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A South African spy captured by Zimbabwean counter intelligence is alleged to have been severely tortured before agreeing to co-operate with local officials, the Institute for Security Studies said in Pretoria today. The spy recently was nabbed by Zimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives at Victoria Falls and under questioning, revealed the names of his collaborators within the governing Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu(PF)). Chris Maroleng, an analyst, said the spy would not have naturally agreed to work with the Zimbabweans as they had alleged and therefore must have reached his "pain threshold". "The Zimbabwean CIO are renowned...

The general behind Zimbabwe’s coup may have sought Chinese approval days before the army launched its takeover of Robert Mugabe’s government, it emerged on Wednesday. Mr. Mugabe remained under house arrest, still president of Zimbabwe if in name alone, a prisoner of once slavishly loyal generals who now hold the country’s fate in their hands. As the former British colony faced a deeply uncertain future under military tutelage, a trip to Beijing by General Constantine Chiwenga, the head of the armed forces, last week has reignited concerns about rising Chinese influence in Africa. The general held high-level meetings with officials...

A new UN report on the mysterious 1961 plane crash that killed UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold in central Africa has concluded it appears "plausible" the aircraft came under attack. Sweden has called "an open wound" the unsolved questions over Hammarskjold's death, which came during the Cold War between Western nations and the Soviet bloc. The latest findings take into account newly-released information from the archives of Belgium, Britain, Canada, Germany and the United States.

In 2000 Robert Mugabe shocked the world when he made dramatic changes to land ownership laws in Zimbabwe which resulted in thousands of white Zimbabwean farmers being forced to give up their farms and many to leave the country.Those white farmers owned 70% of the most arable land in the country which they had inherited from a colonial past built on racial hierarchy. But now the tide is shifting again. Mugabe’s people have hinted strongly, for the first time, that farmers can return–at least some of them. This will be some 15 years after the Zimbabwe government began seizing their...

Remember when Zimbabwe used to be Rhodesia?There’s a lesson, or two, in here somewhere: ‘No One Is Safe’: Zimbabwe Threatens to Seize Farms of Party Defectors. That’s right: first they came for the white men’s farms:And the blacks didn’t object because, well, they weren’t white. Now they’re coming for the farms of black-men-who-disagree-with-the-government-policies. That’s how it always goes.And as pointed out by the Instapundit: Hey, it was over a decade ago when Nick Kristof reported that Zimbabweans were nostalgic for the days of white rule: An elderly peasant in another village, Makupila Muzamba, said that hunger today is worse than...

Calling Robert Mugabe "dear father," ''his royal highness," and "the Moses of Africa" members of Zimbabwe's ruling party reasserted their loyalty to the longtime leader at the celebration of his recent 92nd birthday. By bus, truck and on foot, thousands of Zimbabweans wearing the colors of the ruling ZANU-PF party made their way to the normally sleepy southeastern city of Masvingo to mark Mugabe's birthday. Mugabe, who has ruled since 1980, let 92 balloons into the air to start the festivities held at the historical Great Zimbabwe monument, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from downtown Masvingo. During the televised event,...

'.....in the lives of most nations there comes a moment when a stand has to be taken for principle, whatever the consequences. This moment has come to Rhodesia. We have struck a blow for the preservation of justice, civilization and Christianity. And in the spirit of this belief we have this day assumed our sovereign independence.' The words of Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Douglas Smith uttered 50 years ago today on the occasion of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. When elections were held in Rhodesia in 1964, the 50 white seats in the 66 seat parliament were all won by...

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government has reportedly indicated, for the first time, that it may hand back land to some white farmers whose farms were forcibly taken away from them during the height of the country’s controversial land reform programme. This comes a decade and a half after the Zimbabwean government seized large swaths of land from white farmers in the country - a move that saw a drastic deterioration in the country's economy. According to The Telegraph, Minister of Lands Douglas Mombeshora said provincial leaders had been tasked to come up with names of white farmers they wanted to...

VOA|Harare in the 1980s was affectionately referred to as the sunshine city because of its cleanliness. The city was orderly with well-maintained roads, bright street lights and clean running water and the blooming jacaranda trees also gave the it a unique view. But things have taken a bad turn as the city has been decaying since the 1990s. Buildings are now resembling a war zone and children hang around on street corners with nowhere to go and homeless people tell stories of disease and crime. These pictures reveal real-life scenes from an urban area hit-hard by the recession and still...

During his weekly interview with the national radio station, the Zimbabwean president joked that he planned to travel to Washington DC ‘get down on one knee and ask his hand’. Mugabe, who is known for his brutal crusades against homosexuality, was responding in bizarre fashion to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees gays and lesbians the same right to marry as heterosexuals. Speaking on on Saturday, Mugabe said: ‘I’ve just concluded – since President Obama endorses the same-sex marriage, advocates homosexual people and enjoys an attractive countenance – thus if it becomes...

Police have released CCTV images of a white gunman who shot dead nine people in a cold-blooded race-hate crime at an African-American church in South Carolina on Wednesday night.

Mugabe recently accused Mujuru of plotting to assassinate him and branded her a witch. The ministers of energy, education, public service and social welfare, presidential affairs, communication and postal services are among the other members of Cabinet who were fired.

The government of Zimbabwe’s core business appears to have been reduced to paying civil servants’ salaries, abandoning other responsibilities, as the economy becomes President Robert Mugabe’s biggest undoing, one year after sweeping to power in 2013. Last week Zanu PF celebrated its victory anniversary notwithstanding the attendant economic collapse since Mugabe retained the keys to State House in a controversial election. Zanu PF promised when campaigning that it would create over two million jobs by 2018. Of that figure, 222 800 were supposed to have been created in the first year. The glaring fact on the ground however is that...

Sadly what did make front page news this week were the shocking words: “Don’t sup with whites: Mugabe.” Mr Mugabe said that people who had been given seized farms were leasing them out to white Zimbabweans and accused his own officials of being involved. “Some of my ministers are being mentioned here. They are refusing to remove white farmers from their constituencies… we are told that Chiefs are also involved in land deals,” Mr Mugabe said. “What annoys us... is where our own indigenous farmers sub-lease to the very same white farmers we took our heritage from yesterday,” he added....

Whites in Zimbabwe can own businesses and urban apartments but not land, according to the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, who called for the removal of white farmers in a fiery speech to a group of supporters on Wednesday. “We say no to whites owning our land and they should go,” the 90 year-old Mugabe told the crowd, gathered in Mhangura, a farming village, according to the Christian Science Monitor. “They can own companies and apartments…but not the soil. It is ours and that message should ring loud and clear in Britain and the United States.” “Don’t be too kind to...

“I have been given a list of 35 white farmers in Mashonaland West alone,” Mr. Mugabe told an emotional crowd in what was billed a patriotic speech. “We say no to whites owning our land and they should go. … Mugabe, reelected last summer to his fifth consecutive term, “There are white farmers who are still on the land and have the protection of some cabinet ministers and politicians as well as traditional leaders. That should never happen. They [whites] were living like kings and queens on our land and we chucked them out. Now we want all of it.”...

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has called on the country's remaining white farmers to cede land to black people. "We say no to whites owning our land and they should go," Mr Mugabe told his supporters at a rally. The white farmers union said it was regrettable that racial tensions were flaring up again. The president's critics say his policy of seizing most of Zimbabwe's white-owned farms caused the country's economic collapse from 2000-2009. Mr Mugabe, 90, has governed Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. He was re-elected president last year with 61% of the vote, defeating his long-standing rival Morgan Tsvangirai....

Zimbabwe’s long-serving president on Sunday threatened to expel foreign-owned companies over what he said was the West’s interference in the politics of the country he has led since 1980. President Robert Mugabe said he wanted no “ideas from London or Washington,” speaking before supporters at the funeral of a top military chief in Harare. He warned the Western powers that although his government hasn’t “done anything to your companies, time will come when we will say tit for tat.” He said: “You hit me, I hit you. We have a country to run and we must be left free to...

In 2000, Timon Shava was a hero of Zimbabwe’s land reform program when he joined hundreds of other landless peasants in a wave of land seizures and evictions of white farmers. Today, he is homeless after police, acting on behalf of President Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace, destroyed dozens of thatch dwellings on a farm that she wants to control. The First Lady, who has another farm in the area, said last year that she wanted to turn this farm into a wildlife conservancy that could raise money for an orphanage. A new twist on the long struggle over land in...

Boko Haram is officially an international problem. At least according to the African Union, which asked the United Nations Security Council on Jan. 29 to greenlight an intervention force to bring the Islamist group to its knees. The A.U. plans a 7,500-strong military force, named the Multinational Joint Task Force, and staffed by Nigerian, Cameroonian, Chadian and Beninese troops. If the coalition gets the go-ahead, the soldiers will base in their respective countries, but coordinate and assist each other.