Mugabe makaipa

Zim Union head arrested

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:43:00 +0000

from the times SA

Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, and two of his colleagues, Michael Kandakutu and Percy Mcijo, were arrested in the north-western resort town of Victoria Falls on Sunday for "holding a meeting without notifying police," their lawyer, Kucaca Pulu, said.

Union officials said Matombo was arrested on the first stop of a tour of the country to consult with union members.

His is the latest in a series of arrests in the last three weeks that have included the heads of the country's umbrella organisation for civil society bodies, a senior human rights lawyer and an official from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) official who was found to have been tortured. ..

Sokwanele: Violence in Zim

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:17:00 +0000

From ZigWatch (sokwanele)

October has been a month characterised by violence, lawlessness, corruption and the complete abuse of power for partisan and personal objectives. Despite Robert Mugabe’s outrageous claim to the contrary, Sokwanele has logged an incredible 3850 breaches of the GPA by Zanu PF since the start of the ZIG Watch project, making this party responsible for 88.8% of all breaches logged up until the end of October.

the article then gives details on retribution to Nestle for not buying Grace's milk, and the Roy Bennett case, and the deportation of the UN representative who was investigating torture.

Slap on the wrist for Zim's Blood diamonds

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:15:00 +0000

editorial at ALL AFRICA.com

...Last week the Kimberley Process -- the name by which the initiative is popularly known -- convened a summit to try to convince Zimbabwe to suspend itself from membership of the process after the country's soldiers allegedly killed more than 200 miners in an operation to seize control of the Marange fields late last year.

But the summit's host government, Namibia -- unwilling to be perceived as a 'puppet of the West' -- would not stand up to the government of President Robert Mugabe, even though the credibility of the Kimberley Process depended on it. So the summit granted Zimbabwe eight months to sort itself out....

The problem with NIgeria

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:54:00 +0000

Ralph Peters at the NYPost includes this snip about Nigeria in his column:

Nigeria: It ain't just about e-mail scams. Nigeria's one of the key oil producers on which our security and your daily commute depend. A government amnesty initiative for the rebels who've been attacking Niger Delta oil installations for years shows some promise of cooling the conflict. (There's been massive environmental damage, too -- where's the left's outrage?)

But big issues remain between the brutalized Christian tribes of Nigeria's oil states, who've seen their oil wealth stolen, and a thieving central government unjustly tilted toward the Muslim north. Nigeria's vastly more important to our well-being than Afghanistan, yet the crisis gets little coverage. Wouldn't want to offend any viciously corrupt Muslims . . .

Harare council police go on rampage

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:23:00 +0000

from SWRadioAfrica

. Problems started when a small group of council police officers went on the rampage at the terminus looking for illegal touts, people who ‘assist’ bus conductors and drivers to fill the vehicles with passengers...

Muchemwa said two truckloads of council police, numbering about 50, returned and ran around beating people, again randomly. He said they beat up almost everybody in sight, including some school children and the elderly. This incensed the public even more, resulting in the running battles, especially from many youths who pelted the police with stones in retaliation. Several people are said to have been injured and a number of commuter buses damaged....

Tsvangirai ends boycott

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:21:00 +0000

from AlJazeerah

.

Tsvangirai's decision on Thursday followed a meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, with members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

"We have suspended our disengagement from the GPA (Global Political Agreement) with immediate effect and we will give President Robert Mugabe 30 days to implement the agreement on the pertinent issues we are concerned about," he told reporters.

He said his return to the cabinet would give the southern African group time to mediate.

no mention of violence or jailing by the government...

Grabbing up Africa's land

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:22:00 +0000

Via the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia):

...The food rights campaign officer for Action Aid, Alex Wijeratna, said: ''There's a new scramble for land in Africa. It's growing at an incredible rate. There's massive secrecy, poor communities can't get information and they're not being consulted....

Earlier this year the legendary speculator George Soros highlighted a new farmland-buying frenzy ... South Korea has bought huge areas of Madagascar, while Chinese interests have bought large swathes of Senegal to supply it with sesame.

''I'm convinced farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time,'' Mr Soros said. ''Eventually … the bull market will end. But that's a long ways away yet.''

I'm not sure what to make of all of this: foreign investment and agribusiness is a no no to greens and local small farmers, but without agribusiness and modern techniques, Africa will continue to starve...my main question is if the aim is to sell to locals and make a profit or to export it while locals starve...

Regional summit set for Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:40:00 +0000

the AP reports that there will be a regional summit on Thursday, of the Southern African Development Community. including South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia,

Timid SADC can learn from ECOWAS

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:40:00 +0000

from Nehanda Radio\\.

Even as he headed for South Africa for the first in a series of meetings he hopes to hold with regional leaders, Tsvangirai would have known that there was no hope of the Southern African Development Community adopting a stance against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as tough as the one taken by Ecowas on Saturday against the leaders of Guinea and Niger.

In case you have missed your continental news, here is an update: Following the massacre of, reportedly, more than 150 people at an opposition rally in Guinea last month, Ecowas convened an emergency summit in Abuja on Friday.... the Ecowas meeting was no talking-shop.

West African leaders, headed by Nigeria’s Umaru Yar’adua, reacted by slapping Captain Moussa Dadis Camara’s regime with an arms embargo.

They also mandated Yar’Adua to lobby the African Union, the European Union and other international bodies to do the same.

In a statement issued after the summit, Ecowas described the state-sponsored violence in Guinea as a “real threat to the peace, security and stability” of the entire West African region...

Despite calls for help from a desperate MDC, the SADC has done very little to ensure that Mugabe meets his end of the bargain.

Mugabe faces losing gem lifeline

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:26:00 +0000

from the UKGuardian

Members of the international diamond watchdog, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), will consider suspending Zimbabwe for at least six months at a four-day meeting after a working party investigated the Chiadzwa fields in the east of the country.

A suspension would in effect stop the Zimbabwean government importing and exporting rough diamonds. However, the scheme is voluntary and the Zimbabwean authorities would be required to enforce it – the same authorities that are said to be heavily involved in illegal smuggling and violence at the mines.

Perhaps more importantly, a suspension would also put the onus on reputable traders and governments not to buy Zimbabwean diamonds,...

The government sent in troops in October last year after thousands of people descended on the site in a modern-day diamond rush. Soldiers beat and killed illegal panners as helicopters hovered above, shooting at miners.

Since then, the military has thrown a huge cordon round the site and is accused of using local people as virtual slaves to dig up the diamonds, which are then smuggled out of the country.

and to make things worse, the UK owners just won a court case when they asked for their mine back

Bill Gates vs the Green lobby

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:50:00 +0000

fromFrontPageMagazine (a right wing US webpage)

...Greenpeace has long claimed GM foods increase allergies; however, the World Health Organization – hardly a corporate, capitalist shill – concluded, “No allergic effects have been found relative to GM foods currently on the market.” Although six EU nations ban GM foods, Jaap Satter, a senior policy adviser at the Dutch Agriculture Ministry, has said, “You cannot say anymore that there is a scientific reason to be against genetic modification.” The National Research Council summed up the situation: “no conceptual distinction exists between generic modification of plants and microorganisms by classical methods or by molecular techniques that modify DNA and transfer genes.”

Some environmentalists seem concerned the foods will be too successful at feeding the poor. Al Gore has worried, “The most lasting impact of biotechnology on the food supply may come not from something going wrong, but from all going right…we’re far more likely to accidentally drown ourselves in a sea of excess grain.” ,,,“The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa was established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” and the Rockefeller Foundation in 2006 “with the objective of improving agriculture in Africa.” However, its leader, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, vowed in 2007: “We in the alliance will not incorporate GMOs [genetically modified organisms] in our programmes. We shall work with farmers using traditional seeds.”..

earth to greens: it is not an "either/or" question.

You can have factory farms to produce lots of GM food to feed the poor in the cities, while paying farmers to grow their traditional seeds.

If you got rid of the tsetse fly and used modern farming techniques, Africa could feed the world.

But getting rid of the tsetse fly would mean farmers destroying "game reserves" that warm the cockles of the rich western greens (who live in areas where their own wolves, carrier pidgeons and mammoths no longer survive thanks to men).

And I've seen too many TV shows by those who should know better lauding the "natural" tribal lives of the poor: ignoring of course little things like children dying of diarrhea, moms dying in childbirth, and the constant stomach aches from parasite infestation.

Organic products are labor intensive. Are they better? Perhaps, but the harvest is lower than modern methods, so you get less rice.

so although our family grows organic rice and veggies, the dirty little secret is that we sell the products at a price twice that of ordinary rice and veggies; the ordinary farmers are underpriced by Chinese and Vietnamese etc. farmers who do use lots of pesticides and fertilizers and use the best seeds available, and so can underprice local farmers.

there is a lot of money in all of this, as the article points out:
National Review’s Deroy Murdock found:

In 2001, the 30 leading anti-biotech groups…spent $341.4 million, including Greenpeace USA’s expenditure of $23,748,737, Environmental Defense’s $38,794,150 and the Natural Resources Defense Council’s $41,625,882. Between 1996 and 2001, this crusade’s lavish underwriters included the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($11,906,500), the Ford Foundation ($39,978,020) and the Pew Charitable Trusts ($130,996,900).

It also included a large portion of the organic food market. Somehow, this story of an industry trying to spike a competitor did not make MSNBC or the pages of Mother Jones.

Whatever the dangers, the prohibition of GM foods is a moral issue. As Velasio De Paolis of the Pontifical Urban University has said, it is “easy to say no to GM food if your stomach is full.”

Food Crisis set to worsen

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:48:00 +0000

from SwRadioAfrica

The food crisis that is threatening to leave millions of Zimbabweans once again facing severe hunger in the coming months is set to worsen, as the country’s remaining commercial farmers continue to come under both physical and legal attack....

Commercials farmers themselves have warned that a failed farming season is on the cards, as a direct result of the state sponsored, ongoing efforts, to drive farmers from their land. Since the formation of the unity government in February there has been an intensified wave of attacks on commercial land owners, by thugs working for top ZANU PF loyalists, all in the name of land ‘reform’.... This year alone, at least 80 farms have been seized, more than 150 farmers have faced prosecution and over sixty thousand farm workers have lost their jobs.

CFU President Deon Theron explained this week that the culprits behind the illegal land seizures are from all walks of state-connected life, including government ministers or related families, army, police and CIO officers and senior businessmen.

Two election support network members arrested

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:33:00 +0000

from SWRadioAfrica

...The Zimbabwe Election Support Network staff members, Thulani Ndhlovu and Ndodhana Ndhlovu, were arrested on Wednesday evening in Hwange’s Dete area, for conducting a public outreach workshop allegedly without police clearance. ZESN Board Chairman Tinoziva Bere denied they had conducted an illegal meeting, saying the group had received permission from the local traditional leadership and the district administrator’s office. He said Ndodhana was subsequently released but Thulani is still in police custody and is being charged with contravening a section of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA)....

UN official on torture denied entry into Zim

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:49:00 +0000

from the ZimbabweMail

Harare - Robert Mugabe's rogue Justice minister who claims to have invited UN rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak to the country has accused the UN official of trying to sow division in the country's shaky unity government. ...

he took the last-minute decision to cancel Nowak's visit and that Nowak's insistence on pressing ahead with the trip was creating "a very bad spirit" between Harare and the UN....

Nowak flew into Harare anyway Wednesday evening on an invitation from Tsvangirai, but was refused entry at the airport and put on a plane back to Johannesburg.

"He (Nowak) should not have come," Chinamasa said.

"He wants to come on the invitation of the prime minister who has announced a partial pull-out from the government,"

-------------------

From SWRadioAfrica: Deportation of UN official sparks diplomatic problem.

United Nations human rights expert, Manfred Nowak, was prevented from entering Zimbabwe on Wednesday and was deported, after spending the night at the airport, on the orders of ZANU PF.

Nowak had originally been invited by the government, but at the last minute, while he was in Johannesburg on his way to Harare, the invitation was withdrawn, because everyone was ‘too busy with the arrival of the SADC team’. But Prime Minister Tsvangirai sent a personal invitation.

Clarifying the fact that Mr. Tsvangirai has no power in the government at all, this invitation was completely ignored by authorities. On arrival at Harare airport Nowak was detained by security officials and told he had no clearance to enter the country. While he was being detained, Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi was actually at the airport receiving members of the SADC Troika ministerial team, but neither he, nor the SADC officials, did anything.

Tsvangirai, not Obama, deserved the Nobel Peace Prize

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:57:00 +0000

from AustinBay on StrategyPage.

"...Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai ought to have won the 2009 peace prize, and the fact he didn't is damning. Giants among us like Tsvangirai demonstrate that "peace warrior" is no oxymoron. Since the presidential election of 2008, which Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe stole, Tsvangirai has provided a global lesson in physical courage and long-range vision.

Despite beatings, jail and the death of his wife, he has refused to let Mugabe's "machinery of violence" stall his steady, peaceful Movement for Democratic Change. A prime minister with little political power, Tsvangirai's adroit participation in a "unity government" has prevented (so far) a civil war. A Nobel would have provided protection for him, as well as forwarded his quest for peace. .."

Nollywood

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:58:00 +0000

We used to get MNET on our cable system (it disappeared last week ...they are readjusting their channels again).

So one would expect the African film industry to be centered in South Africa, which has had a film industry for years and has produced high quality films that are equal to any Hollywood production, from The Gods must be Crazy to District nine.

But while investigating an unrelated story on the internet, I ran into this article, on Christianity Today, about the film industry in "Nollywood" which produces many low budget DVD films with Christian themes...indeed, half the films are by Christian film studios.

List of films HERE.

The interesting thing is that, unlike Hollywood, which continues to use cameras and film, the locals are making movies using digital cameras and then marketing them directly via DVD.

and the UN claims that Nigeria is the second largest film producer in the world.

According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) survey, Bollywood – as the Mumbai-based film industry is known – produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006. In comparison, Nigeria’s moviemakers, commonly known as Nollywood, came out with 872 productions – all in video format – while the United States produced 485 major films.

BBC article HERE, with feedback saying: We love the films because they mirror our lives, but others saying they lack production values and a decent story.

TIME has photos of Nollywood Stars

this has nothing to do with Zimbabwe, but shows that if prosperity returns, that this is another business that Zim could encourage.

Police arrest NGO leaders for "illegal meeting"

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:04:00 +0000

from Bloomberg news:

Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwean police arrested two officials from the National Association of Non-Governmental Organizations for allegedly holding an illegal political meeting.

Dadirai Chikwengo, chairwoman of the organization, and Chief Executive Officer Cephas Zinhumwe were detained at Victoria Falls airport yesterday, Farai Ngirande, the group’s spokesman, said in a phone interview today from the capital, Harare. The group, known as Nango, is an umbrella organization for most of Zimbabwe’s non-governmental bodies.

“Police have accused them of holding an unauthorized political meeting, which is untrue,” Ngirande said, adding that the officials were in the resort town for a scheduled meeting.

Yesterday’s arrests follow a police raid on a Movement for Democratic Change house in Harare on Oct. 24.

Zimbabwe's crisis

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:24:00 +0000

from AlJazeerah

Zim police raid MDC house

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:21:00 +0000

from AlJazeera

...Speaking on Saturday, Biti said: "Last night, armed police numbering over 50 raided this residence on the pretext that they were looking for arms stolen from the police or the army.

"[They] ransacked every room and took a bunch of valuable party material from a room occupied by our organising secretary Morgan Komichi.

"They beat up the wife and sister of the caretaker before they started digging part of the garden ostensibly in search of weapons."...

Nestle being pressured again

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:35:00 +0000

From SWRadioAfrica

International food giant Nestlé has this week come under growing pressure from groups loyal to Robert Mugabe and his family, to renew its recently severed commercial ties with the First Family....

Last week a group of youths tried to force the Zimbabwe branch of Nestlé to buy more than 20 000 litres milk from Gushongo Estate. It’s understood the group, led by Youth Minister Saviour Kasukuwere and his ZANU PF politburo member brother Tongai, tried to force Nestlé staff to offload the milk tanker that had been transported from Gushongo farm. But after a four hour stand off, including intense debate and negotiations with Nestlé Zimbabwe management, the tanker and the ZANU PF youth group were turned away.

A local black empowerment group then lashed out at Nestlé on Wednesday, saying the international group should be forced to sell its Harare branch to local blacks if it refuses to renew its relationship with Mrs Mugabe.//...

Zim faces power shortages

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:32:00 +0000

from Bloomberg

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe faces two weeks of “massive” electricity shortages while the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority closes a plant for maintenance, the state-owned Herald said, citing Fullard Gwasira, a Zesa spokesman.

Power generation at Kariba Hydropower Station will be slashed from 750 megawatts to 500 megawatts starting today,

more at article

MDC activist left for dead

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:36:00 +0000

from SWRadioAfrica:

"...
A group numbering 20 youths, led by two well known war veterans named as Mudzamira and Nhongo, visited Mutizhe’s home and said they had ‘come back to finish him off’ after failing to do so in June last year.
MDC MP for Makoni South, Pishai Muchauraya, told SW Radio Africa that the gang first ransacked his house and took almost all his clothes and $450 he had in cash after selling two of his cows....

No awards for African leadership

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:33:00 +0000

from AlJazeerah:

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which annually hands out a $5 million prize for African good governance, has said it could not find anyone to award this year.

Last year, President Mogae of Botswana won it.

Two Al Jazeerah journalists detained

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:32:00 +0000

from the Zimbabwe mail, but no mention of it on Al Jazeerah so far.

The two journalists were first detained at a small police post located at Munhumutapa Building at around 09:00 am before being transferred to Harare Central Police Station.

Witnesses who saw the incident told this reporter that the security detail who detained the two journalists verbally harassed them and accused them of trying to show to the world the gaps created in the cabinet meeting room because of the boycott by Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and ministers from his party.

“They (security details) accused the journalists of being agents of regime change and of attempting to show the empty seats in cabinet to the whole world and make an impression that Tsvangirai is the boss in the coalition government,” said the witnesses.

The two journalists were only released at around 11:50 am after the intervention of President Robert Mugabe’s spokesperson and the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity George Charamba. Charamba reportedly intervened after officials from Al Jazeera telephoned Charamba to enquire on the detention.

Cholera breaks out again

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:22:00 +0000

from the UKTimes

Summary...Some new cases...worries as the summer rainy season starts.

The sewers are not yet fixed, and with government squabbling, few foreign governments want to invest in the infrastructure.

The Zimbabwe Mail has more information on the outbreak

"...A senior Health Ministry official, Gerald Gwinji, told the state-controlled Herald that the five deaths had been recorded from 117 cases in the Manicaland, Mashonaland West and Midlands provinces.

"Most of the cases were recorded ... among religious objectors, who for a long time have been reluctant to seek medical attention," Gwinji said...."

There are some African/Christian cults in Zimbabwe (as there are in other areas of Africa) that rely on faith healing and don't use western medicine.

But of course, even if the deaths are from non treatment, the infection is spread via contaminated water.