Dear Family and Friends,
A few months ago a friend was approached by a vendor who had a large walnut -sized transparent stone. The vendor didn’t want to say where he’d got the stone from but claimed it was a diamond and he was trying to sell it. The stone had a sharp edge which made [...]

The decision was made in the past few weeks to proceed with the implementation of the road map to a new constitution as laid down, in some detail, in the Global Political Agreement. This has set us on a course that is likely to transform our political landscape and bring an early end to the [...]

A letter from the diaspora
Dear Friends.
‘While the cat’s away the mice will play’ goes the old English proverb. I’m pretty sure there’s a Shona equivalent – something involving the endearing ‘kitsi’ no doubt! But whatever the language, there’s a great deal of truth in the old proverb. As soon as Prime Minister Tsangirai boarded that [...]

In an estuary the turn of the tide happens every day – when it happens it is difficult to see at first but soon the water starts to run, slowly at first and then like a flood, sweeping all in front of it and even tempering the incoming waves. Are we seeing the first signs [...]

It may be difficult to believe but on Monday next week, the MDC would have been in government for 100 days. On Tuesday the Prime Minister will address Parliament and on Wednesday he will launch the next 100 day programme at the International Conference Centre in Harare.
The day before that he will address Parliament for [...]

In the late 90’s the Government of Zimbabwe held a conference on land reform in Zimbabwe. Broad agreement was reached between the State, the stakeholders and international aid agencies but the agreement was never implemented. Two years later, in an attempt to destroy the opposition base on commercial farms, the State began what it eventually [...]

I have not bought a Herald newspaper for at least 10 years. The reasons are many but mainly relate to the fact that for as long as I can remember your paper has been an apologist for the government and what in the past has been called the “ruling Party”.
However on Wednesday this week some [...]

Just how bad the situation is in the economy is not hard to see. Banks are empty – no clients and often just one teller on duty. Wholesalers are slowly getting back on their feet but stocks are pathetic and staff few and far between. The streets are empty of traffic and in town you [...]

I looked through a list of one of the more recent line-ups of the Zanu PF government and found that in the list of 58 or so Ministers were 17 PhD graduates, many from prestigious Universities in Europe and the USA. Mugabe himself is no slouch, he works out, drinks very little and eats sparingly.
He [...]

It is now five weeks since we went into the transitional government and I think the most frequently asked question that I hear is “Why are you still in there”.
That is not an easy question to answer but let me have a go at it here. Our objectives, as set out in 1999 when we [...]

Over the past few years I have had the privilege to have known a native Ugandan missionary named Mike Wangolo. He is the leader of a team of Africans called Afri-Tendo (http://www.thrustministries.org/) who make periodic trips to the United States to witness to Americans through native songs and dances. During his travels he has become [...]

I have often said that the only country in the world that has the power, and therefore the responsibility, to get Zimbabwe out of the crisis it is in, is South Africa. The reasons are geopolitical and easily demonstrated. It is the failure of South Africa to exercise that responsibility with the effective use of [...]

American forces operating in the Gulf of Aden have foiled another instance of piracy and captured nine suspects, Defense Department officials said today during a teleconference with bloggers and Internet journalists.
The Navy’s USS Vella Gulf added to its haul of pirates after foiling an attack on the Marshall Islands-registered motor vessel Polaris yesterday, when [...]

I am sure we all recall that press conference in Iraq when the Minister of Information for the Iraqi government was holding forth on the status of the war against them launched a few days earlier by the Americans. He boldly declared that the American forces would never reach the city of Baghdad. Behind him [...]

In late 2001, the local media covered a story claiming that a war veteran, Cain Ncala had been murdered – the story was elaborate and carefully constructed. The State claimed that he had been abducted by MDC operatives, taken into the bush and strangled. He body was found in a shallow grave some 40 kilometers [...]

Health Report:

Breast Cancer Incidence & Hormone Replacement Therapy
 
Circumcision & the Risk of HPV & HIV Infection

“A critical weekly review of important new research findings for health-conscious readers…”

 
By, Robert A. Wascher, MD, FACS
 
 
 

Last Updated:  12/21/2008

The information in this column is intended for informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical advice or recommendations by the author.  Please [...]

Many years ago, Didymus Mutasa said that they (Zanu PF) would be quite happy if the population fell to 6 million people who would then support the Party in its ambitions. At the time the population was probably just over 12 million and most thought these were the remarks by someone who did not have [...]

I had two disturbing experiences this week. I visited the Head Office of the Ministry of Education and then went to the Government Pensions office. I was asking after the pension of a friend who had been retired for two years and had not received his pension.
The Ministry of Education was a shock – there [...]

In the past two weeks the Zimbabwe economy has seen two really significant developments. The first is the total collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar and the second is the sharp deterioration in basic food supplies.
On Tuesday a local banker told me that the cost of money transactions in Zimbabwe dollars now exceeded the value of [...]

Nothing could illustrate the failure of African leadership more clearly than the farce that took place in Harare this weekend. Following the debacle last week when Morgan Tsvangirai refused to travel on an emergency travel document restricted to Swaziland, the SADC organ on politics and security convened in Harare this Monday. It was attended by [...]

If this were a John Wayne movie we would be about to see the good guy walk down the main street against the bad guys who were going to confront him and to try to ambush him from the side streets and buildings. Morgan has agreed to attend the SADC summit on Monday and the [...]

Dear Family and Friends,
This week the word being used to describe the government of national unity is ‘deadlocked’ and it couldn’t be more apt. We are locked in a death grip and things are falling apart at a dramatic pace.
For the benefit of people not in Zimbabwe, let me put a face to deadlock. [...]

It never was going to be easy
When we signed the deal on the 15th September we never thought it was going to be easy. Subsequent events have shown how difficult it’s going to be to make this deal work for all of us. Problems arose almost before the ink was dry.
Anyway, here we are a [...]

Yesterday the World Food Programme issued an alarming statement on the food crisis in Zimbabwe. They appealed for an additional US$140 million to cover the shortfall in basic food aid for the next six months. What they did not say was that this still leaves a shortfall in overall cereal and oilseed supplies of 800 [...]

The Somali pirates who hijacked a Ukrainian freighter carrying military weapons defiantly demanded $20 million in ransom despite being surrounded by three foreign warships on Sunday.
The spokesmen for the pirates, believed to be members and associates of Al-Qaeda, were contacted via satellite communications. They confirmed that they were surrounded by three foreign warships [...]

Dear Friends.
“We’ve got a deal”! With those words Morgan Tsvangirai told waiting journalists at the Rainbow Towers Hotel that the unbelievable had happened; the long months of agonising on/off indecision were over. There had finally been a breakthrough. Later at an official press conference Thabo Mbeki announced, “An agreement has been reached on all items [...]

Dear Family and Friends,
If you come first in a running race, why would you give ninety-nine percent of the gold medal and prize money to the person who came second? The answer is obvious but as each day passes it seems the real winner, and the will of the majority of Zimbabweans is not going [...]

Sitting here on a Saturday morning in the first days of spring in southern Africa, we must all contemplate the possible consequences of the failure of the negotiations launched by the SADC States in March 2007. At that time the concern of South Africa was the protection of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, which was [...]

Today the new Zimbabwe currency devalued to one South African cent. Issued just a month ago at parity with the Rand, it was a desperate move by the regime in Harare to try and meet the demand for cash in an environment where the local currency is halving in values every week or less.
Even though [...]

When Tsvangirai refused to sign the agreement already approved by both Mugabe and Mutambara two weeks ago, it is sure that the one person who was not surprised was Mugabe. He knew from the beginning that Tsvangirai would never agree to the post of Prime Minister with responsibility but no power.
In fact the wily old [...]