US$15 million loan request after considering the bank’s risk status, but Mupfumira and Masoka forced the authority to buy the bank’s properties worth US$4 908 050.
It is the State’ case that after buying the properties and after NSSA had transferred money into the bank’s account, Mupfumira received US$44 600 from the bank through her company, Beautyview Investments Pvt Ltd, where she is a director together with her children.
It is alleged that when Mupfumira received the US$44 600, she was aware that the deposits were proceeds of crime and that they were meant to disguise the true nature, source and location and disposition or ownership with respect to the money.
All the money was used to offset a negative balance on her company account of US$39 777,14.
The court heard that sometime in July 2015, Mupfumira and Masoka unlawfully caused the purchase of a Toyota Land Cruiser VX-L 200 series from Croco Motors using US$90 000 corruptly obtained from NSSA on June 2, 2017.
Mupfumira directed her ministry’s finance director Memory Mukondomi to write a letter to CMED misrepresenting that the vehicle bought using NSSA funds was a NSSA vehicle, inferring that it would be taken back as it was appearing in NSSA audited financial statements.
It is alleged that as a result of the misrepresentation, CMED issued Mupfumira with a Jaguar.
Masoka accepted the vehicle into the ministry and wilfully neglected to inform the President and Cabinet as the appointing authority.
The court heard that Mupfumira effectively ended up having three personal cars instead of two, according to her conditions of service.
Sometime in October 2017, after she left the ministry, Mupfumira allegedly asked to buy the three vehicles and was given permission to do so knowing fully well that they were proceeds of crime.
In 2016, she instructed Mukondomi to pay tickets for her aides — Kutyamadzo Shumbayaonda, Sphiwe Dhliwayo and Alexandria Bwerinofa — using Government funds.
The three were to attend her daughter’s wedding in Cape Town, South Africa. It is alleged that on December 15, 2016 Mupfumira and Masoka unlawfully authorised payment of the air tickets from the Ministry National Drought Fund RBZ account.
They authorised Mukondomi to pay additional air tickets for seven Ministry directors and that of Masoka to travel to same wedding.
It is alleged that the two purported that the officers from the Ministry were travelling on Government business.
The court heard that Mupfumira and Masoka also ensured hotel accommodation for the seven officials at Cape Town Hotel, and Mupfumira’s relatives booked at Lord Charles and Southern Sun hotels using National Drought Account Funds.
Mupfumira and Masoka further incurred an unlawful R16 427 expenditure payment of taxi services using Ministry funds. Their actions prejudiced the ministry of US$10 215 and R113 539.
Meanwhile, former NSSA director contributions and collections Barnabas Matongera appeared before the same magistrate facing charges of criminal abuse of office after he connived with Mupfumira and represented NSSA in signing the Mzenya Gweru housing off-take agreement that prejudiced the authority of US$6,5 million
ZESA workers have a hand in the rampant vandalism and theft of electricity infrastructure, which has cost the country millions of dollars and led to disruption of efficient power transmission across the country, President Mnangagwa said yesterday.
The power utility needs at least US$40 million to replace more than 4 000 transformers, which have been vandalised across the country. It has also lost up to 1 000km of power lines to cable thieves, according to recent reports.
Responding to a question on the matter during a plenary session at the on-going 2019 ZimTrade Annual Exporters’ Conference in Bulawayo, the President said Government was disturbed by reports of power transmission disruptions linked to vandalism of electricity infrastructure and the attendant negative impact on ordinary people and business operations.
“We are convinced that those who steal transformers either work for Zesa or are related to Zesa workers because you need some degree of information and technology to steal these transformers, and you must know that there is some danger involved,” said President Mnangagwa.
“Transformers are being stolen countrywide and we need to find a way to stop this stealing.”State media
PRESIDENT Mnangagwa yesterday directed all businesses in the country to comply with the new monetary policy regulations as there is no going back on the use of the Zimbabwe dollar for all local transactions.
Addressing local and international business executives at the 2019 ZimTrade Annual Exporters’ Conference in Bulawayo, the President said Government was strengthening its monitoring and compliance systems to buttress the use of local currency.
“In line with our country’s laws, all companies must insist on the use of our local currency for all local transactions,” said President Mnangagwa.
“Going forward, Government will continue to strengthen monitoring and compliance mechanisms.” The return of the Zimbabwe dollar has become a topical issue among locals and abroad since its re-introduction in June this year, as people seek to gain an understanding of its implications on the economy.
In particular, the public has raised concern about the impact of the policy shift on their earnings, spending power and general livelihood.State media
ZIMBABWE Cricket chairman, Tavengwa Mukuhlani, says an extension of sanctions from the International Cricket Council could have led to the collapse of the country’s second biggest sporting discipline.
However, following the lifting of the suspension, Mukuhlani says domestic cricket was now set to open a new chapter for the game where it won’t be business as usual.
The process of healing has now begun at ZC with players and staff, who had gone for almost five months without receiving salaries and match fees, now set to get their dues.
The association is opening a new leaf following the lifting of their suspension by the ICC this week. Mukuhlani yesterday told a media conference normal business has resumed at the association after a difficult three months.
The game was on the brink of collapse, in the wake of their suspension by ICC on July 18, which led to the freezing of funds and the banishment of representative teams and officials from participating in all ICC-sanctioned events.
“Any further sanctions would have signalled the death of cricket in our country and – at the risk of sounding too emotional – I do not make this statement lightly,’’ Mukuhlani said.
“But, as I address you, I do so with delight. Indeed, I am elated that the ICC has reinstated us, with all our rights as a Full member of the ICC.’’ Zimbabwe’s men and women’s teams missed the 2020 ICC T20 World Cup qualifiers.State media
SOCIALITES Pokello Nare and Jackie Ngarande on Wednesday came to ailing popular actor Lazarus Boora’s rescue after they poured much of the money needed towards settling the medical expenses accrued during his surgery.
Known as “Gringo”, Boora went under the knife at CitMed in Chitungwiza on Tuesday after suffering from to an appendix rapture. Gringo’s wife, Netsai Meki, thanked the two for their gesture. “I would like to thank Pokello Nare and Aunty Jackie (Ngarande) for their contributions.
“May God bless them for the love and kindness they have shown to my husband!” she said. Gringo’s wife said the two paid $12 100 for the surgery and $2 000 in hospital admission fees.
Meki was also grateful for contributions made by Gringo’s employer, the arts community and other well-wishers.
“I am extremely grateful to my husband’s boss, Archibald Dumbira of Sabi Bananas, who paid the initial admission deposit of $8 000.
“He has also committed to look for more money to contribute towards other medical expenses. “I am also grateful to many other people, among them artistes and the generality of Zimbabweans, who have been chipping in. Your love and kindness touches my heart. “I pray that you continue with your good work helping others who are in need.”State media
Farai Dziva|Manchester United have been delt another blow ahead of their potentially explosive Premier League game against Liverpool on Sunday after it was revealed that Paul Pogba will miss it due to injury.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men host Jurgen Klopp’s run-away leaders at Old Trafford and Pogba becomes the second ‘regular’ player this week to be confirmed out of the historic clash, after goalkeeper David DeGea limped off in Spain’s Euro 2022 qualifier against Sweden.
Solskjaer confirmed that the Frenchman will miss the clash.
“He came back and played a couple of games, maybe played through the pain barrier,” the Norwegian told MUTV.
“He had a scan after the Arsenal game and maybe needed a few weeks’ rest in a boot, so hopefully he won’t be too long, but he won’t make this game, no.” he added.
Table of contents
Heart disease is a term covering any disorder of the heart.
Unlike cardiovascular disease, which describes problems with the blood vessels and circulatory system as well as the heart, heart disease refers to issues and deformities in the heart itself.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia. One in every four deaths in the U.S. occurs as a result of heart disease.
Fast facts on heart disease
One in every four deaths in the U.S. is related to heart disease.
Coronary heart disease,
arrhythmia , and myocardial infarction are some examples of heart disease.
Heart disease might be treated with medication or surgery.
Quitting smoking and exercising regularly can help prevent heart disease.
Types
There are many different types of heart disease.
There are many types of heart disease that affect different parts of the organ and occur in different ways.
Congenital heart disease
This is a general term for some deformities of the heart that have been present since birth. Examples include:
Septal defects : There is a hole between the two chambers of the heart.
Obstruction defects: The flow of blood through various chambers of the heart is partially or totally blocked.
Cyanotic heart disease: A defect in the heart causes a shortage of oxygen around the body.
Arrhythmia
Arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat.
There are several ways in which a heartbeat can lose its regular rhythm.
These include:
tachycardia , when the heart beats too fast
bradycardia, when the heart beats too slowly
premature ventricular contractions, or additional, abnormal beats
fibrillation, when the heartbeat is irregular
Arrhythmias occur when the electrical impulses in the heart that coordinate the heartbeat do not work properly.
These make the heart beat in a way it should not, whether that be too fast, too slowly, or too erratically.
Irregular heartbeats are common, and all people experience them. They feel like a fluttering or a racing heart.
However, when they change too much or occur because of a damaged or weak heart, they need to be taken more seriously and treated.
Arrhythmias can become fatal.
Coronary artery disease
The coronary arteries supply the heart muscle with nutrients and oxygen by circulating blood.
Coronary arteries can become diseased or damaged, usually because of plaque deposits that contain cholesterol.
Plaque buildup narrows the coronary arteries, and this causes the heart to receive less oxygen and nutrients.
Dilated cardiomyopathy
The heart chambers become dilated as a result of heart muscle weakness and cannot pump blood properly.
The most common reason is that not enough oxygen reaches the heart muscle, due to coronary artery disease. This usually affects the left ventricle.
Myocardial infarction
This is also known as a heart attack, cardiac infarction, and coronary thrombosis. An interrupted blood flow damages or destroys part of the heart muscle. This is usually caused by a blood clot that develops in one of the coronary arteries and can also occur if an artery suddenly narrows or spasms.
Heart failure
Also known as congestive heart failure, heart failure occurs when the heart does not pump blood around the body efficiently.
The left or right side of the heart might be affected. Rarely, both sides are. Coronary artery disease or high blood pressure can, over time, leave the heart too stiff or weak to fill and pump properly.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
This is a genetic disorder in which the wall of the left ventricle thickens, making it harder for blood to be pumped out of the heart. This is the leading cause of sudden death in athletes. A parent with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy has a 50 percent chance of passing the disorder on to their children.
Mitral regurgitation
Also known as mitral valve regurgitation, mitral insufficiency, or mitral incompetence, this occurs when the mitral valve in the heart does not close tightly enough. This allows blood to flow back into the heart when it should leave. As a result, blood cannot move through the heart or the body efficiently.
People with this type of heart condition often feel tired and out of breath.
Mitral valve prolapse
The valve between the left atrium and left ventricle does not fully close, it bulges upwards, or back into the atrium. In most people, the condition is not life-threatening, and no treatment is required. Some people, especially if the condition is marked by mitral regurgitation, may require treatment.
Pulmonary stenosis
It becomes hard for the heart to pump blood from the right ventricle into the pulmonary artery because the pulmonary valve is too tight. The right ventricle has to work harder to overcome the obstruction. An infant with severe stenosis can turn blue. Older children will generally have no symptoms.
Treatment is needed if the pressure in the right ventricle is too high, and a balloon valvuloplasty or open-heart surgery may be performed to clear an obstruction.
Symptoms
The symptoms of heart disease depend on which condition is affecting an individual.
However, common symptoms include chest pain, breathlessness, and heart palpitations. The chest pain common to many types of heart disease is known as angina , or angina pectoris, and occurs when a part of the heart does not receive enough oxygen.
Angina can be triggered by stressful events or physical exertion and normally lasts under 10 minutes.
Heart attacks can also occur as a result of different types of heart disease. The signs of a heart attack are similar to angina except that they can occur during rest and tend to be more severe.
The symptoms of a heart attack can sometimes resemble indigestion.
Heartburn and a stomach ache can occur, as well as a heavy feeling in the chest.
Other symptoms of a heart attack include:
pain that travels through the body, for example from the chest to the arms, neck, back, abdomen, or jaw
lightheadedness and dizzy sensations
profuse sweating
nausea and vomiting
Heart failure is also an outcome of heart disease, and breathlessness can occur when the heart becomes too weak to circulate blood.
Some heart conditions occur with no symptoms at all, especially in older adults and individuals with diabetes .
The term ‘congenital heart disease’ covers a range of conditions, but the general symptoms include:
sweating
high levels of fatigue
fast heartbeat and breathing
breathlessness
chest pain
a blue tint to the skin
clubbed fingernails
In severe cases, symptoms can occur from birth. However, these symptoms might not develop until a person is older than 13 years.
Causes
Heart disease is caused by damage to all or part of the heart, damage to the coronary arteries, or a poor supply of nutrients and oxygen to the organ.
Some types of heart disease, such as
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, are genetic. These, alongside congenital heart defects, can occur before a person is born.
There are a number of lifestyle choices that can increase the risk of heart disease.
These include:
high blood pressure and cholesterol
smoking
overweight and obesity
diabetes
family history
a diet of junk food
age
a history of preeclampsia during pregnancy
staying in a stationary position for extended periods of time, such as sitting at work
Having any of these risk factors greatly increases the risk of heart disease. Some, such as age, are unavoidable. For example, once a woman reaches 55 years of age, heart disease becomes more likely.
Treatment
There are two main lines of treatment for heart disease. Initially, a person can attempt to treat the heart condition using medications. If these do not have the desired effect, surgical options are available to help correct the issue.
Medication
A very wide range of medication is available for the majority of heart conditions. Many are prescribed to prevent blood clots, but some serve other purposes.
The main medications in use are:
statins, for lowering cholesterol
blood thinners, such as warfarin, for preventing blood clots
beta-blockers , for treating heart attack, heart failure, and high blood pressure
angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, for heart failure and high blood pressure
Your doctor will work with you to find a medication that is safe and effective. They will also use medications to treat underlying conditions that can affect the heart, such as diabetes before they become problematic.
Surgery
Heart surgery is an option for people with heart disease, but it can be debilitating.
Heart surgery is an intensive option from which it can take a long time to recover.
However, they can be effective in treating blockages and heart problems for which medications may not be effective, especially in the advanced stages of heart disease.
The most common surgeries include:
angioplasty, in which a balloon catheter is inserted to widen narrowed blood vessels that might be restricting blood flow to the heart
coronary artery bypass surgery, which allows blood flow to reach a blocked part of the heart in people with blocked arteries
surgery to repair or replace faulty heart valves
pacemakers, or electronic machines that regulate a heartbeat for people with arrhythmia
Heart transplants are another option. However, it is often difficult to find a suitable heart of the right size and blood type in the required time. People are put on a waiting list for donor organs and can sometimes wait years.
Prevention
Some types of heart disease, such as those that are present from birth, cannot be prevented.
Other types, however, can be prevented by taking the following measures:
Eat a balanced diet. Stick to low-fat, high-fiber foods and be sure to consume five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables each day. Increase your intake of whole grains and reduce the amount of salt and sugar in the diet. Make sure the fats in the diet are mostly unsaturated.
Exercise regularly. This will strengthen the heart and circulatory system, reduce cholesterol, and maintain blood pressure .
Maintain a healthy body weight for your height. Click here to calculate your current and target body mass index (BMI ).
If you smoke, quit. Smoking is a major risk factor for heart and cardiovascular conditions.
Reduce the intake of alcohol. Do not drink more than 14 units per week.
Control conditions that affect heart health as a complication, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
While these steps do not completely eliminate the risk of heart disease, they can help improve overall health and greatly reduce the chances of heart complications.
Exercise is one easy way to keep heart disease at bay.Health News Today
Zimbabwe has suffered from unrelenting onslaught from Europe and America. The onslaught is done in the form of sanctions which has brought zimbabwe to its knees.
Zimbabwe has struggled for seventeen years under the sanctions. It has been difficult to import or export any products. Throughout the years Zimbabwe had slowly been reduced to a jungle. It is the Zimbabwean citizens who suffered more from these sanctions. The sting of the sanctions was so poisonous that Zimbabweans left their country enmas in search of the greener pastures. Countries who were beneath us economically overtook us. Or dollar slowly was devalued until it was nowhere to be seen. It changed its name from dollar to paper to bond. We had to swallow our national pride and abandon our currency. Ironically we adopted a United States dollar which seemed to stabilise things yet in actual fact it plunged the country in deeper mud.
How did we get these sanctions In 2002 the European Union imposed restrictive measures, including among other matters, a freeze on the assets of selective members of the Government of Zimbabwe and individuals associated with them. The EU cut off 128m euros in development aid for the 2002-2007 period.
Foreign ministers of the 15 European countries made their decision after hearing a report on the situation in Zimbabwe from Pierre Schori, the head of the EU’s monitoring team. Schori was in Zimbabwe where he went in bed with the MDC. The MDC was led by Tsvangirai with Welsman Ncube as the General Secretary. The MDC agreed to exaggerate the situation in Zimbabwe making Zimbabwe look like a war Zone. They literally begged for the sanctions to be applied. The MDC policy was always that if they can not lead Zimbabwe nobody should. Unfortunately Zimbabweans were subjected to poverty which was never imagined. In a way to blind most Zimbabweans the world press entered into another high gear in demonising Zimbabwe. To this end the mass was to suffer and Zimbabweans had yo settle for menial jobs abroad just to feed their families.
Many Zimbabweans died trying to escape from the horrors of the sanctions. Zimbabweans were humiliated in South Africa were they worked as maids or garden boys. The name Zimbabwean became a shame in the neighbouring countries those who once walked with their heads up were reduced to nothing walking with their tails between their legs in the land of the minors. Zimbabwe was sold out by the MDC and Schori. Schori was expelled from Zimbabwe in 2002 after showing serious political arrogance and bed hoping with the opposition to destabilise Zimbabwe. The EU foreign ministers issued a statement saying that Cde Mugabe’s government had “prevented the deployment of an EU election observation mission”. The statement added: “The EU remains seriously concerned at political violence, serious violations of human rights and restrictions on the media … which call into question the prospects for a free and fair election.” But it forgot to mention that this information was the report from MDC having been coined by Chamisa Biti Ncube and the whole MDC lot. Zimbabwe has refused to accept observers from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Britain or the Netherlands, which Harare accuses of opposing Mugabe and fronting a regime change. In their statement, the foreign ministers made clear the EU sanctions were “designed not to harm ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe or her neighbours”. But on the contrary it was the mass which bore the piercing edge of the sanctions. An EU spokeswoman, Emma Udwin, said that “all 15 EU governments agreed it was preferable to withdraw all the observers” and impose economic sanctions. This was the request presented by MDC and gladly taken by the EU.
The decision followed weeks of threats by EU officials that Europe would impose sanctions against CDE Mugabe and 19 other senior officials, including a visa ban and a freeze on their overseas assets, if Zimbabwe hampered the work of its election observer team.Was this the EU’s love for Zimbabwe or a payment to MDC for their political prostitution.
EU ministers had also threatened to take action if Zimbabwe denied the international media free access to cover the forthcoming presidential elections which was due on March 9-10. 2002. President Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party was being accused of orchestrating several years of political intimidation and violence aimed at stamping out opposition to his rule. But there was no proof to this outrageous accusations.
The country’s economy was to be crippled under food and fuel shortages with very little foreign currency to finance imports. This was the products of sanctions.
Portugal and Greece were reported to have opposed the imposition of sanctions and to have favoured the continued pressure of EU monitors inside Zimbabwe.
Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual.Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they may also be imposed for a variety of political, military, and social issues. Economic sanctions can be used for achieving domestic and international purposes.
Economic sanctions generally aim to change the behavior of elites in the target country. However, the efficacy of sanctions is debatable and sanctions can have unintended consequences.
Economic sanctions may include various forms of trade barriers, tariffs, and restrictions on financial transactions.An embargo is similar, but usually implies a more severe sanction often with a direct air and/or naval blockade.
So the sanctions were then embraced by the US who then endorsed their own sanctions on Zimbabwe. The US sanctions are killing ordinary Zimbabweans by the thousands. Through its control over the world banking system, America’s sanctioning power flouts international human rights law and poses a threat to the world. But the world turned a blind eye for they wanted Zimbabwe to suffer. Zimbabwe tried to negotiate over sanctions that have plagued the economy. Back in 2004 after months of increasingly hostile rhetoric, the US government changed the name of sanctions and called them targeted sanctions and imposed a “maximum pressure” campaign that included unilateral, economy-wide sanctions. These sanctions hampered trade between the European Union, whose leaders have sought to effect a regime change in Zimbabwe.
When President Trump reimposed sanctions in November 2018, it cut off Zimbabwe’s diamond exports and access to the international financial system. At the time, he announced that Zimbabwe could either comply with new US demands or face “economic isolation.More recently, Trump said that although Zimbabwe’s economy is crashing . . . it’s very easy to straighten [it] out, or it’s very easy for us to make it a lot worse. And so, according to Trump himself, the United States has the power to solve — or exacerbate — Zimbabwe’s current economic problems. What is left unsaid, including by much of the media, is that sanctions that “crash” the economy are an attack on the country’s civilian population and create widespread human misery. Indeed, they appear to be contributing to widespread shortages of medicine and medical equipment, particularly affecting cancer patients. The US administration officials often contend that sanctions have negligible economic or social effects on the general population of Zimbabwe. US recently denied that US sanctions on Zimbabwe affect the availability of medicine and agricultural products. In this argument, US divorces the connection between the economic damage caused by sanctions in and the lack of basic necessities like medicine and food, preferring to instead lay blame on the Zimbabwean government, not on what the Trump administration calls “targeted” sanctions. Are the sanctions causing economic problems, or simply a way to punish individual actors? Answering this question requires an examination of the impact sanctions have on economy and the mechanisms by which sanctions work now every Zimbabwean understands what is called suffering.
Looking at Zimbabwe’s economy which has been directly targeted by the sanctions regime, is a good way to get a sense of how the sanctions have affected the country’s economy,
Sanctions Are Exacerbating Social Problems The main mechanism by which oil production has fallen is the same mechanism that prevents Zimbabwe from importing food and medicine: It cannot find buyers for its diamonds on the open market, just like it cannot buy food or medicine on the open market. In effect, it is cut off from the US-dominated international financial system.
Uniquely, the United States exerts broad control over international banking transactions. One way is via the SWIFT and CHIPS systems, which handle the vast majority of those transactions. The SWIFT system, which provides a common communication system for banks, is controlled by US banks, which own the majority of the system and have officials on its board. On top of that, despite not being located in the United States, SWIFT makes all of the system’s data available to the US government, even if those transactions do not involve the United States. The CHIPS system, which provides communication as well as settlement functions, is governed by US law, has many US banks as owners, and is directly overseen by US authorities. These systems rely on a network of correspondent banks — which link banks that might not have direct relationships with one another — to complete transactions. The apex of the correspondent system is the New York Federal Reserve Bank, under the control of US banking authorities, which also serves as a lender of last resort to other central banks A system designed in this way ensures that banks with no relationship with each other still can transact in a common currency (dollars) via a common bank (the New York Fed) in an agreed-upon framework (SWIFT and CHIPS).
However, it also means that the United States has disproportionate power over transactions. Formally, the United States government, via the Office of Foreign Assets Control, can prohibit transactions involving Zimbabwe to pass through systems and banks in which it has jurisdiction. More informally, the US government can pressure SWIFT, other central banks, correspondent banks, and even specific firms to adopt policies of refusing to do business with Zimbabwe. Since these players fear retribution from US authorities (e.g., being sanctioned themselves), they are usually unwilling to take the risk of doing business with Zimbabwe unless they have no other business that might involve the United States or financial entities that can be pressured by the United States.
Because the international banking system is designed in this way, US sanctions on the Zimbabwean economy effectively mean that not only can Zimbabwe not easily sell diamonds or any products on the open market, it cannot easily buy food or medicine either, even if the latter are nominally exempt. This is because sanctioned Zimbabwean banks and officials are ultimately involved in these transactions in the same way that they are with economy often by virtue of the position they hold in the Zimbabwean government or banking system.
But on top of these issues, even if food and medicine were, in reality, exempt from the sanctions regime, the “crippling effect” on Zimbabwe’s economy would impact Zimbabwe’s financial ability to acquire food and medicine anyway.
The total number of Zimbabweans who have been killed by the sanctions imposed because MDC begged for them may never be known. The blood of the citizens screams under the cruel jaws of the sanctions. Shame on those who beg for sanctions so that they can be involved in a political dialogue.
Sanctions are evil they must be removed.
Farai Dziva|In a desperate bid to ease the cash crisis, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is set to introduce new bank notes.
However the big question Zimbabweans are asking is whether the move will resolve the economic crisis.
According to a daily publication the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said that new banks notes will be printed outside the country and drip-fed into the economy “soon”, to end the current liquidity crunch.
The Central Bank’s director for finance and markets, William Manimanzi said:
” What is happening is that new notes will be available soon so that they meet the required cash demands.
Obviously, these notes are going to be printed outside the country and this requires foreign exchange.
That is all I can say at the moment — but maybe in a few months — I do not know exactly when, but those new notes will be available.”
Farai Dziva|MDC leader Nelson Chamisa has visited Gringo, real name Lazarus Boora, who is currently hospitalized due to stomach disorders.
“Just visited & prayed with the talented Lazaraus Boora ‘Gringo’ who is undergoing treatment.
Kudos to the CITI Med hospital medical staff for the job well done. In other countries such talent is highly rewarding.Will get there.Thanks to all who helped in med fees.#Zimtalent,” tweeted Chamisa.
Media reports on Government’s re-engagement with Western countries being led by President Mnangagwa should be accurate and progressive for the benefit of all Zimbabweans, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa has said.
She said this during her ministry’s Strategic Planning Review Meeting in Harare yesterday.
Minister Mutsvangwa said the meeting was aimed at reviewing the operationalisation of the strategic plan adopted early this year.
“Zimbabwe demands journalists to objectively unpack the Zimbabwean story, mobilise citizens to realise the national vision of developing an upper-middle economy by the year 2030, as defined by President E.D Mnangagwa,” Minister Mutsvangwa said.
She said it was worth noting that the contribution of academics in the analysis of Zimbabwe’s re-engagement process may benefit citizens by way of conditioning them to the eventual outcome of the process.
She said rebranding Zimbabwe locally, in the region and internationally was paramount going forward.State media
#MozambiqueElections Head of Mission for the SADC Electoral Mission (SEOM) to Mozambique Hon. Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri today presented the SEOM Preliminary Statement on the conduct of the Presidential, Legislative & Provincial elections in Mozambique @SADC_Newspic.twitter.com/bFHDlEK04B
— Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 17, 2019
#MozambiqueElections Head of Mission for the SADC Electoral Mission (SEOM) to Mozambique Hon. Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri today presented the SEOM Preliminary Statement on the conduct of the Presidential, Legislative & Provincial elections in Mozambique @SADC_Newspic.twitter.com/bFHDlEK04B
— Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 17, 2019
Farai Dziva| Prominent human rights activist, Prosper Tiringindi has urged opposition parties in Southern Africa to unite and expose massive electoral theft by ruling parties.
On October 15, villagers around Masvingo were forced to vote for FRELIMO as Zanu PF rigged elections in favour of the Mozambican ruling party at Chiefs Hall in Masvingo.
Speaking to ZimEye.com Tiringindi said:
On October 15 villagers from Nemamwa, Zano and Charumbira were forced to vote for Mozambique’ s ruling party, FRELIMO at Chiefs Hall in Masvingo.
The villagers were given Mozambican identity cards.”
“I have gathered overwhelming evidence to expose the rigging process.
I would like to urge opposition parties to unite and expose massive rigging by ruling parties.
It is clear that Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is dubious, illegitimate and undemocratic,” added Tiringindi.
Farai Dziva| Prominent human rights activist, Prosper Tiringindi has “exposed” Zanu PF’ s election rigging tactics.
On October 15, villagers around Masvingo were forced to vote for FRELIMO as Zanu PF rigged elections in favour of the Mozambican ruling party at Chiefs Hall in Masvingo.
Speaking to ZimEye.com Tiringindi said:
On October 15 villagers from Nemamwa, Zano and Charumbira were forced to vote for Mozambique’ s ruling party, FRELIMO at Chiefs Hall in Masvingo.
The villagers were given Mozambican identity cards.”
“I have gathered overwhelming evidence to expose the rigging process.
I would like to urge opposition parties to unite and expose massive rigging by ruling parties.
It is clear that Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is dubious, illegitimate and undemocratic,” added Tiringindi.
By A Correspondent- A Glen View couple’s four-year marriage is on the brink of collapse following the wife’s alleged cheating habits.
The husband is reportedly bitter about his wife who has not shown any remorse over the issue and he now wants a divorce.
Simbarashe Mutarisi, 38, claims that Isabel Mutarisi, 34, is having an affair with another man behind his back and she is emotionally abusing him.
Narrating his story, Simbarashe said he caught Isabel with other men thrice before she broke the phone to destroy messages.
“It is the third time I caught her cheating on me but she used to delete messages to avoid misunderstandings with me.
“I used to remain silent when I saw her speaking to the other men but this time I am depressed and I need a divorce, she is stressing me,” said Simbarashe.
Added Simbarashe: “I have tried to make my relationship work and for the sake of my family I have been trying to keep it a secret. Now I cannot contain it since my relatives might find me dead because of stress.
“I separated with my first wife and she (Isabel) also divorced her first husband, but I am regretting being with her since I never found happiness in the marriage.
“I have five children and she has two, we have no children together but I was taking care of all the children.
“She is not appreciating my efforts to maintain other man’s children,” he said.
Simbarashe said he had made some efforts to engage her relatives but to no avail.
“I have contacted her relatives so we can solve the problem but she is being ruthless as she shows disrespect and she is remaining rude to me.
“My marriage is now on the rocks to the extent that I no longer feel ashamed to expose her bad habits since she showed me that she never loved me.
“The reason why I feel it necessary to reveal this is that she is planning to file false application to the court that l am assaulting her.
“I never assaulted her. My only fights with her are about the phone.
“She is planning to get me arrested but l never assaulted her my Lord will save me from that,” added Simbarashe.
He further revealed that he is no longer comfortable staying with Isabel.
“I am no longer comfortable and I do not want any more to stay with her, I am afraid she might bring diseases into my life.
“I am an innocent man.
“I want her to leave my house and take everything in the house except my clothes.
“I am processing my divorce papers, I no longer love her, she will kill me,” he said.
Contacted for comment, Isabel said she needs at least two weeks to comment.
“It is true that we are having misunderstandings but I am not ready to say anything about the matter.
“He only told me to move out from his house kuenda kwa sekuru but I will see when the sun sets, thank you,” she said.
H-Metro waited two weeks but when contacted for comment yesterday she said she is busy. She is still at her parents’ place.
By A Correspondent- The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has said that companies must not wait for the economy to stabilise but should continue producing in any environment.
Speaking to captains of industry and commerce during her presentation at the 2019 bankers and banking survey launch in Harare this Thursday, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Deputy Governor, Dr Jesimen Chipika, said:
Why are the companies waiting for stability , our economy need production so we should forge ahead , so that by the time we are in real full swing the nation can derive more benefits.
Chipika speaks when production in the country has dwindled due to a number of factors including uncertainty brought by financial reforms, the huge deficit in power and fuel and the scarcity of foreign currency as well as dwindling demand for goods and services.
The remarks also come when some are sceptical of the local currency which is constantly losing value against risking reviving horror memories of the record high hyperinflation of 2008 which made Zimbabweans poor billionaires, including business people.
Former Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) audit executive Dr Cleopatra Mutisi will stand trial next year at the High Court on allegations of assaulting to death her 13-year-old nephew on suspicion that he stole US$70.
She is an estranged wife of Brigadier-General Francis Mutisi. She is facing murder charges. Allegations are that she participated in the fatal assault of her nephew, Tafara Matanhire, whom she accused of stealing money meant for paying people that were repairing a borehole at her Borrowdale home.
Mutisi allegedly teamed up with her alleged accomplices, Tafara Frank Gusha and Tafadzwa Shayanewako, who were manning her residence. The three were arrested in November 2012. Cleopatra allegedly took her nephew to Hatcliffe Police Post and asked the police to assault the boy until he confesses but the police refused.
It is alleged that she went home and locked the boy up for two days without food or water before ordering Gusha and Shayanewako to assault him and recover the money. Mutisi allegedly joined in assaulting the boy before leaving for her rural home in Maramba. The boy died and she allegedly made a false police report that he had been assaulted by unknown assailants at school.
The post mortem revealed that he died from severe head injuries and subdural haemorrhage.
Meanwhile, Brig-Gen Mutisi has filed for divorce at the High Court citing that Cleopatra is violent and abusive, a situation, that has made life unbearable at their home. He added that she has cheated on him with different men. At the centre of the divorce is a wrangle for properties which Brig-Gen Mutisi said he solely acquired while stationed in the United States of America.
“The defendant has refused plaintiff his c0njugal rights since October 2016, and without this intimacy the marriage has basically irretrievably broken down,” read the summons.
“During the subsistence of the marriage, the plaintiff assisted the defendant financially and materially to secure a decent education being a first degree, a Master’s degree and a PHD from his resources.
By A Correspondent- The Amalgamated Rural Teachers of Zimbabwe have issued a statement warning the government against intimidation of teachers saying that the government risked worsening the already dire situation.
Below is the union’s statement issued on the 17th of October as teachers are on the 4th day of industrial action.
The government of Zimbabwe is displaying sickening arrogance and contempt towards our legitimate demand for interbank rate indexed salaries.
The employer is instructing hungry and desperate civil servants to board the inefficient ZUPCO buses as a way of dealing with incapacitation. They have further requested for patience as they engage in more pity parties under the National Joint Negotiating Council.
Incapacitation is not confined to transport only, assuming that the ZUPCO intervention could solve the transport crisis, civil servants would still need; ZUPCO healthcare ZUPCO education fees ZUPCO rentals ZUPCO food ZUPCO clothing
The ZUPCO intervention in the transport sector remains inefficient and unavailable in rural areas. The immediate solution is a review of the transport allowance.
The so-called negotiations touted by Minister Nzenza, are a waste of everyone’s time. It is clear to all that we don’t have to negotiate salaries anymore. The new negotiated salaries will be eroded before they are announced. We demand interbank rate indexed salaries.
We note that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has issued a circular demanding statistics of teacher attendance in our schools. This move is a clear testimony that the government has been shaken by the success of the ongoing job action.
The circular is aimed at intimidating teachers who are participating in the ongoing job action. We urge the teachers to ignore the threats and focus on demanding bread and butter for our children. We warn the government to desist from the shameful act of intimidating teachers, such cowardly behavior will force us to escalate the ongoing fight.
Amalgamated Rural Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, ARTUZ salutes all the revolutionary civil servants who have taken heed of the call to withdraw their labour demanding a living wage. The bold move is set to rescue our public service from collapse. Let’s remain united demanding interbank rate indexed salaries.
Tomorrow Friday 18 October we will give a full statistical report of the first week of our job action.
Matebeleland North has volunteered to host the launch of poverty camps. The poverty camps will be centers for the working class to converge during this job action as we intensify the fight for a living wage. Preparations are at an advanced stage and finer details will be shared soon.
*ARTUZ INFORMATION DEPARTMENT.* *+263776129336/775643192*
By A Correspondent- Isiah Zvenyika Chawatama, Harare City Council Director of Works has been sent on forced leave to facilitate investigations into operational challenges being faced by his department.
Town clerk, Hosea Chisango, revealed in his letter to Chawatama that the director was being sent on a 45-day leave, with all benefits, to allow investigations to be carried out without interferences.
The letter read:
It has come to my attention that your department is facing some operational challenges that has necessitated an investigation in order to establish the acts on the ground. For purpose of transparency, it is necessary that you be given absence of leave to pave way for this investigation.
A local publication reported that there are council sources who revealed that some committees were complaining about the way the department was operating.
The publication further reports that the environmental committee spoke against some of the designs of houses being constructed in Harare which it said were not in sync with the smart city concept.
By Patrick Guramatunhu- Zimbabwe’s worsening economic situation has some Zimbabweans in such a panic they have a fixation with the idea of a Zanu PF and MDC GNU as the solution they cannot listen to reason.
“It’s high time we should sit down and declare enough of this untold suffering. President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and his leadership must swallow his pride and go for a genuine dialogue with Nelson Chamois and abandon this kangaroo POLAD. The President needs the most powerful young marinated brains in the opposition for the country to move forward,” argued Leonard Koni, in Bulawayo 24.
“Zanu PF and MDC- Alliance must strike a genuine political dialogue ,the two to set conditions and put aside all their political differences. What unites both of them is greater than what divides them. Zimbabwe is such a beautiful country and we can’t let that beauty just fade away like that.
“We need to build strong institutions and strong democracies.”
Yes, we desperately need to build strong democratic institutions. The real shock here is anyone with half a brain would trust Zanu PF and MDC to do it, given the two’s well documented past!
Zanu PF has been in power for the last forty years, for Pete’s sake; who or what has stopped the party building these strong democratic institutions? Indeed, the party has spent these years doing the exact opposite; it has systematically destroyed democracy and replaced it with this ruthless de facto one-party dictatorship.
Any hope that Mnangagwa was going to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship when he seized power following the November 2017 coup have been quickly dashed. He promised to hold free, fair and credible elections only to blatantly rig the July 2018 elections. When the people dared to protest the rigged elections; he used brute force to silence all dissent, 17 innocent people shot dead and hundreds were injured.
To this very day, Mnangagwa insists that last year’s elections were free, fair and credible and that Zimbabwe is a model heathy and functioning democratic country. Next Friday, 25 October, Zanu PF will hold mass demonstrations to drive home the point that Zimbabwe is a democracy and the sanctions imposed by the west as punishment for undemocratic behaviour must now be lifted.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies built the de facto one-party dictatorship because their have an insatiable greed for absolute power and the wealth that it brings. The dictatorship has delivered. It is naive to expect Mnangagwa and his cronies to reform themselves out of power!
As for Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends, they had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms and dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. They failed to get even one meaningful reform implemented because they are corrupt and incompetent. Again, it is naive to expect MDC to implement the reforms in the proposed new GNU.
Wikipedia defines fixation (psychology) as “the state in which an individual becomes obsessed with an attachment to another human, an animal, or an inanimate object.”
Ordinarily, a housefly knows that it cannot fly through a window-pane. But not so with a panicked housefly; it has such a fixation with getting out, it will fly into the window-pane again and again. It is disconcerting when human beings behave like panicked houseflies.
Zimbabwe’s worsening economic and political situation is cause for panic but that is no excuse for people to forget it is 40 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF misrule that landed the nation into this hell-on-earth in the first place.
So after four decades of Zanu PF misrule, it is insane, to still expect the same corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime to get the nation out of the hell-hole. Absolutely insane!
By A Correspondent- Zimbabwe power utility, ZESA has issued an update on the country’s increased scheduled power cuts, locally known as load shedding saying that they were being caused by the limited power imports.
Zimbabwe is importing electricity from ESKOM and Hydro Cahora Bassa and ESKOM have announced that it will be reducing power supplies to Zimbabwe.
By A Correspondent- The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said that new banks notes will be printed outside the country and drip-fed into the economy “soon”, to end the current liquidity crunch.
The Central Bank’s director for finance and markets, William Manimanzi, revealed this on Wednesday when he appeared before the Budget and Finance Portfolio Committee to speak on the 2020 National Budget. He said:
… what is happening is that new notes will be available soon so that they meet the required cash demands. Obviously, these notes are going to be printed outside the country and this requires foreign exchange.
That is all I can say at the moment — but maybe in a few months — I do not know exactly when, but those new notes will be available.
There has been a cash crisis in Zimbabwe for the past three years since the surrogate bond notes were introduced in 2016.
As a result, the few notes available are now being “sold” to the transacting public since some service providers accept cash only.
By A Correspondent- Relatives of a headman who was murdered by his neighbour in Mberengwa are demanding 70 heads of cattle from the murderer’s family to conduct a traditional ritual to appease the dead man’s spirit.
Chief Matarutse of Mberengwa, under whose jurisdiction the families live, told NewsDay that the deceased’s spirit was not at rest and would seek vengeance on the murderer’s family unless they deliver the cattle. Said the chief:
Jorum Makondo, brother to the deceased, and some family members informed my court that they need 70 beasts from the accused’s family to conduct a cleansing ceremony.
It is usually our custom and tradition that when one murders someone, he/she has to meet certain demands from the deceased’s family to avoid being haunted by an avenging spirit.
Malambeni Makondo (56) of Chemimwe village under Chief Mataruse was struck with a log several times and killed by Hlupeko Mabuzane (38) following a dispute over a botched donkey deal.
Strange things are alleged to be happening at the Mabuzane homestead and villagers suspect that the dead man’s spirit is haunting the family.
All Africa|”An unlevel playing field was evident throughout the campaign,” said the European Union Observation Mission in an unusually harsh interim statement this afternoon. “The ruling party dominated the campaign in all provinces and benefited from the advantages of incumbency, including unjustified use of state resources, and more police escorts and media coverage than opponents.”
“Frelimo received the largest share of [public media] coverage, often in an uncritical tone,” the EU noted. “The President of the Republic was often shown or mentioned in his official capacity, promoting projects and giving speeches.”
“Limitations of freedom of assembly and movement of opposition parties were often reported.”
The EU mission also highlighted the general lack of trust. “A lack of public trust was observed in the impartiality of the national police forces, who were often perceived as more supportive of the ruling party and not managing properly the election related incidents and complaints. … The murder of a prominent national observer by members of the national police force had the effect of exacerbating an already existing climate of fear and self-censorship prevalent in Mozambican society.”
The CNE and STAE were a particular target of criticism, and the EU cited the “lack of confidence that the electoral administration (CNE and STAE) and the judiciary were independent and free from political influence. … The CNE missed important legal deadlines, including the late disbursement of public campaign financing to political parties. … There was also poor public communication by electoral authorities to keep all political parties and the public informed.”
The EU was also critical of some parts of the voting and counting process. The EU “observed four cases of ballot box stuffing in Sofala and Manica. The absence of national observers in almost half of polling stations did not contribute to the transparency of the process.” And results sheets (editais) were not posted at 14 observed polling stations, as required by law.
Arson in Angoche
The car and residence of the Chief of the Namaponda administrative post, Angoche, Nampula, were set on fire on election day, 15 October, by people who alleged that secret ballot boxes were hidden there. The vehicle had been used to carry ballot boxes to the local STAE headquarters.
Also in Namaponda, two Frelimo secretaries’ houses were burned down in Corona and two annexed rooms of the Namaripe primary school erected with local material were set on fire.
Paying staff to allow stuffing
In Morrumbala district, Zambezia, Frelimo gave money to the polling station members to facilitate ballot box stuffing. The day before voting, polling station presidents were summoned at the locality government office in he middle of the night and given envelopes containing 20,000 meticais ($325) to distribute to polling station staff to manipulate the results, several people who received money told our correspondents.
In Milange, Zambezia, a hundred observers from the unknown SIM (yes) group took advantage of special voting rights to vote several times – which requires the collaboration of polling station staff to not require them to put their fingers in the indelible ink.
At Mongue, Milange, an observer was surprised trying to introduce 15 votes into the ballot box, infuriating the population. Police were called in to intervene, but the alleged observer fled.
Tried for ballot box stuffing in Tete
Five polling station members (MMV’s) are on trial in the Mutarara district court. Most are presidents and vice president, accused by Renamo of providing additional ballot papers to voters identified as members of Frelimo. The cases were reported at Inhangoma at polling stations at three primary schools – Cachaco, 1st May and Mapulangos. While the trial is taking place, dozens of Renamo members are waiting outside the courtroom for the final verdict.
Renamo boycott not total
Renamo ordered its party delegates (poll watchers) to boycott the district tabulations. Our correspondents report Renamo absent in most districts and present in some districts, including Beira, Dondo and Matola.
Aston Villa v Brighton | throughout the international break Villa fans have been voting for their strongest team and the results were conclusive as Dean Smith prepares his side for Brighton on Saturday
It shows how far Aston Villa have come knowing an insanely-talented Brazilian who once ripped it up at the Bernabeu can’t get nowhere near Dean Smith’s starting XI.
Douglas Luiz has a ridiculous knack of scoring worldie after worldie and scored from outside the box yet again while on international duty captaining the Brazilian under-23s.
It took the £15million summer signing from Man City all of five minutes to spank one into the top corner at Carrow Road a fortnight ago after coming on as a substitute.
It’s likely, though, that Douglas will have to take his place on the bench at Villa Park once again this weekend.
Douglas Luiz with Wesley Moraes and Marvelous Nakamba after scoring
The reasoning, as Villa supporters have said, is simple: you can’t change a winning team, especially one who performed so well together against Norwich.
In our latest Aston Villa fan survey, we asked hundreds of supporters this simple question: What is Villa’s strongest XI when everyone is fit and available? The response was, well, incredibly overwhelming and it’s likely Smith will go with what the fans are all in agreement with.
“The same side at Norwich,” was what the majority of supporters penned into BirminghamLive, sticking with the exact, free-flowing formation Smith went for with Jack Grealish out wider with Conor Hourihane alongside Marvelous Nakamba and John McGinn in the middle.
Of the 100 or so responses, there were a few that featured Egyptian winger Trezeguet possibly coming in for either Hourihane or Anwar El Ghazi out wide.
Shakeel Hussein wrote: “I’d like to see a 4-2-3-1 with following, Heaton GK, Guilbert RB, Engels RCB, Mings LCB, Targett LB, Douglas Luiz RDM, Nakamba LDM, McGinn RAM, Hourihane CAM, Grealish LAM, Wesley ST.”
Another interesting idea was put forward by Paul Lee, from Birmingham, who said: “I’d actually like to see a change of formation, similar to how England play now.
“Heaton, a back 3; Engels, Mings and Konsa. 2 wing backs; Guilbert and Targett. Marvellous sitting deep with Grealish, McGinn and Jota played further up behind Wesley.”
Wesley Moraes of Aston Villa scores
Overall, though, it’s that Villa side who hammered Norwich which is seen as Smith’s strongest XI – and credit there must go to Villa’s Cork hard man, Hourihane, who has battled his way back after being abruptly dropped earlier in the campaign.
The back five (including Heaton) you’d say is pretty much set in stone now given rock-solid displays of late while, in midfield, Zimbabwean Nakamba has been absolutely everywhere, mopping things up while allowing Villa’s forward players to flourish.
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McGinn has been majestic as everybody knows and Smith is now getting the best out of skipper Grealish who’s playing in a more advanced inside forward role floating in and off Wesley up top. El Ghazi’s form on the right-hand side has improved significantly, too. The Dutch winger is starting to add real consistency to his game now which is needed in the Premier League.
Here’s the XI Smith is expected to pick for Brighton on Saturday – and there’s no surprises:
VILLA (4-3-3): Heaton; Guilbert, Engels, Mings, Targett; Nakamba; McGinn, Hourihane; El Ghazi, Wesley, Grealish.
Subs: Steer, Konsa, Taylor, Douglas Luiz, Trezeguet, Lansbury, Davis.
State Media|The Government has intensified efforts to reduce the passport backlog after Treasury came up with a payment plan to suppliers of consumables who are owed an undisclosed amount of money.
In an interview at the sidelines of the ongoing Lusaka Fifth Conference of African Ministers responsible for civil registration and statistics, the Registrar General, Clemence Masango who is accompanying the the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Cain Mathema said it would no longer be a question of when, but how soon the backlog would be cleared since all systems were in place.
“The passport situation still remains a matter of concern. The backlog is still on. We are now at 370 000 applications that need to be attended to.
“On a daily basis we receive an average of 1 200 new applications for passports and we are only able to process 800 applications daily. Which means that on our daily requirements, we are unable to process the other 400, a figure that builds on the backlog.
“However Government has since made a payment plan to our supplies, who had withheld services so that they can resume suppliers as soon as possible, “ he said.
Musango said because of the precarious position that the Registrar General’s office was currently in, it was only giving priority to the Diasporan community and those who wanted to travel on health related issues.
“We don’t want our people in the Diaspora to get stranded, hence that decision.”
Masango appealed to the nation to be patient, adding that the passport backlog would be cleared in four months . Masango is among senior government officials from across Africa attending the Fifth Conference of African Ministers Responsible for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, which ends tomorrow.
The conference was organized by African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA. The conference aims to provide strategic and policy guidance on pathways towards holistic, innovative and integrated civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) and digital identity management systems to help close the identity gap in Africa where more than 500 million people have no legal identity documents such as national identitily cards.
By A Correspondent- Former Tourism and Hospitality minister Prisca Mupfumira has been arrested on fresh charges and is currently appearing at the Harare magistrates court.
Mupfumira is out on bail after spending over a month in remand on charges of corruption and abuse of office.
This is a developing story. More details to follow…
American fighter was knocked out in 10th round of super welterweight fight on Saturday
Patrick Day, right, lands a punch on Charles Conwell during the third round of their super welterweight fight on Saturday in Chicago. Photograph: Dylan Buell/Getty Images
Boxer Patrick Day has died at the age of 27 after sustaining head injuries in his fight in Chicago on Saturday, promoter Lou DiBella has confirmed.
Day was knocked out in the 10th round of his bout against Charles Conwell and subsequently underwent brain surgery.
DiBella said in a statement on his website: “Patrick Day passed away today, succumbing to the traumatic brain injury he suffered in his fight this past Saturday, October 12, at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago, IL.
“He was surrounded by his family, close friends and members of his boxing team, including his mentor, friend and trainer Joe Higgins.”
Day had previously been knocked down twice in the contest before succumbing again to a left hook midway through the 10th round.
He was treated on the canvas for several minutes before being removed from the ring on a stretcher, and underwent surgery that night.
Earlier, Conwell wrote an emotional letter on Instagram praying for Day’s recovery and revealing he had considered quitting the sport.
DiBella’s statement added: “He was a son, brother, and good friend to many. Pat’s kindness, positivity and generosity of spirit made a lasting impression with everyone he met.
“Patrick Day didn’t need to box. He came from a good family, he was smart, educated, had good values and had other avenues available to him to earn a living.
“He chose to box, knowing the inherent risks that every fighter faces when he or she walks into a boxing ring. Boxing is what Pat loved to do.
“It’s how he inspired people and it was something that made him feel alive.”
DiBella also discussed how the sport of boxing might respond to Day’s death.
“It becomes very difficult to explain away or justify the dangers of boxing at a time like this,” he said.
“This is not a time where edicts or pronouncements are appropriate, or the answers are readily available. It is, however, a time for a call to action.
“While we don’t have the answers, we certainly know many of the questions, have the means to answer them, and have the opportunity to respond responsibly and accordingly and make boxing safer for all who participate.
“This is a way we can honour the legacy of Pat Day. Many people live much longer than Patrick’s 27 years, wondering if they made a difference or positively affected their world.
“This was not the case for Patrick Day when he left us. Rest in peace and power, Pat, with the angels.”
British promoter Eddie Hearn tweeted: “Devastated to hear the news of the passing of Patrick Day. I met him for the first time last Thursday, what a charming young man with a dream and a smile that lit up the room.
“Our deepest prayers are with his family, his trainer Joe Higgins, Charles Conwell and promoter Lou DiBella.”
In a rather tragic incident, a Harare motorist’s efforts to avoid queuing for hours for fuel backfired after his car was stolen by an unknown male who had offered to assist him to get to the fuel pump quickly.
According to the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) the man had his Toyota Hiace, motor vehicle Reg ADZ 2349 stolen at a service station in the CBD on Wednesday by an unknown suspect who had asked for a $10 bribe to assist him.
The driver then left his disembarked from his motor vehicle to look for cash to pay the suspect, leaving his car keys on the ignition.
Taking advantage of the man’s absence, the suspect then took the chance and drove off with the vehicle.
Speaking on microblogging site, Twitter, using their official account, ZRP said:
A Harare man lost a Toyota Hiace, motor vehicle Reg ADZ 2349 through theft at a service station in the CBD on 16/10/19 at 1615 hours, after he was approached by an unknown male adult who offered to assist him get fuel quickly.
The unidentified man demanded RTGS$10 cash to assist. The driver left the keys on the ignition as he was looking for cash and the unidentified man disappeared with the motor vehicle.
Watch video downloading below of charges against Mudenda.
Paul Nyathi|Zimbabwean speaker of Parliament, Jacob Mudenda has been set up for prosecution at the Serbian War Crimes Court for his involvement in the August 1 killings.
The prosecution for Mudenda may be coming at an absolutely wrong time for him at a time when the court in Serbia has declared the need to accelerate prosecutions.
A report released by the Humanitarian Law Centre NGO in July this year, Serbia was blasted for continuing to make slow progress in implementing its strategy for processing war crimes, with no increase in indictments and the continued glorification of war criminals.
Visnja Sijacic (left) and Ivana Zanic (right) presenting findings from the report in Belgrade.
The report by the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre, said there has been no progress this year so far in the implementation of Serbia’s national strategy for the prosecution of war crimes.
The report, which covers the period from the start of December 2018 to the beginning of July this year, said there has not been an increased number of indictments compared to the number of investigations, that court cases continue to drag on for too long and that fewer missing persons have been found.
It also highlighted the lack of progress in Serbia to improve attitudes towards the issue of war crimes trials.
The Serbian government adopted its first National Strategy for the Prosecution of War Crimes in 2016, and it remains in force until 2020.
With Mudenda’s case coming in as the immediate next war crimes case and the first for a high profile Zimbabwean since Gukurahundi, the Zimbabwean speaker of parliament may find himself going through a difficult time.
File Picture of John Mangudya showing features of the then new bond notes
There story about government introducing a new currency has been marked by twists and turns. Initially, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube himself mentioned that a new currency in the form of new notes and coins will be introduced.
And over a month later, Eddie Cross, who happens to sit on the Monetary Policy Committee, confirmed that the new currency will debut in November. However, a day later the government distanced itself from Eddie Cross’s statement.
Now RBZ deputy director for finance and markets, William Manimhanzi has revealed that new notes will be introduced in a “few months” time. As reported by Newsday, Mr Manimhanzi said:
There are currency reforms that have taken place over the past few months and we have been working on ways to try and ameliorate the current cash shortages…..
I am not privy to the dates, but what is happening is that new notes will be available soon so that they meet the required cash demands. Obviously, these notes are going to be printed outside the country and this requires foreign exchange. That is all I can say at the moment – but maybe in a few months — I do not know exactly when, but those new notes will be available.
IN 2007, as the Zimbabwean crisis was approaching its climax, the late Zambian leader, Levy Mwanawasa broke ranks with his counterparts, particularly Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, saying quiet diplomacy had failed to help “solve the political chaos and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe”.
Mwanawasa went on to describe Zimbabwe as a sinking Titanic whose passengers were ready to jump ship to save their lives.
It was quite a brutal assessment.
The former Zambian leader went as far as saying Sadc should take a firm stand on Zimbabwe, as the crisis continued unabated, while the regional bloc insisted on quiet diplomacy, which was championed by Mbeki, South Africa’s former leader.
These were quite unprecedented remarks, as all along, the regional bloc had been quite happy to mollycoddle the late Robert Mugabe and seemed unfazed by the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.
They were happy to parrot self-serving cliches like “African solutions to African problems”, yet a solution to Zimbabwe’s problems remained elusive.
Mwanawasa died about 15 months later, the situation having literally “reached another level” and there is no telling what firm stand he would have taken on Zimbabwe.
Fast forward eight years later.
Xenophobic violence, as it always does, had flared up in South Africa and the then President Jacob Zuma faced his colleagues at a Sadc summit.
Zuma ducked, dived, dipped and dodged, but in the end explained his way out.
Mugabe then was chairman of Sadc and he tried to put Zuma on the spot, but the former South African leader hit back and tensions soared at that meeting.
Botswana’s Ian Khama then intervened saying instead of focusing on the xenophobic violence in South Africa, Sadc leaders should address the root causes of the problem that included bad leadership and economic mismanagement, which trigger waves of mostly illegal immigration.
While Sadc did not come up with lasting solutions to Zimbabwe’s problems, what is evident is that there was a crop of yesteryear leaders who were willing to take their Zimbabwean counterpart head on and call out his bluff.
They were not impressed by pointless pan-Africanist rhetoric and instead wanted a solution to Zimbabwe’s problems, which had gone on for far too long.
They were so forthright that one day a petulant Mugabe threatened to drag Zimbabwe out of the regional bloc.
These Sadc leaders looked beyond empty rhetoric and put the region first; for the region to thrive, they had to be frank with Mugabe and tell him that he had gone too far and it was time to fix Zimbabwe.
This is why I am absolutely disappointed by the new crop of Sadc leaders, who are intent on spending time and resources on a pointless sideshow.
In just over a week, Sadc countries will come together to demand that the United States and the European Union end sanctions on Zimbabwe.
Outside the sanctions issue, none of these leaders have spoken out about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
None of them have voiced their concerns about repeated military crackdowns on demonstrators and certainly none of them will speak about the shrinking democratic space in Zimbabwe.
As Khama said in 2015, the root cause of Zimbabwe’s problems then and now is bad leadership and economic mismanagement.
Sanctions may have contributed in their own way, but corruption, misgovernance and economic mismanagement are the real causes of Zimbabwe’s problems and if Sadc was really genuine about helping us, then this should be their first port of call.
Right now, Zimbabwe is begging the West for food, following a drought worsened by corruption, and not even a single Sadc country has lifted a finger to help us.
If Sadc was concerned about us, they would know that the money spent on Command Agriculture alone is more than enough to end Zimbabwe’s food crisis, but because the whole scheme is shrouded in mystery and corruption, nobody has got a clue what happened to the funds.
Tanzania’s President John Magufuli, a demagogue of note, has been vocal about ending sanctions on Zimbabwe, but what we are yet to hear is why Zimbabwe is allegedly buying grain from his country at double, if not treble, the world market price.
This was reported in Africa Confidential, which showed how elites in Zimbabwe were lining their pockets with money that is meant to alleviate the drought by buying overpriced grain from a country that is supposed to be our friend.
What is clear is that Sadc is not standing for the rights of you and I, they are only protecting each other’s interests, not citizens.
On its part, Sadc says it has called for the anti-sanctions day because sanctions have an “adverse impact on the economy of Zimbabwe and the region at large”.
No mention made of the running down of the economy or bad governance, which are far more devastating than the sanctions that Sadc protests so much about.
If Zimbabwe was properly governed, its economy would be working and there would be no need for thousands of us to run to Botswana, Zambia, South Africa and beyond.
Sadc leaders see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil about each other.
They are complicit in our suffering.
South African opposition leader, Julius Malema aptly described Sadc recently when he said: “It’s a group of old people, who protect each other. They don’t protect the interests of their people.”
Malema further said Sadc leaders do not call each other out and tell each other where they are going wrong.
Now, we have a classic case, Sadc leaders have not called President Emmerson Mnangagwa out, at least publicly and instead they have gone on to set up a meaningless and pointless anti-sanctions day.
As I have argued in the past, sanctions are not going to be removed anytime soon and if Sadc leaders were truly honest and at least applied their minds, they would tell Mnangagwa to first sort out his house before targeting sanctions.
The anti-sanctions march will be a red-letter day for those who believe in scapegoating and looking for sideshows, but for the country’s future, it is an elaborate waste of time and our resources could be used more meaningfully.
Maybe Mugabe was right after all, pulling Zimbabwe out of Sadc may not have been a bad idea.
Sadc is adynamic, absolutely not fit for purpose and the anti-sanctions day is ridiculous.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Thursday said Bulawayo will hold more national events as he opened the Zim trade Annual Exporters conference in the city.
The conference which ends on Friday, is being held at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair grounds.
Mnangagwa who was guest of honour at the conference was accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo and Industry Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu.
He noted that the conference was being held in Bulawayo for the first time which he said should be continued with other national events.
“I applaud the fact that this is the first time this forum is being held in Bulawayo, which is befitting, given that the city is an industrial hub and special economic zone,” said Mnangagwa.
‘We look forward to more national meetings, events and conferences being hosted at this, our second largest city.”
Mnangagwa flew back to Harare soon after officially opening the conference.
Media Statement By Mthwakazi Republic Party|As the leader of Mthwakazi Republic Party i cannot let people like Mohadi have a field day on us, surely how can he stoop that low to address Mthwakazi Republic Party at his Zanu-PF rally at Stanley square one the 13th of October 2019.
Infact it is rather naive and out of desperation that the so called VP can remind us that Zimbabwe is a unitary state and ask us, where we were when they fought for this country? I quote he said “we are determined to fight those people who call for such. We fought against the whites settlers from Britain, Germany without a single cent”…Mohadi said explaining that Zanu-PF will defend the country from any threat. He went on to say Zimbabwe is a unitary state and has one national anthem.
Mohadi the question “where were we when you fought for this country?” is misdirected. We in Mthwakazi should join you in asking Mnangagwa and his mashona where they were when uMthwakazi’s Zipra and uMkhonto wesizwe were fighting for independence.
You talk of defending Zimbabwe Mohadi; take note that no country or organizations can monopolize violence. It is a natural or cultural force in some societies and we in Mthwakazi have a history of successfully handing out that force to our oppressors. Be careful not to start a fire that will put your Mashonaland handlers on the defensive.
Kembo Mohadi like his other Shona worshippers, Dr Calistus Ndlovu, the late Enos Nkala and people like Obert Mpofu are a big liability to the people of Matebeleland and Midlands alias Mthwakazi.
I want to remind Kembo Mohadi that we don’t eat one national anthem, we do not eat nationalism that benefit them as Shona puppets.
To set the record straight I am a son of an ex- ZPRA freedom fighter, my father could not test the so called Zimbabwean independence as he passed away two years before it. In response to his dull question of where were we when they liberated Shonas, My answer will be my father was with you in trenches Kembo Mohadi, one way or the other i also fought directly or indirectly through my father’s participation and other fallen heroes and heroines of good standing not sellouts like you Mohadi.
As the Vice President of Zimbabwe you are failing to be the mouth piece of the people of Matebeleland and Midlands particularly the people of Beitbridge whose resources are being looted by the Shona people, you are failing to tackle the issue of unemployment of Venda and Sotho people who cannot be employed at the Beitbridge border post, actually the whole of Beitbridge has been Shonalised whilst people like you are watching and assisting the implementation of the 1979 grandplan against our own people.
I want to take this opportunity to applaud you for recognising and acknowledging the presence of Mthwakazi Republic Party, your lashing at us as a bloody thirst satanic party Zanu-PF really show that MRP is giving you sleepless nights hence all these threats that you will defend yourselves against us.
I put it to you Kembo Mohadi that MRP is not a sessationist party as you insuniated, we are a restorationist movement that is also fighting to liberate people like you because you are possessed by the demonic spirits of your cult party.
We are a generation that cannot be threatened by people like you Kembo Mohadi, actually some of you were younger than us when you went to the bush to fight the Ian Smith regime and my advice to you is that undermine us at your own peril.
I am afraid your statements will haunt you for the rest of your life and your offspring will be cursed because of such utterances by you.
Enos Nkala and Dr Calistus Ndlovu died paupers because of blasphemous statements they said against Zapu and Matebeleland people.
The restoration agenda is irreversible and we are also prepared to lay our lives for it as you also claimed that you will defend yourselves against us, surely it’s us who are supposed to be telling you that we will defend ourselves against you because you are a gangster government. Zanu-PF does not qualify to be called a government, instead the perfect name for it is a terrorist organisation that is not in power because of the people’s choices but because you are nothing but a sanguinous party.
Few months back when you were campaigning for a shona candidate in Cowdry park in ward 28 , one Kidwell Mujuru, you said I quote “Gukurahundi-Genocide was necessary for nation building”, many people became upset about your misfiring which simple meant the creation of Zimbabwe as a State was to come through the butchering of our more than 50 000 innocent people.
The same Zanu-PF that you are defending today once persecuted you, other ZPRA cadres, ZAPU LEADERSHIP, ZAPU supporters calling you dissidents yet you forget about the Gukurahundi-Genocide which happened 36 years ago but you are quick to remind us about how you fought the British and the Germans.
Our people continue to suffer economic Genocide under your watchful eye but you can’t raise these imbalances to your master Emerson Mnangagwa, our resources are looted daily, government departments in Mthwakazi are manned by Shona speaking people from Policemen, Soldiers, doctors, nurses, teachers and all other civil service but to you all this is nationalism and it’s a normal situation.
As MRP we are the voice of the voiceless in Matebeleland and Midlands alias Mthwakazi, we know that people like you Kembo Mohadi are singing for their supper and defending where your bread is buttered. No amount of threats, arrests and killings by your bloody thirsty Zanu-PF government will cause us to retreat, instead your lashing at MRP has legitimised our struggle.
We expected you to be telling your Zanu-PF supporters at Stanley Square on how you were going to rescucitate Bulawayo which used to be the Industrial hub during the Ian Smith regime but rather where it used to be companies in Bulawayo has become an Industrial site for Shona churches and to you all this is regarded as normal.
We were expecting to hear you giving Bulawayo people hope on how as the misruling party you would fix electricity problems, water problems, employment challenges and all the things affecting an ordinary person on the street but alas you chose to attack MRP and Zapu.
On the other hand I don’t think you understand the contents of the so called Unity Accord of 1987 that you boast about. The so called unity accord like the Lancaster house agreement of 1979 were just smokescreen arrangements that we can call marriage of convenience documents. The unity accord of 1987 is just a one page document with 11 points and in all those points there is nothing that gives Zapu powers or that portrays Zapu as equal to Zanu-PF, instead the highest position that a Zapu person can get is being a Vice president as you are and you cannot be the president of Zimbabwe that you claim to be a Unitary state. Actually shonas from Zanu-PF, MDC and other Shona led parties know it very well that a Ndebele person cannot lead them.
In your trying to defend the unity accord of 1987 you tried to highlight that you were not swallowed by Zanu-PF hence the two parties agreed to remove-PF but surprisingly you cannot explain to us why the Zanu-PF headquarters in Harare still has a Cockerial symbol ( Iqhude, Jongwe ) yet your Zapu bull was castrated hence the naming of the Karigamombe Arcade building in Harare on 20 November 1987 a month before the signing accord in December and Robert Mugabe commissioned the building after the demise of Zapu and this building was named Karigamombe as a celebration by Zanu-PF and Shonas that the bull has been castrated. Karigamombe means it’s just a small oxen or oKuyiNkabi nje. Remember Zapu had a charging bull as your symbol but surprisingly the cock defeated the charging bull and today you want us to take you serious when you mislead people and misrepresent facts.
Let me also remind you that it is Zanu-PF which further confirmed that Matebeleland and Mashonaland are two separate states when they selectively killed our people through the 1983 -1987 Genocide starting at the Midlands where there is our (Jameson line) border and spreading to the whole of Matebeleland.The likes of Joseph Msika, Ambrose Mutinhiri (Zapu supporters and leaders)and areas like Mashonaland West that were ZPRA liberated were never targeted. Our calls for restoration are justified as we want to break the 1923 only whites referendum which brought us to this satanic marriage of convenience.
Paul Nyathi|The SADC Head of Election Monitoring team in Mozambique, Zimbabwean Minister of Defence Oppah Muchinguri has hurriedly issued a statement indicating that the chaotic elections held in that country on Tuesday were free and fair.
While Muchinguri makes the shocking declaration, Independent Civil Society Organisations monitoring the elections held on Tuesday have declared massive rigging especially by ruling party Frelimo.
The latest issue of the “Mozambique Political Process Bulletin”, published by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP) outlined several rigging methods that the ruling party used which somehow Muchinguri failed to take note of.
The by now declared traditional, form of fraud highlighted in the report is to invalidate a ballot paper by adding an ink mark, thus making it seem as if the voter concerned has tried to vote for two or more candidates.
In past elections, the electoral bodies have vigorously criticised this dishonest behaviour by polling station staff, but nobody has ever been arrested for it.
Measures now in force include removing all inky objects from the polling station table before the count begins, and obliging staff with dirty hands to wash them. Nonetheless, there are still cases reported of this type of fraud, and occasionally dishonest staff are caught in the act.
In one polling station in the Zambezia district of Chinde, the polling station chairperson, Angelo Moniz, was detained after he was caught adding fingerprints to Renamo votes. He had dyed his hair and had transferred the dye to his finger to make the extra marks. The police detained him, but later released him.
This type of fraud can be readily detected because it results in abnormally high numbers of invalid votes. It is normal for there to be a few invalid votes at any polling station (these include ballot papers where the voter really has tried to vote for more than one candidate, where he has added slogans or insults, or where he has signed his name).
But when invalid votes are more than three per cent of the total, suspicion is in order, and when the number goes to more than five per cent, those votes are almost certainly fraudulent. But the Bulletin notes cases in this election of polling stations reporting more than 10 per cent invalid votes, and in one even 32 per cent and all shockingly disadvantaging the opposition.
A new form of fraud, reported by the Bulletin, is that observers aligned with the ruling Frelimo Party are alleged to have voted several times. A provision in the law allows observers (like journalists and policemen) to vote at any polling station they are working in.
The Bulletin claims the observers from the National Youth Council (CNJ) abused this right to a “special vote” to vote at several different polling stations in Mopeia and Inhassunge districts, in Zambezia.
But for this to work, polling station staff must ignore the basic safeguards of the indelible ink applied to the index finger of every voter after casting his or her ballot. Before receiving a ballot paper, the voter must show his or her hands so that staff can check there is no ink on them, and that he or she has not voted already.
This story strains belief because it suggests that literally dozens of polling station staff failed to apply the ink, or failed to check the hands of several hundred CNJ observers.
Paul Nyathi|Reports coming through from Mozambique show some of the most outrageous elections figures that make the history of our own local election rigging allegations on ZANU PF look very minute.
Results sheets from a considerable number of polling stations in the general elections held on Tuesday indicate that an impossible hundred per cent of the registered voters cast their ballots in several polling stations.
Although the voter registration was held from 15 April to 30 May this year, it clearly defies belief that among the 800 or so people registered in any polling station, not one of them has died since registration, not one was too ill to travel, and not one had travelled away from the district.
Almost as unbelievable are the polling station result sheets which claim that between 90 and 100 per cent of those registered at the station voted for the same candidate.
It seems that overall country turnout in the election was around 50 per cent. So any polling station which claims a turnout of 90 per cent or more sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb.
An obviously fraudulent result came from one polling station identified as 092012-02, where all 800 registered voters supposedly voted in the presidential election – 799 of them voting for incumbent president Filipe Nyusi, and just one for Ossufo Momade, of the main opposition party, Renamo. There were no votes at all for Daviz Simango, of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), and no blank or invalid votes.
The “100 per cent” polling stations are found mainly in Gaza, parts of Tete, Nampula and Cabo Delgado provinces. Not even one station in Maputo the capital city reported this impossible turnout.
Farai Dziva|MDC leader Nelson Chamisa has today visited Gringo, real name Lazarus Boora, who is currently hospitalized due to stomach disorders.
“Just visited & prayed with the talented Lazaraus Boora ‘Gringo’ who is undergoing treatment.
Kudos to the CITI Med hospital medical staff for the job well done. In other countries such talent is highly rewarding.Will get there.Thanks to all who helped in med fees.#Zimtalent,” tweeted Chamisa.
Farai Dziva| Farai Dziva| Highlanders forward Prince Dube’s excellent performance has seen him collecting his second award for the best player in September.
The Highlanders player was named the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe (FUZ) Player of the Month on Wednesday, walking away with R5 000 courtesy of Doves’ Zororo Phumulani.
Dube who had a slow start to the campaign was also named the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League POTM.
The Highlanders striker won the accolade for the first time since returning to the Bulawayo giants at the end of last year.
Farai Dziva|La Liga have made a request to move this month’s El Clasico from Camp Nou to Bernabeu.
The request is due to the political protests happening in Catalonia after nine Catalan separatist leaders were jailed on Monday.
The League asked the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) for their opinion, and the RFEF competitions committee is expected to make its decision by Thursday 24 October.
Barcelona and Real Madrid were not involved in La Liga’s initial request and there has been no official response from either club.
Media reports on Government’s re-engagement with Western countries being led by President Mnangagwa should be accurate and progressive for the benefit of all Zimbabweans, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa has said.
She said this during her ministry’s Strategic Planning Review Meeting in Harare yesterday.
Minister Mutsvangwa said the meeting was aimed at reviewing the operationalisation of the strategic plan adopted early this year.
“Zimbabwe demands journalists to objectively unpack the Zimbabwean story, mobilise citizens to realise the national vision of developing an upper-middle economy by the year 2030, as defined by President E.D Mnangagwa,” Minister Mutsvangwa said.
She said it was worth noting that the contribution of academics in the analysis of Zimbabwe’s re-engagement process may benefit citizens by way of conditioning them to the eventual outcome of the process.
She said rebranding Zimbabwe locally, in the region and internationally was paramount going forward.State media
Farai Dziva|Manchester United have been delt another blow ahead of their potentially explosive Premier League game against Liverpool on Sunday after it was revealed that Paul Pogba will miss it due to injury.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men host Jurgen Klopp’s run-away leaders at Old Trafford and Pogba becomes the second ‘regular’ player this week to be confirmed out of the historic clash, after goalkeeper David DeGea limped off in Spain’s Euro 2022 qualifier against Sweden.
Solskjaer confirmed that the Frenchman will miss the clash.
“He came back and played a couple of games, maybe played through the pain barrier,” the Norwegian told MUTV.
“He had a scan after the Arsenal game and maybe needed a few weeks’ rest in a boot, so hopefully he won’t be too long, but he won’t make this game, no.” he added.
#MozambiqueElections Head of Mission for the SADC Electoral Mission (SEOM) to Mozambique Hon. Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri today presented the SEOM Preliminary Statement on the conduct of the Presidential, Legislative & Provincial elections in Mozambique @SADC_Newspic.twitter.com/bFHDlEK04B
— Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 17, 2019
#MozambiqueElections Head of Mission for the SADC Electoral Mission (SEOM) to Mozambique Hon. Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri today presented the SEOM Preliminary Statement on the conduct of the Presidential, Legislative & Provincial elections in Mozambique @SADC_Newspic.twitter.com/bFHDlEK04B
— Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 17, 2019
#MozambiqueElections Head of Mission for the SADC Electoral Mission (SEOM) to Mozambique Hon. Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri today presented the SEOM Preliminary Statement on the conduct of the Presidential, Legislative & Provincial elections in Mozambique @SADC_Newspic.twitter.com/bFHDlEK04B
— Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 17, 2019
Farai Dziva|In a desperate bid to ease the cash crisis, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is set to introduce new bank notes.
However the big question Zimbabweans are asking is whether the move will resolve the economic crisis.
According to a daily publication the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said that new banks notes will be printed outside the country and drip-fed into the economy “soon”, to end the current liquidity crunch.
The Central Bank’s director for finance and markets, William Manimanzi said:
” What is happening is that new notes will be available soon so that they meet the required cash demands.
Obviously, these notes are going to be printed outside the country and this requires foreign exchange.
That is all I can say at the moment — but maybe in a few months — I do not know exactly when, but those new notes will be available.”
Farai Dziva| Prominent human rights activist, Prosper Tiringindi has “exposed” Zanu PF’ s election rigging tactics.
On October 15, villagers around Masvingo were forced to vote for FRELIMO as Zanu PF rigged elections in favour of the Mozambican ruling party at Chiefs Hall in Masvingo.
Speaking to ZimEye.com Tiringindi said:
On October 15 villagers from Nemamwa, Zano and Charumbira were forced to vote for Mozambique’ s ruling party, FRELIMO at Chiefs Hall in Masvingo.
The villagers were given Mozambican identity cards.”
“I have gathered overwhelming evidence to expose the rigging process.
I would like to urge opposition parties to unite and expose massive rigging by ruling parties.
It is clear that Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is dubious, illegitimate and undemocratic,” added Tiringindi.
Farai Dziva| Prominent human rights activist, Prosper Tiringindi has urged opposition parties in Southern Africa to unite and expose massive electoral theft by ruling parties.
On October 15, villagers around Masvingo were forced to vote for FRELIMO as Zanu PF rigged elections in favour of the Mozambican ruling party at Chiefs Hall in Masvingo.
Speaking to ZimEye.com Tiringindi said:
On October 15 villagers from Nemamwa, Zano and Charumbira were forced to vote for Mozambique’ s ruling party, FRELIMO at Chiefs Hall in Masvingo.
The villagers were given Mozambican identity cards.”
“I have gathered overwhelming evidence to expose the rigging process.
I would like to urge opposition parties to unite and expose massive rigging by ruling parties.
It is clear that Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is dubious, illegitimate and undemocratic,” added Tiringindi.
By A Correspondent- Zimbabwe power utility, ZESA has issued an update on the country’s increased scheduled power cuts, locally known as load shedding saying that they were being caused by the limited power imports.
Zimbabwe is importing electricity from ESKOM and Hydro Cahora Bassa and ESKOM have announced that it will be reducing power supplies to Zimbabwe.
Farai Dziva|MDC leader Nelson Chamisa was given the mandate by the Congress to lead the opposition, the party’s presidential spokesperson, Nkululeko Sibanda has said.
Sibanda said: “Whatever happens in the Supreme Court today the reality is that President Nelson Chamisa held a Congress for the Movement for Democratic Change.
The MDC is a Democratic movement which means that the only D-Day that is understood by its statutes and its membership, is the day of a Congress. It is therefore always going to be clear to any right-thinking person that the shenanigans of attempting to wrestle or destabilise the MDC through the court system will always be insufficient and cannot change the facts as they obtain. President Nelson Chamisa is a strong leader of great integrity, immense charisma and an overarching vision, who continues to work extremely hard to ensure that the Party of Excellency achieves its primary goal and mandate, which is to free Zimbabwe.
This will be done no matter how many people keep going to court because they’re afraid to face his leadership.”
MTHULI AN OVERRATED MINISTER. NO Solutions to Economic Crisis.
BY DR MASIMBA MAVAZA
Zimbabwe has experienced the worst economic dip since independence.
Given recent economic problems, what are the possible solutions? The current downturn affects all major economies. Problems in Europe are feeding lower growth in US and vice versa. Some developing economies (China and India) are doing well, but they don’t have the same spending power and will to boost Zimbabwe’s ailing economy.
The unbalanced nature of growth in the economy, combined to cause a rise in commodity prices at the same time as economic stagnation in the West adds more grief to zimbabwe. Certainly this contributed to lower real wage and held back consumer spending. As well as the impact on disposable income, the cost push inflation (rising food / petrol prices) contributed to a general economic malaise – you can almost hear each Zimbabwean saying we’ve never had it so bad’.
Zimbabwe is now in a double dip recession where politics alone cannot sort the problems. A double dip recession refers to a second period of negative growth (fall in output) that many economies are now facing and many have closed down.
Zimbabwe needed to avoid a technical recession (with very low growth) but with spare capacity and in the aftermath of a recession, very weak growth will have all the signs of an actual recession. (i.e. higher unemployment, decline in living standards. It is a very wrong time to be a Zimbabwean now.
But Zimbabwe is the only company we can call ours in the whole world. We therefore need to come together regardless our political divides. Zimbabwe now needs people to pull together.
Reasons why Zimbabwe is in this situation.
There is a lot of sacred cows within those in power. The efforts of president Munangagwa are being pulled down by corruption in the economic sector.
In the boom years, banks made an increasing number of loans with little regard to ability to repay. Many white farmers had loans which were tied to the farms. Banks found ways to increase the number of mortgage loans through strategies such as interest only mortgages, 100% mortgages and lending to people with credit histories which are ignored because of their influence in the country. This senior man’s syndrome pulled the liquidity to dry. Zimbabwe is the only country in the world which gives only Thirty dollars per day. This seriously slows down growth and plunges monetary system to become a joke. The result is that more farmers who have lost farms in the land distribution are at risk of mortgage defaults. It is this rise in mortgage defaults that led to bank losses and reduced their willingness to lend and cleaning the banks dry money availability becomes a dream.
Credit Crunch. banks lost billions through Loan defaults. They either did this directly or indirectly through the whole complicated network of credit default swaps. The financial system has never fully recovered – bad loans and loss of confidence. To that end the new dispensation inherited a time bomb which is now bursting into calamities and difficulties. The nation has now been brought to their knees with no hope in sight. Only a miracle will save Zimbabwe.
Balance Sheet Recession. The great recession of 2008, was not due to a temporary period of high interest rates or deflationary fiscal policy (
The last recession was because of fundamental imbalances in the banking sector. This is much more difficult to recover from. For example, interest rates were cut but low interest rates weren’t enough to encourage strong lending; it remains an example of a liquidity trap. Banks are concentrating on improving their balance sheets, and even now, there is a greater reluctance to lend, and banks are being more cautious. Only those who had influence got loans and failed to pay. Only those who are no longer protected by the authorities are being sued for the loans. Most still in power have refused or simply failed to pay or service the loans.
For Zimbabwe the economy could be helped if there was strong and decisive leadership in the economic sector. The fundamental thing is the government need to stop emphasizing the need for austerity and hard times. They are currently trying their best to talk us into a recession. It is not just a fiscal crisis, the real problem is the prospect of a second recession there are fundamental problems like Lack of Economic growth High Unemployment Long-term structural deficits Lack of Confidence in finance and consumer sector. These are just a few.
However there is hope only if the Number One priority is to Target Economic growth and reduce unemployment. At the very least, economic growth needs to be close to long run trend rate. it actually needs to be higher to catch up with lost spare capacity. Strong growth will help boost tax revenues and reduce unemployment. It is only in this climate you can successfully reduce the deficit.
There is supply-side unemployment, especially in Our youth. We have seen prolonged structural unemployment in past decades. But, the fundamental cause is lack of aggregate demand.
Zimbabwe should make a point of not cutting spending in this current economic climate. Governments should be bold and say the best way to reduce Debt / GDP ratios – is to increase GDP and this is what we are going to do.
Governments have to stop focusing on the negative and the necessity for austerity and hard times. If they want to turn around consumer and business confidence, they should convince the country their aim is to boost growth and reduce unemployment. This is the thing that will really encourage stock markets and bond markets.National debt – has been reduced significantly during the period of economic growth enabled the economy to pay off debt. Minister Mthuli Ncube is making the mistake of trying to solve long term structural deficits, by sacrificing short term growth. In the name of long term structural change, governments is deflating the economy at a time when they should be doing the opposite.
Mthuli should be setting out plans to reduce the long term deficit, but this should not be involving short term cuts in spending on important capital investment. These long term policies. are appropriate for incentives, efficiency and equality. The minister might raise tax on petrol, and tax on those high income earners who have benefitted from recent dip in the economy.
These kind of policies are sustainable and actually, make a big difference to long term budget situation. If you sell off assets or stop current capital investment projects, it is a very limited benefit to the long term budget. The government should come up with plans to improve long term budget situation over next 20 years, markets would be willing to lend for short-term economic recovery.
The minister is dazed by a wrong belief that making people suffer changes the economy.
It should be known that people have suffered a lot and so not need this suffering.
Zimbabweans do not deserve this situation.
There must be a clear option to this plan. The minister is overrated and must be guided by the party.
Those who are not voted for are the ones who disturb the flow of life in the masses.
By Paul Nyathi|State run Chronicle Newspaper on Thursday woke up with highly sensational yet misleading front page report that MDC Member of Parliament for Magwegwe Constituency Anele Ndebele has been arrested for raping and impregnating a young school girl.
According to the report Ndebele is accused of raping an Upper Six pupil who learns at a school in Kezi, Matabeleland South Province.
National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi is said to have confirmed the MP’s arrest yesterday.
“I can confirm that we received a rape report against a 47-year-old male who is a politician. He is a member of the House of Assembly for Magwegwe Constituency. The victim in this case is a minor therefore I cannot divulge further details. The matter is under investigation and the accused is assisting us with investigations,” said Asst Commissioner Nyathi.
The opposition parliamentarian has since come out disputing the whole issue indicating that he is under no arrest nor police investigations for any form of crime including the rape allegations.
Below is Honourable Ndebele’s position on the issue.
Morning family.
l wish to bring it to your attention that l am accused of raping a minor and impregnanting her.
While this is dishonourable. I would like to assure you once more that l am a victim of fake news.l did not do what l am alleged to have done.
l have called on the police for the last 24hours to provide me with details on the issue.The charge sheet has not been coming.Yet l am vilified by the State Media who for reasons unknown to me have had access to the charge sheet.l am traumatised.
There are indications that l am under arrest but l am not.
l shall leave the story here for our spokespersons to interface with the media and shall not comment on the matter again.
You have my deepest assurance that this is fake news again!
Efforts to get a comment from police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi, quoted in the state media report have so far not been successful.
Farai Dziva|MDC presidential spokesperson, Nkululeko Sibanda has said attempts to wrestle power from party leader Nelson Chamisa reflect desperation on the part of the Zanu PF regime.
Sibanda said: “Whatever happens in the Supreme Court today, the reality is that President Nelson Chamisa held a Congress for the Movement for Democratic Change.
The MDC is a Democratic movement which means that the only D-Day that is understood by its statutes and its membership, is the day of a Congress. It is therefore always going to be clear to any right-thinking person that the shenanigans of attempting to wrestle or destabilise the MDC through the court system will always be insufficient and cannot change the facts as they obtain. President Nelson Chamisa is a strong leader of great integrity, immense charisma and an overarching vision, who continues to work extremely hard to ensure that the Party of Excellency achieves its primary goal and mandate, which is to free Zimbabwe.
This will be done no matter how many people keep going to court because they’re afraid to face his leadership.”
Heart disease is a term covering any disorder of the heart.
Unlike cardiovascular disease, which describes problems with the blood vessels and circulatory system as well as the heart, heart disease refers to issues and deformities in the heart itself.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia. One in every four deaths in the U.S. occurs as a result of heart disease.
Fast facts on heart disease
One in every four deaths in the U.S. is related to heart disease.
Coronary heart disease,
arrhythmia , and myocardial infarction are some examples of heart disease.
Heart disease might be treated with medication or surgery.
Quitting smoking and exercising regularly can help prevent heart disease.
Types
There are many different types of heart disease.
There are many types of heart disease that affect different parts of the organ and occur in different ways.
Congenital heart disease
This is a general term for some deformities of the heart that have been present since birth. Examples include:
Septal defects : There is a hole between the two chambers of the heart.
Obstruction defects: The flow of blood through various chambers of the heart is partially or totally blocked.
Cyanotic heart disease: A defect in the heart causes a shortage of oxygen around the body.
Arrhythmia
Arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat.
There are several ways in which a heartbeat can lose its regular rhythm.
These include:
tachycardia , when the heart beats too fast
bradycardia, when the heart beats too slowly
premature ventricular contractions, or additional, abnormal beats
fibrillation, when the heartbeat is irregular
Arrhythmias occur when the electrical impulses in the heart that coordinate the heartbeat do not work properly.
These make the heart beat in a way it should not, whether that be too fast, too slowly, or too erratically.
Irregular heartbeats are common, and all people experience them. They feel like a fluttering or a racing heart.
However, when they change too much or occur because of a damaged or weak heart, they need to be taken more seriously and treated.
Arrhythmias can become fatal.
Coronary artery disease
The coronary arteries supply the heart muscle with nutrients and oxygen by circulating blood.
Coronary arteries can become diseased or damaged, usually because of plaque deposits that contain cholesterol.
Plaque buildup narrows the coronary arteries, and this causes the heart to receive less oxygen and nutrients.
Dilated cardiomyopathy
The heart chambers become dilated as a result of heart muscle weakness and cannot pump blood properly.
The most common reason is that not enough oxygen reaches the heart muscle, due to coronary artery disease. This usually affects the left ventricle.
Myocardial infarction
This is also known as a heart attack, cardiac infarction, and coronary thrombosis. An interrupted blood flow damages or destroys part of the heart muscle. This is usually caused by a blood clot that develops in one of the coronary arteries and can also occur if an artery suddenly narrows or spasms.
Heart failure
Also known as congestive heart failure, heart failure occurs when the heart does not pump blood around the body efficiently.
The left or right side of the heart might be affected. Rarely, both sides are. Coronary artery disease or high blood pressure can, over time, leave the heart too stiff or weak to fill and pump properly.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
This is a genetic disorder in which the wall of the left ventricle thickens, making it harder for blood to be pumped out of the heart. This is the leading cause of sudden death in athletes. A parent with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy has a 50 percent chance of passing the disorder on to their children.
Mitral regurgitation
Also known as mitral valve regurgitation, mitral insufficiency, or mitral incompetence, this occurs when the mitral valve in the heart does not close tightly enough. This allows blood to flow back into the heart when it should leave. As a result, blood cannot move through the heart or the body efficiently.
People with this type of heart condition often feel tired and out of breath.
Mitral valve prolapse
The valve between the left atrium and left ventricle does not fully close, it bulges upwards, or back into the atrium. In most people, the condition is not life-threatening, and no treatment is required. Some people, especially if the condition is marked by mitral regurgitation, may require treatment.
Pulmonary stenosis
It becomes hard for the heart to pump blood from the right ventricle into the pulmonary artery because the pulmonary valve is too tight. The right ventricle has to work harder to overcome the obstruction. An infant with severe stenosis can turn blue. Older children will generally have no symptoms.
Treatment is needed if the pressure in the right ventricle is too high, and a balloon valvuloplasty or open-heart surgery may be performed to clear an obstruction.
Symptoms
The symptoms of heart disease depend on which condition is affecting an individual.
However, common symptoms include chest pain, breathlessness, and heart palpitations. The chest pain common to many types of heart disease is known as angina , or angina pectoris, and occurs when a part of the heart does not receive enough oxygen.
Angina can be triggered by stressful events or physical exertion and normally lasts under 10 minutes.
Heart attacks can also occur as a result of different types of heart disease. The signs of a heart attack are similar to angina except that they can occur during rest and tend to be more severe.
The symptoms of a heart attack can sometimes resemble indigestion.
Heartburn and a stomach ache can occur, as well as a heavy feeling in the chest.
Other symptoms of a heart attack include:
pain that travels through the body, for example from the chest to the arms, neck, back, abdomen, or jaw
lightheadedness and dizzy sensations
profuse sweating
nausea and vomiting
Heart failure is also an outcome of heart disease, and breathlessness can occur when the heart becomes too weak to circulate blood.
Some heart conditions occur with no symptoms at all, especially in older adults and individuals with diabetes .
The term ‘congenital heart disease’ covers a range of conditions, but the general symptoms include:
sweating
high levels of fatigue
fast heartbeat and breathing
breathlessness
chest pain
a blue tint to the skin
clubbed fingernails
In severe cases, symptoms can occur from birth. However, these symptoms might not develop until a person is older than 13 years.
Causes
Heart disease is caused by damage to all or part of the heart, damage to the coronary arteries, or a poor supply of nutrients and oxygen to the organ.
Some types of heart disease, such as
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, are genetic. These, alongside congenital heart defects, can occur before a person is born.
There are a number of lifestyle choices that can increase the risk of heart disease.
These include:
high blood pressure and cholesterol
smoking
overweight and obesity
diabetes
family history
a diet of junk food
age
a history of preeclampsia during pregnancy
staying in a stationary position for extended periods of time, such as sitting at work
Having any of these risk factors greatly increases the risk of heart disease. Some, such as age, are unavoidable. For example, once a woman reaches 55 years of age, heart disease becomes more likely.
Treatment
There are two main lines of treatment for heart disease. Initially, a person can attempt to treat the heart condition using medications. If these do not have the desired effect, surgical options are available to help correct the issue.
Medication
A very wide range of medication is available for the majority of heart conditions. Many are prescribed to prevent blood clots, but some serve other purposes.
The main medications in use are:
statins, for lowering cholesterol
blood thinners, such as warfarin, for preventing blood clots
beta-blockers , for treating heart attack, heart failure, and high blood pressure
angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, for heart failure and high blood pressure
Your doctor will work with you to find a medication that is safe and effective. They will also use medications to treat underlying conditions that can affect the heart, such as diabetes before they become problematic.
Surgery
Heart surgery is an option for people with heart disease, but it can be debilitating.
Heart surgery is an intensive option from which it can take a long time to recover.
However, they can be effective in treating blockages and heart problems for which medications may not be effective, especially in the advanced stages of heart disease.
The most common surgeries include:
angioplasty, in which a balloon catheter is inserted to widen narrowed blood vessels that might be restricting blood flow to the heart
coronary artery bypass surgery, which allows blood flow to reach a blocked part of the heart in people with blocked arteries
surgery to repair or replace faulty heart valves
pacemakers, or electronic machines that regulate a heartbeat for people with arrhythmia
Heart transplants are another option. However, it is often difficult to find a suitable heart of the right size and blood type in the required time. People are put on a waiting list for donor organs and can sometimes wait years.
Prevention
Some types of heart disease, such as those that are present from birth, cannot be prevented.
Other types, however, can be prevented by taking the following measures:
Eat a balanced diet. Stick to low-fat, high-fiber foods and be sure to consume five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables each day. Increase your intake of whole grains and reduce the amount of salt and sugar in the diet. Make sure the fats in the diet are mostly unsaturated.
Exercise regularly. This will strengthen the heart and circulatory system, reduce cholesterol, and maintain blood pressure .
Maintain a healthy body weight for your height. Click here to calculate your current and target body mass index (BMI ).
If you smoke, quit. Smoking is a major risk factor for heart and cardiovascular conditions.
Reduce the intake of alcohol. Do not drink more than 14 units per week.
Control conditions that affect heart health as a complication, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
While these steps do not completely eliminate the risk of heart disease, they can help improve overall health and greatly reduce the chances of heart complications.
Exercise is one easy way to keep heart disease at bay.Health News Today
By A Correspondent- The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said that new banks notes will be printed outside the country and drip-fed into the economy “soon”, to end the current liquidity crunch.
The Central Bank’s director for finance and markets, William Manimanzi, revealed this on Wednesday when he appeared before the Budget and Finance Portfolio Committee to speak on the 2020 National Budget.
He said:
… what is happening is that new notes will be available soon so that they meet the required cash demands. Obviously, these notes are going to be printed outside the country and this requires foreign exchange.
That is all I can say at the moment — but maybe in a few months — I do not know exactly when, but those new notes will be available.
There has been a cash crisis in Zimbabwe for the past three years since the surrogate bond notes were introduced in 2016.
As a result, the few notes available are now being “sold” to the transacting public since some service providers accept cash only.
By A Correspondent- Relatives of a headman who was murdered by his neighbour in Mberengwa are demanding 70 heads of cattle from the murderer’s family to conduct a traditional ritual to appease the dead man’s spirit.
Chief Matarutse of Mberengwa, under whose jurisdiction the families live, told NewsDay that the deceased’s spirit was not at rest and would seek vengeance on the murderer’s family unless they deliver the cattle. Said the chief:
Jorum Makondo, brother to the deceased, and some family members informed my court that they need 70 beasts from the accused’s family to conduct a cleansing ceremony.
It is usually our custom and tradition that when one murders someone, he/she has to meet certain demands from the deceased’s family to avoid being haunted by an avenging spirit.
Malambeni Makondo (56) of Chemimwe village under Chief Mataruse was struck with a log several times and killed by Hlupeko Mabuzane (38) following a dispute over a botched donkey deal.
Strange things are alleged to be happening at the Mabuzane homestead and villagers suspect that the dead man’s spirit is haunting the family.
By Own Correspondent- Unconfirmed reports allege that socialite and businesswoman Pokello Nare may have paid actor Lazarus Boora’s surgery bill.
Boora, who is known as Gringo’s family appealed to the public through social media influencer Jackie Ngarande asking for RTGs18 000 in order for Gringo to have surgery.
Jackie gave a shout-out to Pokello on social media thanking her for saving someone in need, prompting many to think that she had contributed to Gringo’s bill.
The actor was taken in sick on Tuesday due to complications with his appendix.
My friend has a heart made of gold,The most generous person I know,She made a huge difference for someone in need God bless you Pokello’s Addicted 2 Shoes
By A Correspondent- Mugodhi Apostolic Faith Church leader, Bishop Tefius Mugodhi has died aged 79.
The passing on of the clergyman was confirmed by his spokesperson, Benjamin Mungiriya who said that Mugodhi succumbed to cancer at a local hospital in Harare on Monday.
Mungiriya said:
We are saddened by his death. It’s a great loss for us. He is the one who initiated the church’s anti-sanctions call and he would have loved to die after the sanctions are lifted.
Mugodhi took over the church leadership in 2002. Four church leaders had to lead the church since 1961 when his father died since he was too young to lead.
Most recently, the ailing Mugodhi indicated that he would pass the church leadership to his son, Washington, a decision that prompted rebellion from one of his deputies, Tony Sigauke.
The battle for the church leadership is already at the courts.
By A Correspondent- Mpilo Hospital doctors, one of the last groups of public hospital doctors that was still going to work in Bulawayo, has now joined the doctors’ incapacitation strike.
In a letter addressed to the hospital’s Clinical-Director, the doctors said that they cannot afford to come to work anymore due to the high cost of living.
By A Correspondent- The Member of Parliament for Magwegwe Constituency in Bulawayo, Anele Ndebele (MDC Alliance), has been arrested for allegedly raping and impregnating a high school pupil.
Ndebele is accused of raping the Upper Six pupil who learns at a school in Kezi, Matabeleland South Province.
National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi confirmed the MP’s arrest yesterday.
“I can confirm that we received a rape report against a 47-year-old male who is a politician. He is a member of the House of Assembly for Magwegwe Constituency. The victim in this case is a minor therefore I cannot divulge further details. The matter is under investigation and the accused is assisting us with investigations,” said Asst Commissioner Nyathi.
Sources told The Chronicle that the matter came to light when the pupil, whose name has been withheld for ethical reasons, fell pregnant.
Ndebele is alleged to have first met the girl in March this year when he proposed love to her but was turned down.
He then allegedly started raping her in April and May after offering to pay for her school holiday lessons.
The girl reported the matter to the police after discovering that she was pregnant.
“Ndebele met the school girl at Kezi Business Centre in March and she told him she was a Form Six pupil. He allegedly met the pupil again the following month in Kezi during the school holidays and asked her why she was not attending holiday lessons like other pupils. The complainant is alleged to have informed him that she had no money to pay for the holiday school programme. He is alleged to have offered to pay for her holiday school lessons and gave her 100 rand and some local currency,” said a source.
Ndebele allegedly proposed love to the pupil and was shot down.
“After he was rejected by the school girl, he then forced himself on her. After the rape he gave her money and left,” said the source.
Ndebele is alleged to have seen the girl again in May this year after calling her from school to meet him by his car.
He reportedly drove to a house under construction in the area where he dismissed all construction workers.
“He told all workers to leave and then went into the house with the school girl. He raped her four times before he let her go. He gave her ZWL$60 and took her back to school where he dropped her off at the gate,” said the source.
The matter allegedly only came to light when the complainant discovered that she was pregnant and filed a police report.
The opposition MDC led by advocate Nelson Chamisa has dismissed reports that its officials had a meeting with ZANU PF officials at the ruling party’s Headquarters to push for dialogue between Chamisa and President Emmerson Mnangagwa. We present the party’s statement in full below.
MDC dismisses report on talks and meeting at Zanu PF Headquarters
The MDC would like to put it on record that it has not been involved in any meeting with Zanu PF either formal, ad-hoc or informal.
As the party that won the 2018 election, the MDC is committed to resolving the socioeconomic problems facing the country in keeping with its promise to the people of Zimbabwe at the 2018 Election.
The MDC understands that the deepening crisis is a direct consequence of the unresolved 2018 Presidential election wherein popular will was disregarded and the MDC was prevented from executing its mandate as the winning party. We therefore, believe that it is fundamental that there be genuine dialogue aimed at resolving this legitimacy question and to attend to political and economic reforms.
The MDC believes that the platform for this dialogue must be convened by a neutral arbitrator or institution and that the outcome of the dialogue and its execution be guaranteed by SADC, AU or the UN.
The MDC would like to reassure its members and the nation that we have not digressed from the path to dialogue as explicitly expressed in the RELOAD document.
By A Correspondent- After long regulatory delays, Zimbabwe has now begun cultivation of hemp and cannabis, with high hopes to add a new export into its pot of traditional cash crops.
In 2018, Zimbabwe announced it would allow the cultivation of cannabis for medicinal purposes, and further amendments to the law this September legalised the growing of industrial hemp, which is used in the manufacture of fibres.
On Friday, overcoming bureaucracy and the suspicion that has long-delayed investment, the Zimbabwe Industrial Hemp Trust (ZIHT) sowed six varieties of industrial cannabis, the country’s first authorised hemp crop. Industrial hemp is a variety of cannabis that is grown for industrial uses in textiles, paper, rope and edible seeds.
The notion that hemp is “mbanje”, or marijuana, has, however, caused some suspicion and delay. In reality, hemp, unlike marijuana, is not a drug and does not make one “high”. Unlike marijuana, hemp contains a low count of psychoactive substance THC.
ZIHT founder, dentist Zorodzai Maroveke, says she discovered the opportunity when she bought a dress made from hemp fabric while studying in China. She has lobbied for years to have the production of cannabis and industrial hemp legalised, which meant having to convince government officials to overcome their own prejudices.
Hazy regulation
Johannes Swan, co-founder of lobby group the Roots Movement, says they still have to prove to the government that hemp is not a narcotic.
“As soon as we can prove that to them then we can take this to a larger scale and go commercial. We hope to be producing the best quality hemp fibre in the world,” Swan says.
However, the industry has won part of the battle against negative perception, with Agriculture Minister Perence Shiri attending Friday’s first plant.
“This project is the first of its kind in the history of our country,” Shiri said. “This pilot project will provide essential knowledge or information for the successful production of this crop. The benefits that will be derived from the production of industrial hemp are enormous and varied.”
Hazy on how to regulate the crop, and confused by differing submissions by applicants over just how much the crops would earn for the country, government took months to develop a licencing regime.
Growers of hemp and cannabis – two different crops – get licences running for up to five years, and have to produce their crops under strict monitoring.
To convince the sceptics in government, growers have had to show them the numbers. According to consultancy firm, Prohibition Partners, Africa’s legal cannabis industry could earn up to US$7,1 billion per year by 2023 “if a number of the continent’s major markets open up and mirror the trend of legalisation” seen in markets such as the USA, Canada and Europe.
Since legalisation of cannabis growing last year, interest has been strong, with over 350 applications received within weeks of the announcement.
“We will find the funding for it. There are many interested parties already,” Swan says.
The new hemp project in Harare, on a 10 hectare patch on the fields of the Harare Central Prison, is partly funded by NSK Holdings, an international company, and Symtomax, a Portuguese firm that will provide technical farming support.
Joint venture
In Marondera, British firm Eco Equity has begun work on its US$6.3 million medicinal cannabis project. The company plans to complete a greenhouse by the first quarter of 2020, start cultivation in the second quarter, and begin exports of the product by the third quarter.
Eco Equity has partnered with Dutch greenhouse manufacturer DutchGreenhouses and Australian cannabis company Delta Tetra to build the facility. The company says it has been granted a long-term lease on 2 000 hectares of land to grow and process cannabis.
Jon-Paul Doran, Eco Equity CEO, said: “After months of planning, we have moved on to the next exciting phase of our project and we are already seeing the first pictures of the work undertaken. We believe we have the perfect site in terms of both location and climate to cultivate the optimum quality cannabis, which we can use for medicinal purposes. We have employed experts from around the globe to ensure our facilities are cutting edge as we look to provide an alternative natural cure.”
According to Eco Equity, the project has an expenditure requirement of £5 million (US$6,3 million), which will include total capital cost of £3 million and £2m as working capital.
Whats Your Take "We, the citizens of Zimbabwe, are tired of putting up with the never ending assurances from the United States that sanctions are exclusively targeting certain individuals and companies, and do not affect ordinary residents.
By A Correspondent- Police in Beitbridge are holding a man on allegations of detaining a 13-year-old girl for sexual purposes.
The crime was discovered after it was noticed that the young girl was bleeding from her private parts, resulting in investigations by relatives who subsequently informed the police.
“We have such a report, but you can get more details from our Gwanda Press office,” the Officer-in-Charge at Beitbridge Urban Police Station, Chief Inspector Kenneth Mushongahande said on Sunday.
The Matabeleland South police spokesman, Chief Inspector Sibanda said he was in Bulawayo and had no information on the arrest.
Alocal publication reported that the man, now in police custody, took the girl in his Honda Fit car and drove to a secluded place where he allegedly abused the minor.
“Relatives of the girl who had been looking for her discovered her unusual bleeding. She later revealed her ordeal and pointed to the man,” sources said.
The suspect was expected to appear in court yesterday.
As she waits for her turn to immunise her twin boys at a local clinic, 33-year old Sphiwe Muranda (not her realm name) cannot help but reflect on the long, emotional journey she has travelled.
The memory of how she suffered at the hands of her first husband’s family after failing to conceive for 10 years is still fresh in her mind.
“Harrison’s family put all the blame on me. They said I was infertile. But now, it is clear the problem was their son,” she said, wiping off tears with the back of her hand.
Muranda is one of the many women who have been hounded by their in-laws and condemned by society for “failure” to conceive. Cultural beliefs on infertility issues have resulted in both physical and emotional abuse of many women in Zimbabwe.
“At first, my ex-husband would rally behind me and we would pray over it. None of the family members ever thought that their son was the one who was infertile. I was forced to visit traditional healers and prophets, but all was in vain. I was verbally abused until I could not bear it anymore. I decided to end the marriage,” she said.
After the divorce, Muranda relocated to South Africa in 2017, where her sister lived, to pick up the pieces of her life in a new environment. She met the man who would marry her and sire her twin boys.
“My sister encouraged me to try again. At first I thought I would suffer a miscarriage, but I was relieved when the doctor said he had discovered two foetuses and that I was in perfect health. I gave birth to these two boys and my ex-husband who also got married is still childless. The answer is clear now,” said Muranda, forcing a smile.
Her ex-husband is already aware that she is now a mother.
“Harrison is aware of my two sons. I told him to visit specialists so that they can examine him. He wants a baby, but the truth is most people think that only women suffer from infertility issues. That is a very wrong perception,” she said.
In some societies, infertility is like a curse while others see it as a bad omen or a result of witchcraft. Despite the massive effects of globalisation or modernity, most people are still reluctant to accept that infertility is a medical condition and that even men can be infertile.
According to Mayo Clinic, infertility in men is due to a low sperm count, abnormal sperm function or blockages that prevent the delivery of sperm. Illnesses, injuries, chronic health problems, lifestyle choices and other factors can play a role in causing male infertility.
Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (Zinatha) spokesperson George Kandiero said it is high time affected couples sought solutions together since it has proven that the problem can also lie with men.
“Most times the woman is blamed, even if it means consulting traditional medical practitioners, it is the woman who does it alone. As custodians and champions of culture we know and believe that the problem can also lie with the man, hence we encourage couples to consult together,” he said.
According to the World Health Organisation, between 8% and 12% of couples around the world have difficulty in conceiving a child at some point in their life, and in some areas that figure reaches one-third or more of couples. Infertility affects an estimated 48,5 million couples worldwide, of which 10,8 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Addressing journalists in Harare recently, First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa said the issue of infertility should not be a blame game, mainly on women.
“Infertility affects men and women. This cannot be a blame game. Yet we know in our societies that women bear the brunt of this problem. This can be a basis of sexual and or physical abuse, divorce or isolation from the family structure,” she said.
Traditionally, men’s infertility has been concealed by family and relatives who at times devised ways of secretly engaging his elder or younger brother to impregnate his wife. This act would be kept as a secret by the family members. However, it is different with women who, after being certified barren, are chucked out of the family residence in a humiliating way.
“There is need for a shift from the traditionally-held view that infertility affects women to a realistic understanding of the truth that infertility equally affects both men and women,” said Gerald Madziyire, a gynaecologist with the Ministry of Health and Child Care.
According to a 2003 research by Health Care Women International on the fertility patterns of women in Zimbabwe, at least one in every four women of childbearing age suffers from some degree of infertility.
Zimbabwe has one of the world’s highest infertility rates along with other southern African countries such as Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho according to a 2010 World Population Prospect survey.
Today, Muranda has proved her tormentors wrong. She is now a proud mother after enduring 10 years of emotional and physical torture from his in-laws.
Though God has blessed her with twin boys, the hard times she experienced in her first marriage will never be erased off her mind.
