UN aid for Zimbabwe deportees from SA 

Business Day
A UNITED Nations (UN)-run humanitarian centre to cater for the thousands of illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe deported from SA each week was officially opened on Friday.
Senior officials from Harare and Pretoria attended the ceremony at the Beit Bridge centre on the border between Zimbabwe and SA.
“When the deportees get to the centre they will get everything they need, be it medication or help to return to their homes,” said Zimbabwean Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi.
“They (deportees) are screened by immigration and the police stationed at the centre to look for criminals or fugitives who might have run away from justice.”
South African authorities deported more than 51000 Zimbabweans who had illegally crossed the border in the first six months of the year alone.
Officials say about 2-million Zimbabweans have crossed over to SA amid a seven-year econ-omic crisis characterised by high unemployment and inflation running at about 1000%.
The centre, which will be managed by the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM), is also designed to help Zimbabweans seeking employment in SA obtain legal documents, say officials.
Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said in a statement that the centre would stop illegal immigrants being exploited by “unscrupulous employers” and was designed to “source labour legally”.
IOM spokeswoman Nicola Simmonds said her organisation was helping more than 300 deportees a day.
“At the centre we will be giving medical assessment, transportation home for deportees, meals, food to take home, whatever they want,” she said.
Illegal migrants from Zim-babwe often work in teams to try to cross into SA, joining hands to wade across the crocodile- infested Limpopo River on Zimbabwe’s southern border.
UN aid agencies estimate that more than 4-million people out of a population of 13-million are in need of food aid in Zimbabwe, once southern Africa’s bread-basket and agricultural powerhouse.
President Thabo Mbeki has come under fire from critics for his so-called policy of “quiet diplomacy” towards Zimbab-wean President Robert Mugabe. Sapa-AFP

Kuwaiti fuel feeds oil-starved Zimbabwe 

Kuwait Times
   
HARARE: Oil-starved Zimbabwe has received 25.7 million litres of fuel from Kuwait under a deal financed by French bank BNP Paribas, a state weekly reported Sunday. "Zimbabwe has taken delivery of 25.7 million litres of fuel worth $15 million under the $50 million facility which the country recently signed with French bank BNP Paribas," the Sunday Mail reported. National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) chief Zvinechimwe Churu told the weekly that 8.5 million litres of petrol and 17.5 million litres of diesel were being brought in from the Mozambican port city of Beira.
"The product (diesel) is being pumped from Beira and we have already received the full consignment of petrol," Churu said.
"Since the supplies are now in the country, the arrangement is for the public and the private sector to access the product.  However, first priority will be given to certain sectors of the economy, especially agriculture, as the country gears up for the forthcoming season."
In May, Zimbabwe signed a $50 million loan deal with French bank BNP Paribas to purchase fuel and ease shortages that are threatening to bring the economy to its knees.
Under the deal signed in the capital, Zimbabwe's Bindura Nickel Corporation (BNC) put up a percentage of its export earnings as a guarantee for the loan.
Zimbabwe requires $40 million a month to meet its fuel demands. The supply, the first under the deal, was sourced from Independent Petroleum Group of Kuwait, which bagged the tender, Churu said.
Zimbabwe has been struggling with fuel shortages for nearly seven years due to a foreign currency crunch. The shortages have spawned a burgeoning black market where private importers sell the commodity for as much as double the government-fixed price of 320 Zimbabwe dollars ($1.28) per litre of diesel and 335 dollars for petrol.
The government blames the shortages on sanctions imposed by the United States and European nations on President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle following presidential elections in 2002 which the opposition said were rigged. - AFP

Blind Zim couple refused asylum

Mogae, Mugabe skirt Zimbabwe crisis

Mogae is in Zimbabwe to strengthen relations despite his criticism towards Mugabe

August 28, 2006, 11:45

Festus Mogae, the president of Botswana, offered Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's embattled president, a rare diplomatic solidarity today by avoiding political differences and pledging to build strong economic relations.

Mogae, who has at times broken ranks with African leaders by publicly criticising Mugabe over Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, is in Harare to open an agricultural show and discuss the joint construction of a border bridge.

At a dinner party hosted by Mugabe after Mogae's arrival last night, the Botswana leader said the two neighbours must explore ways of boosting trade and joint investments and promoting general economic empowerment in southern Africa.

Mogae, who has previously suggested that Mugabe must do more to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis, said "despite the opinion of a few sceptics", co-operation between their two countries was growing.

Mugabe praised Botswana
Economic relations could be enhanced by the implementation of agreements on investment promotion and protection and the avoidance of double taxation, he said in a statement aired by state television today. "There is undoubtedly more that can be done, not only for the mutual benefit of our own peoples, but the peoples of this region as well," Mogae added.

Mugabe, who values African solidarity in the face of Western isolation over his policies, said Harare would work hard to strengthen relations built on old political ties. Mugabe praised Botswana for helping during Zimbabwe's national liberation war in the 1970s, adding that the potential for trade remained great even though volumes have fallen in the last two years.

Zimbabwe's economy is in its eighth year of recession, and is currently struggling with the world's highest inflation rate of nearly 1 000%. - Reuters

Victoria Falls train crash claims five lives

IOL

    August 28 2006 at 01:16AM

Harare - Five people were killed in Zimbabwe on Sunday when a passenger train collided head-on with a goods train near the resort town of Victoria Falls, state radio reported.

Bodies were charred beyond recognition in the accident that occurred early on Sunday, 30km outside Victoria Falls, the radio said.

At least five people died at the scene of the accident and property belonging to passengers was lost in the inferno, which claimed at least eight coaches and two train engines, the radio said.

The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) passenger train was on its way to Victoria Falls from the city of Bulawayo. The driver of the passenger train ignored warnings by the oncoming freight train, the radio said citing unnamed sources.
 
The rail link between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls, which marks the border between Zimbabwe and its northern neighbour Zambia, has proven treacherous in recent years.

In 2003, a head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train killed 50 people. In May, a passenger train derailed on the same stretch of railway, injuring 34 people.

Rescue teams reportedly took a long time to reach the scene of Sunday's accident due to the poor state of the roads, the report added.

The injured were taken to Victoria Falls hospital. - Sapa-dpa

A Ghastly Disease Feeds Off a Ghastlier Oppression

globalpolicy.org

By Stephen Leahy
Inter Press Service
August 25, 2006
Gender inequality has become the main driver of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, especially in Africa, where 70 percent of those infected are women.
A new powerful international agency for women is needed to turn this situation around and address the growing problem of violence against girls and women, experts and advocates say. "Rape is extremely common, especially by older men who are infected with HIV who believe that having sex with a virgin will cure them," said Betty Makoni, executive director of the Girl Child Network, a Zimbabwean non-governmental organisation.
In rural Zimbabwe, a teacher rapes 30 or 40 of his girl students and nothing is done about it, said Makoni at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, which ended last week. "Where is the world outrage?" she asked.
The Girl Child Network has helped 30,000 girls in 500 centres across Zimbabwe, where an estimated 25 percent of the population aged 15 to 49 is believed to be HIV-positive. At the conference, Makoni was awarded the inaugural Red Ribbon Award by the United Nations Development Programme and UNAIDS. "There is no right to life here for women and girls. They are treated as semi-slaves," she said.
Stephen Lewis, the U.N. special envoy for AIDS in Africa, agreed. "We will never subdue the gruesome force of AIDS until the rights of women become paramount in the struggle," he said at the conference. "It's a ghastly, deadly business, this oppression of women in so many countries on the planet."
The United Nations estimates that up to three million women lose their lives to gender-based violence and four million are sold into prostitution each year, while two million suffer genital mutilation. One woman in five is a victim of rape or attempted rape. Women also make up the vast majority of illiterates in the world due to lack of educational opportunities.
To aggressively tackle these issues, Lewis has appealed to the United Nations to create an international agency to advocate for the rights of women, similar to UNICEF. The proposed agency would have a billion-dollar budget, employ thousands of staff and have widespread operational capacity on the ground where it is needed. Lewis and his supporters say a U.N. agency for women would be able to support and fund these programmes, extract donations and make sure women are involved in development, trade, culture, peace and security.
Women in poverty face different problems than men, but development policies and programmes are not designed to meet the needs of girls and women, says Joanna Kerr, executive director of the Association for Women's Rights in Development, a Toronto-based international organisation of women's groups involved in gender equality and human rights.
Women do not earn cash salaries and are not permitted to own land or open bank accounts in many parts of the world, leaving them powerless and poor, Kerr told IPS. "In many parts of the world, women can't even negotiate the use of a condom. HIV/AIDS cannot be effectively addressed without getting at the root causes of poverty and inequality," she said.
HIV/AIDS prevention programmes will be ineffective without programmes to reduce violence against women, especially young women. These issues are not just African but apply to Southeast Asia and Latin America, she says. "There is no powerful voice for women at the U.N.," Kerr stated.
For example, young girls are raped every day in refugee camps, and a new U.N. agency for women with strong operational capacity could take action on the ground and ensure their safety, she said. An agency with enough staff could also make sure the needs of girls and women are addressed, such as providing sanitary napkins and ensuring proper toilet facilities are built. "Such obvious things are often not provided," the activist noted.
The U.N. currently has a small agency for women called UNIFEM -- the United Nations Fund for Women -- but with a relatively scant 40-million-dollar budget, limited mandate and few in-country staff, it is far from what is needed.
So where is the money going to come from for a U.N. women's agency? Global foreign aid is more than 100 billion dollars and is expected to reach an estimated 130 billion by 2010, Lewis told the High-Level Panel on U.N. Reform this summer. "Is more than half the world's population not entitled to one percent of the total?" he asked.
The panel is charged with making recommendations regarding the reform of the U.N. and could recommend that the U.N. General Assembly create this new agency. The need for such an agency is "obvious" and there is a mounting clamour for action, says Kerr. "I see big, empty buses on the streets of Toronto and I wonder about the equitable distribution of resources," said Makoni last week. "In Zimbabwe, girls who used to walk 20 kilometres to school don't attend because they don't have sanitary napkins. They try to use sticks instead."
But it is far from certain the U.N. will create a strong and effective agency for women, Lewis readily admits. He urged those attending the Toronto conference in his final speech as U.N. envoy to "enter the fray against gender inequality." "There is no more honourable and productive calling. There is nothing of greater import in this world. All roads lead from women to social change, and that includes subduing the pandemic," he concluded.

Opposition Forces Forge Alliance to Challenge Harare Government

VOA
By Blessing Zulu and Patience Rusere
Washington
28 August 2006



Senior officials of the two rival factions of the Movement for Democratic Change, riven by policy disputes and personal differences since late 2005, met in South Africa on the weekend to talk about mending their differences, party officials confirmed Monday.
The MDC faction led by party founding president Morgan Tsvangirai was headed by its secretary general, Tendai Biti, and chief policy advisor Eddie Cross. A delegation from the faction lined up behind Arthur Mutambara was headed by secretary general Welshman Ncube and elections director Paul Themba-Nyathi.
Officials of both factions declined to comment, but sources privy to the talks said the political operatives agreed to end hostilities and adopt a "non-agression" pact pending a meeting of faction executive bodies aimed at forging a united political front.
Reporter Blessing Zulu of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe interviewed researcher Chris Maroleng of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria on the chances of unity.
Dewa Mavhinga, a British-based Zimbabwean human rights lawyer pursuing studies at Essex University, England, offered his views on the MDC discussions.
Elsewhere, representatives of opposition parties and civil society groups were to meet this week in Harare to move forward on forming an alliance for democratic reforms.
The Thursday meeting, which follows a “Save Zimbabwe” convention held last month, is being sponsored by the Christian Alliance, a church humanitarian group that sprang up in 2005 following the government's controversial clean up campaign, Operation Murambatsvina, and more recently has pursued a broader political agenda.
Christian Alliance organizer Jonathan Gokovah confirmed that opposition politicians have agreed on the principle of a unified approach. Both MDC factions confirmed they’ would attend the meeting. Spokesman Nelson Chamisa of the Tsavangirai faction said his grouping is agreeable to a broad alliance. Abednico Bhebhe, deputy information secretary in the Mutambara faction, said his faction favors such an alliance.
Reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe asked coordinator Ernest Mudzengi of the National Constitutional Assembly, which has been closely involved in efforts to build the alliance, for his thoughts on whether a unified front is possible.

In Harare, Botswana's Mogae Downplays Perceived Cross-Border Strains

VOA
By Ndimyake Mwakalyelye
Washington
28 August 2006

In Harare on a state visit, President Festus Mogae of Botswana pledged expanded economic cooperation between his country and Zimbabwe, dismissing "skeptics" who have discerned strains in relations between the Southern African neighbors.
Speaking at a state dinner before the opening of the Zimbabwe agricultural show, the Botswanan leader said Zimbabwe was an important trading partner, according to the state-controlled Herald newspaper's account of the event. Mr. Mogae said there has been a positive trend in cross-border investment, often involving joint ventures.
Mr. Mogae said that he hoped the two countries would soon implement agreements on investment promotion and protection, and on relieving double taxation, so as to "further enhance the prospect of win-win economic outcomes between us."
President Mogae's cordial tone was of interest to observers who have seen him as a rare African leader who is prepared to criticize President Robert Mugabe's policies to the extent that they spill over into Botswana on a steady stream of refugees.
Some concluded Mr. Mogae has moderated his tone, but parliamentary liaison officer Herman Honekom of the Africa Institute in Cape Town, South Africa, told reporter Ndimyake Mwakalye of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe he sees no change.

Zimbabwe's new currency already 'working overtime' across the borders

Zimbabwe to face litmus test against SA

ZANU PF militias force traders to welcome Mogae

City's bid to raise money for water provision flops

Zimbabweans to get 24-hour notice before next currency change

Harare says French fuel deal still on

Mon 28 August 2006

HARARE - Zimbabwe authorities at the weekend insisted that a US$50 million fuel supply fund arranged with French bank, BNP Paribas, was still active, even as a long-running fuel shortage that worsened in the last three weeks threatens to bring the country to a complete halt.      Under the fuel procurement deal, the French bank provides the state-owned National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) with cash to import fuel. In return President Robert Mugabe's virtually broke government uses earnings from Zimbabwe's lucrative nickel mining industry to repay BNP Paribas.  Zimbabwe's giant nickel producer, Bindura Nickel Corporation, has pledged a percentage of its export earnings to meet the loan repayments. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono, a key architect of the fuel deal, at the weekend told ZimOnline that the deal was still in place, adding that the country was set to receive 37 million litres of fuel supplied under the arrangement. Gono, who refused to answer more questions pertaining to the fuel supply deal, would not say when exactly the fuel shipment he said was on its way to Zimbabwe would arrive in the country. "The fuel is coming but the authorities at NOCZIM can confirm that," was all Gono would say.  NOCZIM chief executive officer, Zvinechimwe Churu, also told state media at the weekend that Zimbabwe had over the past week taken delivery of 25.7 million litres of fuel worth US$15 million, which was supplied under the deal with BNP Paribas. Previous fuel supply deals with oil suppliers from Libya and Kuwait collapsed after Harare failed to pay.   And there was little evidence at the weekend that Zimbabwe was getting any substantial supplies of diesel or petrol, with long and winding queues of motorists at the few garages - mostly operated by small companies who source their own fuel - that were selling fuel in Harare and other cities. Fuel queues had disappeared in most cities and towns in Zimbabwe following the deregulation of the energy sector last year. But the government has re-imposed controls on the fuel industry ordering suppliers two weeks ago to lower pump prices of diesel and petrol to levels fuel firms say are below cost and would condemn them to financial ruin.  Zimbabwe has battled severe fuel shortages since 1999 after the International Monetary Fund withdrew balance-of-payments support to Harare following sharp disagreements with Mugabe over monetary policy and other governance issues. The fuel shortages have resulted in most private and public buses being forced off the roads with many commuters being left with no option but to walk or cycle to work. - ZimOnline

Zimbabwe buys jets from China

The Australian

Gavin du Venage
August 29, 2006
JOHANNESBURG: Zimbabwe has bought another six fighter jets from China to replace its grounded fleet of British-made aircraft.
Secretary for Defence Trust Maposa said yesterday: "We will be receiving six aircraft from China sometime this year."
Zimbabwe already has six Chinese-made jets which were delivered last year. The aircraft are intended to fill the gap left by the Zimbabwe Air Force's ageing British-made fighters, which have been grounded due to lack of spare parts.
Britain, along with most Western countries, has imposed a ban on selling weapons to Zimbabwe, accusing the southern African country of human rights violations.
Zimbabwe has sought to get around the embargo and rearm its military with Chinese and Korean-made weaponry.

JAG Fund Raiser Communique dated 28 August 2006