As winter sets in, the Zimbabwean government has launched another operation to purge the capital, Harare, of "illegal" homes and market stalls in an effort to "clean" the city.

A major financial supporter to the Mugabe regime, John Bredenkamp is reported to have fled Zimbabwe Tuesday morning after his companies were raided by the state. According to the state mouthpiece – The Herald Newspaper - the National Economic Conduct Inspectorate (NECI) raided Bredenkamp's companies to investigate cases linked to economic crimes. The tycoon was allegedly being probed on allegations of flouting exchange control regulations, tax evasion and contravening the Citizenship Act.

Public clinics and hospitals in Harare, are running out of desperately needed drugs to treat tuberculosis as a worsening hard-currency shortage hits state health facilities, it was reported on June 8. Overcrowding and poor hygiene have seen increasing cases of TB surfacing in Harare. The high incidence of HIV/Aids has also led to the spread of the highly infectious disease.

Zimbabwe's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, appears to have stepped back from launching a long-threatened anti-government protest against deteriorating living conditions. Addressing a press conference in the capital, Harare, Tsvangirai on Friday 9 June instead presented a "roadmap to legitimacy" - an ultimatum to the government.

Satellite images captured under a pioneering program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) provide powerful evidence that the government of Zimbabwe has destroyed an entire settlement and relocated thousands of residents as part of a campaign against political opponents. The images, analyzed by the AAAS staff, show two views of the settlement of Porta Farm, located just west of the Zimbabwean capital of Harare. The first, an archived image from June 2002, shows an intact settlement with more than 850 homes and other buildings; an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 people lived in Porta Farm at the time. The second photo, taken by satellite on 6 April this year, shows that the settlement has been leveled.

With the economy in free fall, the potential end of Robert Mugabe’s presidency looming, and deep cracks dividing both the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), unrest and violence threaten, warns the International Crisis Group. “With anger widespread, ZANU-PF wants to avoid a popular vote by using the legislature it controls to establish a ‘transitional presidency’ and appoint a successor to Mugabe. The rising influence of the military is also troubling. Opposition forces need to put their disputes behind them and present a unified front to take on a government that is increasingly desperate and dangerous.”
* Related Link
Bid to crack down on political parties

The Zimbabwe government last Thursday said it will evict about 4 000 black farmers who illegally occupied commercial farms and conservancies in the southern Masvingo province. The announcement represents a major policy U-turn by the Harare authorities who have in the past ignored calls by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono to restore order on former commercial farms.

Mozambique started openly courting Zimbabwe's mainly white commercial farmers after the ZANU-PF government instituted its fast-track land reform programme in 2000 and the agricultural sector, a mainstay of the neighbouring country's economy, began to crumble. But unlike Zambia, Mozambique's romance with the migrant Zimbabweans appears to have faded in the past two years.

"If South Africa wants to send me back to Zimbabwe it would be a death sentence," former Zimbabwean opposition MP Roy Bennett has said. Bennett fled to South Africa in March after being implicated in an arms find in Mutare, eastern Zimbabwe. His asylum application was rejected by the South African Department of Home Affairs.

Few countries have failed as spectacularly, or as tragically, as Zimbabwe has over the past half decade. Zimbabwe has transformed from one of Africa’s rare success stories into one of its worst economic and humanitarian disasters. But while culpability for Zimbabwe’s collapse is broadly attributed to the policies of President Robert Mugabe, the intricacies of the country’s unraveling remain poorly appreciated - above all, the importance of property rights in the process. That is unfortunate, because the destruction of Zimbabwe, like that of Nicaragua two decades earlier, offers important, cautionary lessons for other developing countries - as grim natural experiments in the hidden architecture of capitalism.

Amnesty International released the first-ever satellite images of the wholesale destruction of a large community in Zimbabwe - providing the clearest possible evidence to date of the devastating impact of the Zimbabwean government's policy of house demolitions. "These satellite images are irrefutable evidence - if further evidence is even needed - that the Zimbabwean government has obliterated entire communities - completely erased them from the map, as if they never existed," said Kolawole Olaniyan, Director of Amnesty International's Africa programme.

Applications are invited for the Regional Master’s in Women’s Law which will be offered by the Southern and Eastern African Regional Centre for Women’s Law (SEARCWL), University of Zimbabwe, in January 2007. The Master’s will consist of three semesters over a period of 18 months.

15-year-old Brian Koshoti is one of the hundreds of street children that live and work on the streets of Harare. Brian grew up in Mutare but when his parents died he moved in with his grandparents. Tragedy struck again when his grandmother passed away. Meanwhile as young Brian mourned the death of his grandmother, his grandfather married a young woman who had 3 children.

The development worker will work as an IT Advisor alongside SAfAIDS, assisting with the conceptualisation and implementation of its regional programme incorporating Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) and HIV and AIDS, as well as building the capacity of staff in Information Technology (IT) and ICTs.

We are seeking an exceptional manager who will help shape our strategy, deliver a high quality programme and demonstrate leadership in a complex and demanding external environment. You must demonstrate excellent judgement, programme development experience, have strong financial and people management skills, a clear commitment to promoting gender equality and be able to represent Oxfam GB at the highest levels.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, anti senate faction's candidate Emmanuel Chisvuure beat the ZANU PF candidate, Jeremiah Bvirindi and Gabriel Chaibva of the MDC's pro senate faction in the Budiriro parliamentary by-election that was marred by a low voter turn out. Chisvuure polled 7 949 votes while Bvirindi and Chaibva polled 3 961 and 504 votes respectively.

For years, Zimbabwe's white farmers have felt the wrath of Robert Mugabe, as they have been thrown off their land to make way for soldiers and ruling party cronies. Now, black farmers have also become the focus of his unwelcome attentions. Lot Dube's crops of onions, tomatoes and sweet potatoes were growing nicely when soldiers marched into Insiza district, in the south of the country, set up camp and declared that all crops other than maize would be destroyed.

Most of the children rounded up by the police during a new onslaught on Harare’s street people have been dumped at a heavily guarded Melfort Camp near Bromley. When The Standard crew visited the camp, older street children were busy collecting firewood under police escort. There were four large tents pitched up to accommodate vagrants, rounded up during the operation, which started on 12 April.

Earlier this month, security agents in Zimbabwe told Jenni Williams that if she continues to organize demonstrations she is going to pay for it with her life. Williams received the threat upon being released from jail. She and 165 other WOZA activists had been arrested for demonstrating against a hike in public school fees.

Zimbabwean police on Friday (19 May) cracked down on opposition by-election campaigning in the capital, Harare, arresting the leader of a faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and 60 of his supporters. Arthur Mutambara, head of the MDC's pro-Senate faction, was campaigning in Harare's high-density Budiriro suburb, where this weekend's by-election will be fought. He was detained along with the faction's deputy secretary-general, Pricilla Misihairambwi-Mushonga, and spokesperson Gabriel Chaibva, the by-election candidate.