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Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said the car crash that killed Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's wife was "the hand of God", speaking at a funeral service on Tuesday. "It will take him time to recover from this shock. I plead with you to accept it, it's the hand of God," Mugabe told hundreds of mourners gathered at a Methodist church in Harare. The remarks were Mugabe's first public comments on the crash that killed Susan Tsvangirai and injured her husband on Friday. An oncoming truck hit their 4x4 on a potholed highway outside Harare, sending their vehicle flipping off the road....

HARARE (AFP) – Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was flown to neighbouring Botswana for medical tests on Saturday after being seriously injured in a car crash that killed his wife, his party said. "I do not know when he will be back, he will undergo a check-up, but he is out of danger now," a spokesman for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said. Hours earlier, Tsvangirai -- who suffered neck and head injuries in Friday's crash -- was seen by an AFP reporter walking out of the Avenues Clinic in Harare accompanied by his top allies. The crash happened...

HARARE (AFP) – Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party on Saturday pushed for an independent probe of the car crash that killed his wife and injured him, as an official said a US aid truck was involved. Tsvangirai, a longtime rival of President Robert Mugabe who recently became prime minister in a unity government aimed at ending months of political turmoil, remained in stable condition in hospital after the crash on Friday. "Police are making their own investigation, we are also making our own," said Finance Minister Tendai Biti, also the number two leader of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change...

HARARE, Zimbabwe: The prime minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, was hurt and his wife, Susan, fatally injured on Friday in a car crash about 45 miles south of the capital, according to officials of Tsvangirai's political party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Tsvangirai was heading to his rural home for a Saturday rally when the crash occurred Friday afternoon. From his hospital bed in Harare on Friday, he told one of his aides that a large truck driving on the other side of the road had come toward his Land Cruiser, the middle vehicle in a three car convoy. The...

The wife of Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been killed in a car crash in which he was also hurt, party officials say. Susan Tsvangirai was travelling with her husband south of the capital, Harare, when the crash happened. Mr Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, formed a unity government with President Robert Mugabe last month. The two had been long-time rivals before agreeing a power-sharing deal. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told Reuters news agency that Mr Tsvangirai, who will turn 57 next week, was not in a critical condition. "We have just heard that...

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has vowed to continue seizing land from white farmers after a spate of "farm invasions" over the past month. Speaking at a rally to celebrate his 85th birthday, he also promised to push for majority Zimbabwean ownership of companies operating in the country. Mugabe supporters raised $250,000 (£176,000) for a lavish birthday party in Chinhoyi, north-west of Harare. Zimbabwe asked African states for $2bn (£1.4bn) in economic aid just days ago.

HONG KONG - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe appears to have picked Hong Kong for his final bolt hole as power slips inexorably out of his hands. He couldn't have chosen a more secure place. It is not just that his US$5 million three-storey villa stands on one of the fabled "Nine Dragons" that in historic times provided the British colonial army a mountainous protective barrier against Chinese imperial forces, and is approachable only by a narrow road from Tai Po, a small town in the New Territories. It is the protection from intrusion that is all but guaranteed by the...

President Robert Mugabe in a published interview rejected demands that he should dismiss two discredited officials, while the Zimbabwean government on Thursday asked its neighbors for a $2 billion loan package to aid its collapsed economy. In the interview with the state Herald newspaper to mark his 85th birthday, Mugabe ... "It is important not to jump off the bridge before there is enough water under it,"

Churches in Zimbabwe are working to feed and heal a nation abandoned by its leadersTwenty-five years ago, people involved in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa would say wistfully: “Look at Zimbabwe. It's come through a bitter war of liberation without wrecking its social cohesion, it's developed a proper democratic culture and it's feeding itself.” Granted, this was, even then, a slightly too rosy picture, but it wasn't nonsense. It represented a conviction that Zimbabwe was showing what was possible to its neighbours and indeed to the whole continent. And this means that one of the worst of the...

February 25, 2009 Zimbabwe's vice-president foiled in 3,600kg gold deal Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent and Graham Keeley in Barcelona The Vice-President of Zimbabwe has been accused of trying to sell millions of dollars in gold nuggets and diamonds in defiance of international sanctions. Joyce Mujuru used her daughter as a go-between to seek a deal for the gold, according to Firstar, a commodities trader based in Britain, which says that it was approached in November. Mrs Mujuru, appointed by Robert Mugabe five years ago, is among the 200 Zimbabweans under European Union and United States sanctions for alleged human rights...

Three months after the Reserve Bank ordered it to close, the Harare exchange was reopened by the new finance minister Tendai Biti, of the Movement for Democratic Change, who rang the bell to start the day's trading. Zimbabwe stock exchange: The use of dollars and South African rand in Zimbabwe has become ever more widespread as the Zimbabwe dollar was rendered worthless The move symbolises the hope for economic improvement that the country's power-sharing government represents. But the fact that shares are now priced in US currency is equally significant, demonstrating the desperate state of the country's finances. In terms...

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe told reporters Thursday he doesn't see why the arrest of a longtime rival has made news around the world and strained relations with his new governing partners. "The issue of Roy Bennett is making headlines worldwide. I wonder why?" Mugabe said Thursday.

Employees at a British hotel said they were ecstatic to receive a $250 billion tip -- until they discovered the money was Zimbabwean and worthless in Britain. a group left 25 billion-dollar notes for hotel staff before embarking on their trip back to Zimbabwe, where inflation is 23 million percent

Zimbabwe's new finance minister says soldiers, teachers and civil servants will be paid in U.S. dollars as the coalition government tries to kick-start the shattered economy. Tendai Biti, a member of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's opposition party, says some 130,000 government employees will receive $100 a month tax-free, replacing their local currency salaries. Zimbabwe has the world's highest official inflation .

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, rebuffed by voters in his previous attempt to become president for life, has now taken a giant step closer to his goal. A reported 54.4 percent of voters approved a referendum on Feb. 15 that would permit Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely. It was the sort of "election" we remember from the communist days -- or see today in Zimbabwe. According to the Economist: "Public buildings and vehicles were plastered with pro-Chavez propaganda. State television and radio channels turned over almost their entire resources to promoting the campaign. And even the Caracas metro obliged passengers...

ZIMBABWE’S President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace have secretly bought a £4m bolt-hole in the Far East while his country struggles with hyper-inflation, mass unemployment and a cholera epidemic. The Mugabes’ house, in an exclusive residential complex in Hong Kong, was purchased on their behalf by a middleman through a shadowy company whose registered office is in a run-down tenement block. When a reporter and a photographer called at the house last week, they were attacked by the Zimbabwean occupants. The assailants were questioned by the police. The property came to light during a Sunday Times investigation into the...

Letter from Zimbabwe sent in by John Winter I reckon that these are the last days of TKM and ZPF. The darkest hour is always before dawn. We are all terrified at what they are going to destroy next........I mean they are actually ploughing down brick and mortar houses and one family with twin boys of 10 had no chance of salvaging anything when 100 riot police came in with AK47's and bulldozers and demolished their beautiful house - 5 bedrooms and pine ceilings - because it was 'too close to the airport', so we are feeling extremely insecure right...

It is the 85th birthday of President Mugabe this month and the zealots of his Zanu (PF) party are determined that it should be an occasion that their great leader will never forget. In recent days they have been out soliciting “donations” from corporate Zimbabwe and have drawn up a wish list that is scarcely credible in a land where seven million citizens survive on international food aid, 94 per cent are jobless and cholera rampages through a population debilitated by hunger. The list includes 2,000 bottles of champagne (Moët & Chandon or '61 Bollinger preferred); 8,000 lobsters; 100kg of...

IRAN has pledged to strengthen relations with Zimbabwe that would see the Islamic Republic offering practical solutions to the current challenges facing the country. In a meeting with President Mugabe on the sidelines of the just-ended 12th African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mr Manouchehr Mottaki said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wished Zimbabwe well. He offered 30 tonnes of drugs to help fight cholera in the country. The drugs are expected in the country soon. President Mugabe thanked Iran for the drugs saying the donation would go a long way in fighting the epidemic. He briefed the...

Zimbabwe's MDC plan to extradite Mengistu Haile Mariam to Ethiopia Martin Fletcher in Harare For 17 years Mengistu Haile Mariam, the former Ethiopian dictator who slaughtered opponents on an industrial scale in the “Red Terror”, has lived in Zimbabwe as the honoured guest of Robert Mugabe, dividing his time between a heavily guarded villa in Harare, a farm near the capital and a retreat on glorious Lake Kariba. Last year an Ethiopian court sentenced the “Butcher of Addis” to death after convicting him of genocide in absentia but Mr Mugabe flatly refused to extradite the man who helped to arm...

In Zimbabwe, Frank Chikowore sat in an overcrowded jail cell where feces flowed on the floor. He was denied access to his lawyers, his relatives, and even to food. He knows what it is like when government officials in a country that limits freedom of the press are not happy about the stories he writes. "Upcoming journalists must try to promote the freedom of the press," Chikowore urged students, many of them aspiring journalists, at Syracuse University last week. "We must be courageous enough because if we bow down to submission, who will say it?" Chikowore is a freelance journalist...

February 3, 2009 Nothing to lose: how Mugabe’s banker turned Z$1,000,000,000,000 into Z$1 Notes with many zeros confused people and computers. So Gideon Gono ordered that noughts be crossed out Martin Fletcher in Harare Gideon Gono, widely regarded as the world’s most disastrous central banker, knocked another 12 zeros off the Zimbabwean dollar yesterday in an attempt to bring the national currency back from the realms of the fantastical. In a stroke, the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank slashed the street value of the Zimbabwean dollar from $250 trillion to one US dollar to 250, because the computers, calculators and...

Gideon Gono, widely regarded as the world’s most disastrous central banker, knocked another 12 zeros off the Zimbabwean dollar yesterday in an attempt to bring the national currency back from the realms of the fantastical. In a stroke, the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank slashed the street value of the Zimbabwean dollar from $250 trillion to one US dollar to 250, because the computers, calculators and people could no longer cope with all the zeros. To counter an inflation rate that economists now estimate to be 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (five sextillion) per cent, Mr Gono has now struck 25 zeros from the...

Zimbabwe abandons its currency Zimbabweans will be allowed to conduct business in other currencies, alongside the Zimbabwe dollar, in an effort to stem the country's runaway inflation. The announcement was made by acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa. BBC southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles says the Zimbabwean dollar has become a laughing stock. A Z$100 trillion note was recently introduced. Until now only licensed businesses could accept foreign currencies, although it was common practice. The country is also facing a deepening humanitarian crisis as well. A cholera outbreak has killed over 3,000 people according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And...

President Robert Mugabe, clinging illegitimately to power, is perpetrating genocide, the Catholic bishops of southern Africa have said. He should leave now. "We, the Catholic bishops of southern Africa, call on Mugabe to step down immediately." Regional leaders should immediately cut links with Mugabe, or they will be guilty of complicity in the "passive genocide", the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) said in its most damning statement on the Zimbabwe regime yet. The statement was issued on Tuesday by SACBC president Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg and the bishops of Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland after a meeting in...

President Obama wants a fresh approach to toppling Robert Mugabe and is discussing with aides an unprecedented, US-led diplomatic push to get tough new UN sanctions imposed against the Zimbabwe regime, The Times has learned. During talks Mr Obama has had with his top Africa advisers in recent weeks, the central idea they focused on was taking the issue of Zimbabwe before the UN Security Council, but for the first time to combine such a move with an intense diplomatic effort to persuade Russia and China not to block the initiative.

By Lisa Schlein Geneva 23 January 2009 The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says a nightmare scenario is unfolding in Zimbabwe as the number of cholera deaths and cases continues to mount. The Red Cross says it is hit with a severe funding crisis and this is hampering its ability to contain the deadly disease. Senior health officer for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Tammam Aloudat, has recently returned from Zimbabwe. He says the cholera outbreak in the country is increasing in scale and it is claiming more lives. "The scenario...

President Obama wants a fresh approach to toppling Robert Mugabe and is discussing with aides an unprecedented, US-led diplomatic push to get tough new UN sanctions imposed against the Zimbabwe regime, The Times has learned. During talks Mr Obama has had with his top Africa advisers in recent weeks, the central idea they focused on was taking the issue of Zimbabwe before the UN Security Council, but for the first time to combine such a move with an intense diplomatic effort to persuade Russia and China not to block the initiative. According to a senior aide present at the discussions,...

BLANTYRE, Malawi (Reuters) - Hundreds of angry Malawians hounded a senior political figure from his house and stoned him late Wednesday, accusing him of harboring vampires. Blantire Urban Governor Eric Chiwaya, a member of the ruling United Democratic Front, was the latest victim of a bizarre rumor that the country's government is colluding with vampires to collect human blood for international aid agencies. Bearing severe cuts to his face and body, he told Reuters from his hospital bed that a crowd had hailed him with stones and other missiles, chanting "vampire" and threatening to kill him. Chiwaya said he knew...

MAYBE this past week has taught us to pity. Because look: East Timor is being forgiven like Iraq never is. Its capital can be looted, its soldiers can gun down its police, its gangs can murder children, its people can be made to live on charity, its politicians can squabble over the power they then abuse -- but no fool here says freedom was a mistake. Even as our soldiers guard refugees cowering in church yards, still no commentator sneers that it all shows we were crazy to liberate East Timor in 1999. No one is saying these 900,000 East...

JOHANNESBURG, 21 January 2009 (IRIN) - The Zimbabwe dollar now seems to have lost all its appeal, and calls for the adoption of a foreign currency to replace the struggling monetary unit and put an end to the country's crippling hyperinflation are becoming louder. "We have to accept the economy has been 'dollarised' and all companies should be registered to trade in hard currency," Obert Sibanda, president of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, told the state-run The Herald newspaper on 19 January. Dollarisation, or the use of a foreign currency - not necessarily the US dollar - in parallel...

The death toll from Zimbabwe's tenacious cholera epidemic rose by 24 to 2,225 from a total of 42,675 cases, the World Health Organization said Friday in a statistical update. Notes to the report compiled through Thursday hinted at the difficulties facing authorities trying to bring the persistent epidemic to a halt. Cholera treatment centers are having trouble ensuring supplies of clean water, as in Makonde and Zvimba, Mashonaland West province. Authorities were trying to respond to an outbreak in the Gokwe South district of Midlands province, but Mateta ward the nearest medical facility was 30 kilometers away. A new cholera...

Zimbabwe's central bank will introduce a 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar banknote, worth about $33 on the black market, to try to ease desperate cash shortages, state-run media said on Friday.

HARARE (AFP) – Zimbabwe unveiled a 100 trillion dollar note Friday in the latest grim measure of its staggering economic collapse, heightening the urgency of a new round of unity talks set for next week. Veteran leader Robert Mugabe and opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai are set to hold talks Monday with key regional leaders in a bid to salvage a four-month-old unity accord, which has yet to be implemented. The stalemate over disputed elections last year has only fuelled the economic and humanitarian crisis that has impoverished the country, leaving nearly half the population dependent on food aid as a...

Zimbabwe introduces $50 billion note * Story Highlights * Zimbabwe grappling with hyperinflation estimated at 231 million percent * As of Friday, one U.S. dollar was trading at around ZW$25 billion * The country slashed 10 zeros from the amount of its worthless currency in August * RBZ has allowed most goods and services to be charged in foreign currency HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe's central bank will introduce a $50 billion note -- enough to buy just two loaves of bread -- as a way of fighting cash shortages amid spiraling inflation. The country's acting finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa,...

<p>HARARE -- Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic has killed more than 2,000 people and almost 40,000 have contracted the normally preventable disease, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.</p>

HARARE (AFP) – The death toll of Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic swelled past 2,000 people Tuesday, as a global doctors group called for President Robert Mugabe to be charged with crimes against humanity. Fresh data from the World Health Organization showed that the treatable water-borne disease has killed more than 2,000 people since August with the number of diagnosed cases reaching almost 40,000. The new figures came as US-based Physicians for Human Rights said Mugabe should be charged with crimes against humanity over rights abuses and the collapse of the nation's health system. The recommendation was made in a damning 45-page...

Zimbabwe's central bank will introduce a $50 billion note -- enough to buy just two loaves of bread -- as a way of fighting cash shortages amid spiraling inflation. Zimbabwe is grappling with hyperinflation now officially estimated at 231 million percent, and its currency is fast losing its value. As of Friday, one U.S. dollar was trading at around ZW$25 billion. When the government issued a $10 billion note just three weeks ago, it bought 20 loaves of bread. That note now can purchase less than half of one loaf. Realizing the worthlessness of the currency, the RBZ has allowed...

Zimbabwean soldiers are being given elephant meat for their rations, a wildlife campaigner has told the BBC. Jonny Rodrigues from the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said that several soldiers had complained to him that was the only meat they were given. Zimbabwe is believed to have some 100,000 elephants - more than its parks can sustainably hold and its economy is in freefall. The defence ministry has not yet commented on the reports. Mr Rodrigues said that the use of elephant meat began last June but has recently increased. It is cheaper and easier to use elephant meat Jonny Rodrigues...

to the UN: Mind your own business. You have done nothing to correct humanitarian disasters in Darfur and Zimbabwe so obviously humanitarian issues are not a concern. now get your nose out of Gaza

The Zimbabwe government Wednesday announced restrictive new licensing fees of up to 30,000 US dollars on journalists working for foreign media in Zimbabwe, prompting complaints that the government is trying to drive journalists out of the country. The new guidelines would further require Zimbabweans working for foreign media outlets to pay a staggering 4,000 US dollars to practice journalism in Zimbabwe for one year. Harare would demand 30,000 dollars for foreign media houses that want to work in Zimbabwe. According to the government- controlled Media and Information Commission (MIC), that would break down to 10,000 US dollars for the application...

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused South Africa of losing the moral high ground by failing to stand up to Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe. The Nobel peace-prize winner told the BBC that using force should be an option to get rid of Mr Mugabe. Archbishop Tutu also said he was saddened that his own country appeared not to be on the side of Zimbabweans... Archbishop Tutu said: "How much more suffering is going to make us say 'No we have given Mr Mugabe enough time?'" He also said South Africa had a leadership role as its president chairs the Southern African...

Zim cholera death toll tops 1 100HARARE, ZIMBABWE Dec 18 2008 13:03The death toll from a cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe has soared to 1,111, the United Nations said on Thursday, adding to pressure for a quick solution to the crisis in the Southern African country. African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma backed a diplomatic push as the way to end political deadlock and rejected any suggestion of sending troops. The latest cholera figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva included a new outbreak in Chegutu Urban in Mashonaland West, west of Harare, where...

Zimbabwe's government on Tuesday slammed US President George Bush's government's declaration of loss of confidence in President Robert Mugabe as a "diplomatic flute" by an outgoing administration. "We have no time for US President George W. Bush's diplomatic flute. We are talking about an administration whose sun has set," Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba said, according to state-run The Herald newspaper. About half of Zimbabwe's population needs food aid, UN experts said Monday, as a first consignment of supplies designed to help fight a cholera epidemic arrived in the troubled southern African nation. As Mugabe faced fresh calls to step down...

PRETORIA, South Africa (CNN) -- The United States no longer supports a power-sharing deal between Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and the country's main opposition because a viable unity government is not possible with Mugabe in power, a top U.S. diplomat said Sunday. The statement from U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer follows recent calls from President Bush and other world leaders for Mugabe to abandon power amid a growing cholera epidemic that the United Nations says has killed more than 1,000 people in recent months. Frazer visited southern Africa to articulate the change in U.S. policy...

BINDURA, Zimbabwe (Reuters) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Saturday he would not allow a unity government to reverse his controversial policy of seizing white-owned farmland and giving it to blacks. Speaking at his ZANU-PF party's annual conference, Mugabe said that while he hoped the opposition would agree to form a coalition government, he would not compromise on policies such as land seizures, which critics say wrecked Zimbabwe's economy. "We don't want a unity which is retrogressive," Mugabe told about 6,000 ruling party supporters at this town about 80 km (50 miles) north of the capital Harare. "The biggest...

BINDURA, Zimbabwe (AFP) – President Robert Mugabe declared Friday that "Zimbabwe is mine" and vowed never to surrender to calls to step down, as his political rival threatened to quit stalled unity government talks. Addressing his ZANU-PF party's annual conference amid a ruinous political crisis and a deadly cholera epidemic, Mugabe returned to the kind of defiance he has often shown in the face of mounting criticism. "I will never, never, never never surrender. Zimbabwe is mine, I am a Zimbabwean. Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans. Zimbabwe never for the British, Britain for the British," Mugabe told his party's annual conference. The...

From The Times December 18, 2008 President Kgalema Motlanthe takes swipe at UK over Robert Mugabe Jonathan Clayton in Johannesburg South Africa, the only country with real influence in Zimbabwe, yesterday distanced itself from growing international calls for Robert Mugabe to step down. President Kgalema Motlanthe instead took a swipe at Britain for seeking to impose its will on its former colony and clung to the hope that a moribund power-sharing agreement would be revived and implemented this week despite the main opposition's repudiation of the deal unless real concessions are made. Asked how bad things had to get before...

When the Federal Reserve policymakers decide on interest rates Tuesday, investors will probably look one step beyond their decision, to gauge how much money will the Fed be willing to print once it is out of rate ammunition. Rates won't likely hit zero Tuesday, but this could be unavoidable in the near future, according to strategists and market experts. ... Printing Money The Fed has already moved on from using interest rates as a monetary policy tool and the next fed funds target rate after the Dec. 16 meeting is "almost academic," ING economist Rob Carnell said. The Fed's balance...

One of Zimbabwe's top officials blamed his country's spreading cholera outbreak on what he calls "a genocidal onslaught" by Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler -- Britain. "Cholera is a calculated, racist attack on Zimbabwe by the unrepentant former colonial power, which has enlisted support from its American and Western allies so that they can invade the country," Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told reporters. Britain ruled the country as a colony until 1965. Ndlovu's claims triggered quick and pointed reaction from Britain and the United States.