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HARARE (AFP) - Supsected Zambian poachers have killed 17 elephants and
a
rhino in neighbouring Zimbabwe and wounded a game ranger based near the
famed Victoria Falls bordering the two countries.
The ranger from
National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority was now
recovering at a
private hospital in the country's second city of Bulawayo,
the Sunday Mail
said Sunday.
"On Friday, an aerial view was conducted and what was
established was that
17 elephant carcasses ranging from fresh to semi-fresh
were discovered," an
unnamed wildlife source told the weekly.
"All of
them had their tusks missing. The most affected area has been the
Robins
Camp. One rhino has been reported to have been killed,"
Parks and
Wildlife Management Authority spokesman Edward Mbewe said: "We
experienced
some problems of poaching during the festive season and few
weeks
before.
"In Victoria Falls, we had contact with the poachers and they ran
away into
Zambia. Three weeks back or in early December in the northern
region we also
encountered some poachers from outside the country. One, who
is of Zambian
origin, was apprehended and is asssisting us with
investigations," he said.
Poachers were also detected at about the same
time in the Hwange National
Park, Mbewe said.
"We suspect that these
are the same poachers who have been coming from
Zambia."
Ivory trade
in Zimbabwe is controlled under a 1997 United Nations convention
on trade in
endangered species (CITES) which allows for trade in ivory
obtained from
elephants which died from natural causes.
Trade in ivory was banned in
1989 in an effort to protect elephant herds,
which had been ravaged by the
demand for tusks, particularly from Asia.
The raw story
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Sunday December 31,
2006
Harare- Unknown attackers poured petrol round the Harare
home of
a prominent Zimbabwean rights activist and set the fuel
alight, Lovemore
Madhuku claimed on Sunday.
Madhuku, the chairman of the National
Constitutional Assembly
(NCA) said he and the other nine occupants of his
home in the medium-
density suburb of Waterfalls woke shortly after midnight
on Saturday
to find flames surrounding the house.
We were woken up by
the sound of screaming, Madhuku told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa in a
telephone interview.
After ten minutes those inside the house broke
windows, poured out
water and managed to douse the flames, he
said.
"We discovered a five-litre bottle of petrol hidden next to
the
wall," Madhuku said.
There was no independent confirmation of the
attack.
Madhuku said he suspected state agents were behind the
incident.
The NCA has mounted sustained anti-government campaigns since
its
formation in 1999, and Madhuku and other members have been arrested
on
several occasions.
But there have been reports of discontent within NCA
this year,
mainly because of Madhuku's decision to continue as chairman.
Other
NCA members were seriously opposed to prolonging his
leadership.
© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency
Reuters
Sat Dec 30, 2006 3:22 PM GMT
HARARE (Reuters) -
President Robert Mugabe's government has cleared the way
for revoking the
media licence of one of his fiercest internal critics by
stripping the owner
of Zimbabwe's largest private newspaper group of his
citizenship.
Zimbabwe Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede said Trevor
Ncube, who is a critic
of Mugabe and publishes South Africa's Mail and
Guardian newspaper, was not
entitled to Zimbabwean citizenship because he
was a Zambian citizen by
descent, state media reported on
Saturday.
Zimbabwe prohibits dual citizenship. Foreigners in the
impoverished southern
African nation are also forbidden from having majority
control of local
media.
"His failure to comply with the requirement
to renounce Zambian citizenship
by descent within the prescribed period
automatically meant loss of
Zimbabwean citizenship," Mudede said in court
papers, according to the
state-owned Herald newspaper.
Ncube had his
passport seized last year after parliament passed a
controversial
constitutional amendment which allowed the government to
impose travel bans
on "traitors" or those deemed to be harming national
interests. He is
contesting the decision to strip him of his citizenship.
"There is no
entitlement on my part of Zambian citizenship merely because my
father was
born there. He was a citizen of Zimbabwe at the time of my birth
as will
appear from his national registration in Zimbabwe," a court
application
quotes Ncube as saying.
Analysts say the move to confiscate the passports
of critics is a sign of
growing panic within Mugabe's government in the face
of a deepening economic
crisis that many blame on the longtime Zimbabwe
leader's policies.
Ncube's newspapers regularly run stories critical of
Mugabe's 26-year rule.
New Zimbabwe
By Staff
Reporter
Last updated: 12/31/2006 00:59:35
THE Zimbabwean government has
taken the first steps to shut down the two
last remaining independent
newspapers in the country.
The Zimbabwe Independent and the Standard
newspapers could be shut down if a
government plot to strip Trevor Ncube,
the newspapers' publisher, of his
Zimbabwean citizenship
succeeds.
Zimbabwean media laws preclude foreigners and non-resident
Zimbabweans from
owning shares in media outlets, although they may be
minority shareholders
in companies which own media shares.
Registar
General Tobaiwa Mudede, in court papers filed this week, argues
that Ncube
is a Zambian by descent and as such he was required to renounce
that
country's citizenship in terms of Zambian law to qualify for a
Zimbabwean
passport.
Ncube, who is also the publisher of the South African Mail and
Guardian
newspaper, is fighting the withdrawal of his citizenship. He
applied for a
court order within three days invalidating the withdrawal of
his passport
arguing that it was unlawful.
He also wants the Passport
Office stopped from interfering with his
possession and use of his
Zimbabwean passport.
No date has yet been set for a hearing.
The
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa) which was
signed
into law in 2003 allocates very substantial regulatory powers over
media
outlets and individual journalists to the Media and Information
Commission
(MIC), a body which is subject to extensive direct and indirect
government
control.
Under the law, all media outlets and any business disseminating
media
products must obtain a registration certificate from the MIC.
Accreditation
must be obtained from the MIC before anyone may work as a
journalist,
effectively a form of licensing.
Foreigners and
non-resident Zimbabweans are precluded from owning shares in
Zimbabwean
media outlets and local and foreign media outlets may only employ
Zimbabwean
citizens or permanent residents.
The law has been used to shut down
several newspapers critical of President
Robert Mugabe including the Daily
News and its sister paper, The Daily News
on Sunday.
The Tribune and
the Weekly Times were also shut down while the Financial
Gazette, Daily
Mirror and Sunday Mirror were taken over by the intelligence
services in a
publicly-funded covert move.
Ncube was one of several leading government
critics who had their passports
temporarily withdrawn last year under a new
government directive later
struck down by Justice Chinembiri Bhunu of the
High Court.
Ncube contends that his father, while Zambian born, was a
bona fide citizen
of Zimbabwe and that, plus his own Zimbabwean birth,
should make him
automatically Zimbabwean without further
requirements.
"There is no entitlement on my part of Zambian citizenship
merely because my
father was born there. He was a citizen of Zimbabwe at the
time of my birth
as will appear from his national registration in Zimbabwe,"
Ncube said
through his lawyers, Scanlen and Holderness.
Ncube also
argues that his mother is Zimbabwean by birth, while his father
is a Zambian
but with a Zimbabwean national registration identity.
Mudede filed papers
with the High Court Friday challenging Ncube's bid for
an order compelling
him to re-issue him a passport and stop all interference
with his travel and
enjoyment of his citizenship rights.
Mudede said: "Ncube is failing to
understand that his loss of Zimbabwean
citizenship is by the operation of
the law and not through the discretion of
the respondent.
"Is he
asking the judge to grant him citizenship? It is up to the government
to
grant or not to grant citizenship."
The Media Institute of Southern
Africa has been critical of the Zimbabwean
government's use and application
of Aippa, insisting that the law only
targets privately-owned papers
critical of Mugabe's regime.
Misa describes Aippa as a "leading weapon of
the government and the ruling
Zanu PF party in their ongoing campaign to
stifle independent media
reporting in Zimbabwe."
europeus.org
samedi, 30 décembre 2006
By Thanos Kalamidas
You don't need to go far to hear all the
horror stories of a terrifying
dictatorship. You just have to stop in
Johannesburg, the place where most
Zimbabwe refugees have fled. Robert
Mugabe is Africa's nightmare and has
brought rise to all prejudices the rest
of the world have for Africa, plus
he represents all the stereotypes of the
mad dictator that started with
Uganda's Amin Dada.
In many senses
Robert Mugabe reminds me of Pinochet. Pinochet was equally
crazy when he
took over Chile with a military coup, while the country was
successfully
fighting inflation and building a new economy; Pinochet led
them back to
total corruption and disaster. Things were so bad that it will
take decades
for Chile to recover and it is sad that the man died before
being able to
pay for his crimes.
Mugabe, as though it were a race, has proven worst.
He didn't need to follow
Pinochet's example and terminate any opposition; he
let his opposition say
whatever they liked but with the help of his huge
paramilitary forces made
it clear to the people that if you don't vote for
me then .you are dead. So
he managed to have a democratic
legitimatcy.
Zimbabwe is a country with a lot of financial potential,
endless revenue
inland and people who have gone through the worst part of
colonization
willing to do all the demanded sacrifices. Their only obstacle
is Mugabe who
does everything he does for .the good of the Zimbabwe people
and for the
country! That gradually has led the people to a passivism that
gives more
power to Mugabe and his followers.
Included in his
followers are the security forces and the police that feel
they are the
trusties of the regime and are constantly crossing the line -
if they could
be any in a regime like Mugabe's - showing the worst face of
brutality and
torture that have become, if anything else, routine!
What makes it worst
is that they became everything they used to accuse their
old masters. 2,000
political opponents of Mugabe and his party have been
arrested, imprisoned
and tortured since the beginning of the year. A
peaceful march attempted in
September of 2006 by some activists lasted less
than two minutes, this is
how long it took to the police and the
paramilitary groups to brutally hit
them and then arrest them and lead them
to some prison in an unknown
location.
The police have nothing to do with its actual work protecting
and serving
civilians but purely work as Mugabe's praetorians effectively -
brutality
has been effective during history. The police are never democratic
and in
the end the victims pay in the worst way, often with their life;
oddly
sometimes killed by their own praetorians.
The Zimbabwe people
have to realize that by accepting their situation the
only thing they do is
give Robert Mugabe and his parasites more power and
obviously more brutal
ways to exercise power over them. Let's hope that in
the end Robert Mugabe
will not be able to escape justice for his crimes.
Thanos Kalamidas is
cofounder of Ovi Magazine
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
30 December 2006
10:45
Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party stands by its decision
to
harmonise elections in 2010, saying it showed confidence in the
leadership
of President Robert Mugabe, a state-run daily reported on
Saturday.
Didymus Mutasa, the Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic
Front (Zanu-PF) party's secretary for administration, told
the Herald that
holding elections in 2010 instead of 2008 was "ideal", no
matter what
critics said.
"Those people must be in a
position to realise that the decision
to harmonise elections in 2010 is a
vote of confidence in the leadership of
President Robert Mugabe, it's a big
vote of confidence by the party," Mutasa
said.
The
82-year-old leader's term was set to expire in 2008, 28
years after he first
assumed power, but Mugabe has indicated he has no
intention of stepping
down.
On December 16, Mugabe's ruling party proposed to
extend his
term of office, arguing that holding parliamentary and
presidential
elections simultaneously would save money in a country reeling
under record
inflation.
"2010 is ideal for everyone, the
opposition included, I do not
see any problem with that," Mutasa
said.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has indicated that
he is
ready to lead resistance to plans for Mugabe to extend his rule for
another
two years.
Rights groups have also vowed to stage
mass street protests. -
AFP
Andrew Meldrum in
Johannesburg
Sunday December 31, 2006
The Observer
Despite
claims by Mugabe to the contrary, the Zanu-PF conference held on
15-17
December failed to endorse the veteran leader's proposal to lengthen
his
rule from 2008 to 2010. The Zanu-PF chairman, John Nkomo, confirmed that
the
conference did not pass the measure, referring it instead to the party's
central committee.
Zanu-PF insiders say the stiff resistance within the
party to Mugabe's
proposal is the first sign of the vulnerability of the
82-year-old leader,
who has been in power for 26 years. It is the first time
a party conference
has failed to adopt a resolution supported by Mugabe, who
will succeed in
amending the constitution only if his proposal is passed by
the central
committee.
'The committee is notorious for using
nit-picking protocols to delay
resolutions if there is resistance,' said a
source close to the party's
leadership, who did not want to be named.
'Mugabe may get it passed, but he
will have to fight for it.'
The
party's rebuke to Mugabe exposes growing dissatisfaction with his
continued
rule. The two major factions within Zanu-PF vying to succeed
Mugabe are led
by Vice-President Joice Mujuru and former Speaker of the
House Emmerson
Mnangagwa. The bitter foes have set aside their differences
to oppose
Mugabe.
'Neither side wants to see Mugabe extend his rule. They want
elections in
2008,' said John Makumbe, political science lecturer at the
University of
Zimbabwe. 'They united against Mugabe at the party conference
and they found
that the owl has no horns. That is a Shona saying meaning
that they found
Mugabe to be a paper tiger. Mugabe is going to have a
difficult time keeping
his party in line in the coming
year.'
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's rapidly declining economy has shrunk by
nearly 50 per
cent since the year 2000. Inflation is the world's highest at
1,100 per
cent, unemployment is estimated at 80 per cent and life expectancy
has
fallen to 34 years for women, the world's lowest.
Mugabe has also
alienated his strongest ally, South African President Thabo
Mbeki, and
leaders from other neighbouring countries who do not welcome his
continued
rule, according to reports in South Africa. An estimated three
million
Zimbabweans - a quarter of the country's population of 12 million -
have
fled to South Africa and Zimbabwe's collapse has slowed economic growth
across southern Africa.
'It is extraordinary. Zimbabwe's opposition
(the Movement for Democratic
Change) has once again proved to be hugely
disappointing,' said Iden
Wetherell, group editor of the Zimbabwe
Independent and Standard newspapers.
'When they should be raising the issues
of the constitutional coup that is
unfolding before them, they prove to be
asleep at the watch.'
The Guardian
Saturday
December 30, 2006 12:16 AM
AP Photo NY159
By ROBERT H.
REID
Associated Press Writer
Some ended up in prison, others were
butchered at the hands of their own
people. A lucky few lived out their days
in comfortable exile or in
positions of privilege in the lands they ruled.
India's independence leader
Mohandas K. Gandhi said dictators ``can seem
invincible, but in the end they
always fall.'' That hasn't always proven
true. Russia's Josef Stalin, North
Korea's Kim Il-Sung, China's Mao Zedong,
Spain's Francisco Franco, Albania's
Enver Hoxha and Syria's Hafez Assad all
died in power. Augusto Pinochet of
Chile arranged a comfortable retirement
before handing over power. The
global record of bringing tyrants to justice
has been mixed.
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic stood before
an international
tribunal to answer for his regime, but he died before a
verdict could be
rendered.
Liberia's Charles Taylor has been indicted
for war crimes in neighboring
Sierra Leone and awaits
trial.
Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega is serving a 40-year term in a
federal
prison in Miami for racketeering, drug trafficking and
money-laundering
after U.S. troops entered his country and arrested him in
1989.
But history's master tyrant, Adolf Hitler, escaped retribution by
committing
suicide in Berlin before Soviet troops could capture him in
1945.
Pol Pot, whose Khmer Rouge regime was responsible for the deaths of
up to 2
million Cambodians, died in the jungle in 1998 as remnants of his
vanquished
movement were preparing to hand him over to an international
court.
For dictators, great power entails great risk. The price for years
spent
firmly in the saddle can be high.
For nearly 25 years, Nicolae
Ceausescu wielded vast powers as the Communist
boss of Romania, even defying
the Kremlin, which tolerated him because of
his firm hold over his people.
Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed
by a firing squad on Christmas
Day 1989 after revolutionaries toppled his
regime.
That seemed like a
merciful end compared with that of Samuel Doe, the shy,
soft-spoken master
sergeant who overthrew Liberian President William Tobert
in
1980.
Power and corruption soon got the best of him and after 10 years of
dictatorial rule, Doe was himself overthrown - tortured, mutilated and
brutally slain.
More fortunate are those who can call on a foreign
leader for a safe haven
once their regime is on the rocks.
Idi Amin,
who as president of Uganda ordered the massacre of thousands of
his
countrymen and impoverished his people, managed to get away to Libya
after
neighboring Tanzania overthrow his regime in 1979. Amin later settled
in
Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003.
Ethiopia's Col. Mengistu Haile
Mariam escaped to Zimbabwe in 1991 as rebels
led by ethnic minority Tigreans
closed in on his capital, ending a 17-year
dictatorship notorious for its
bloody purges.
Mengistu has a luxury villa, bodyguards and a pension -
payback for having
provided Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe with arms,
money and training
facilities during the 1972-80 war to end white rule in
former Rhodesia.
Jean-Claude ``Baby Doc'' Duvalier of Haiti used his
family's longtime ties
to France to escape retribution when the Haitian
military ousted his regime
in 1986.
``Baby Doc'' was named president
for life at age 19 following the 1971 death
of his father, Francois, ``Papa
Doc,'' who had ruled with the help of the
notorious paramilitary Tonton
Macoutes.
Despite promises to liberalize, the younger Duvalier muzzled
the press,
wrecked the economy and ordered the torture and killing of
hundreds of
political prisoners, finally provoking mass protests and a coup
that chased
him from the country.
Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central
African Republic wasn't so lucky. One of
Africa's most ruthless dictators,
Bokassa was ousted in a French-backed coup
in 1979 after a bizarre 13-year
rule that included proclaiming himself
Emperor Bokassa I.
Bokassa was
accused of killing and eating those who dared criticize him. His
purported
crimes included the 1979 massacre of 100 children who complained
about
school uniforms they were required to buy from his factory.
After seven
years in luxurious exile in Ivory Coast and France, Bokassa
returned to
Central African Republic in 1987 expecting to be welcomed.
Instead, he
became the first deposed African chief of state to be publicly
tried on
charges of murder, torture and cannibalism.
He was acquitted of
cannibalism charges, but convicted of murder and
sentenced to death. The
sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison, and he
was freed in September
1993.
Bokassa died three years later and was honored with a state funeral
Comment from cricinfo, 29 December
Steven Price in Harare
The news that Peter Chingoka
has been elected here for a new four-year term
as head of Zimbabwe Cricket
is about as surprising as last week's news that
Robert Mugabe had decided
that he would be extending his presidential tenure
by the same period. It
was also about as democratic, although at least ZC
held an election of
sorts. The comparisons between ZC's patron - Mugabe -
and its chairman do
not end there. Both started their tenure in an era of
hope and opportunity;
after initial success both have overseen a period of
alarmingly rapid
decline; and now both are clinging on to power when the one
decent thing
they could do is admit their failings and disappear into the
sunset. Neither
is likely to, however, and the country and the sport will
lurch from crisis
to crisis while the men at the helm search with increasing
desperation for
answers. They remain seemingly oblivious to the fact their
continued
presence is to the detriment of the thing they profess to care
about, and,
indeed, ignore the reality that stares them in the face as they
claim things
are on the up.
Chingoka has now been in office 14 years, and this
latest "election" will
take his term to 18. In the last four years he has
overseen a player exodus
unprecedented in sport since the regular desertion
of communist athletes in
the Cold War. The game he runs is financially
bankrupt, and arguably morally
so. Zimbabwe have twice suspended themselves
from Test cricket in as many
years, so far have they fallen, and only a few
loyalists inside ZC and
appeasers within the ICC really believe they will be
in any state to resume
Test cricket in 11 months' time. And yet, as ever,
Chingoka pretends all is
well. In a press conference today he talked of his
confidence that
Bangladesh could be overturned as No. 9 in the world - the
same Bangladesh
who whitewashed Zimbabwe 5-0 earlier this month. erhaps that
was a result of
another one of the board's achievements in the last year -
the cancellation
of the country's one first-class tournament. He then added
his hopes that
after leapfrogging Bangladesh, Zimbabwe "would be able to
work our way up
the ladder". From where Chingoka stands, he can't even see
Bangladesh so far
up the ladder are they, while the worst of the rest are
lost in the clouds.
Without doubt the most ironic moment was when he
said that "the good thing
about the four-year terms is that there is
continuity and financial control
is stable". If it wasn't so sad it would be
funny. Chingoka has been accused
of gross financial mismanagement by a
number of leading stakeholders,
although nothing has been proved and he
continues to profess his innocence.
The dissent which surfaced last year has
effectively been eliminated by
eliminating the dissenters (Mugabe would have
nodded in approval at that)
and scrapping the provinces they represented,
replacing them with
appointees. And as for the finances, in March a full and
thorough forensic
audit was announced. Despite numerous attempts to find out
just what the
Harare-based auditor has found, nothing more has been heard
and ZC's media
department remains as cagey as ever. It's even money whether
Chingoka's
latest term expires or the audit is produced first. So Chingoka
soldiers on.
The ICC will be happy as he is a man they can deal with, one of
"them". As
long as he continues to smile and maintain all is well, that will
be good
enough for them. As for Zimbabwe cricket, it's much like the country
itself.
The future is grim, and what hope is there that the man who led them
into
the darkness will be the one who can lead them back into the light.
The Sunday Times December 31, 2006
Fifa gambled on the host nation for the World Cup,
and it's already a
tense race against time
Scene One: Pretoria, a mild
summer evening, a meeting of the congregation
of the local Dutch Reformed
Church. The talk is in Afrikaans, the speakers
are white, approaching
retirement, the subject is an unusual one for this
crowd: football. "What
can we do to help in 2010?" they are asking. They are
among the first
volunteers of the thousands that South Africa needs to find
over the next
1,200 days.
Scene Two: an open-air market in Bushbuckridge, an hour or
so from the
border with Mozambique. A women's co- operative, Swazi speakers
with baskets
of beads and fabrics, discuss an idea for an event that is
still 3½ years
away: flag-bags, they will call them, less than £5 for woven
bags in the
national colours of Italy or France - even the St George's
Cross, if England
should make it.
Various parts of the
planet get diagnosed with World Cup fever for a
month every four years. In
South Africa it is already an epidemic. June 2010
can hardly come quickly
enough for the next organisers of sport's most
watched event. They are
eagerly awaiting its festival - and its tourist
dollars, euros and pounds,
its business opportunities.
As for Fifa, the owner of the World
Cup, the tournament will arrive
quite soon enough: lately, its president,
Sepp Blatter, has looked at his
watch and given it a tap as he surveys the
preparations. Of the 10 stadiums
earmarked for the tournament across South
Africa, four are not much further
than site-clearing, and one is not there
yet. The 2006 World Cup had barely
wound down in Berlin when a few of the
game's chancers thought they glimpsed
an opening. John O'Neill, the then
chief executive of Football Federation
Australia, seemed to be offering an
alternative when he spoke of "all sorts
of question marks" over South
Africa's readiness.
Question marks go with the territory. No
Olympic Games or World Cup
takes place without an alarm being raised over
building schedules. Assigning
Fifa's modern, 32-team, multi- billion-dollar
World Cup to the developing
world for the first time seems to provoke the
big question more often: can
South Africa deliver? Yes, insists Fifa. The
stadium work, as the country's
president, Thabo Mbeki, pointed out last
week, is actually several months
ahead of where Germany's was in December
2002.
The finance is in place, Mbeki's treasury having committed
£840m to
stadium construction and £670m to infrastructure improvement. Soon
they will
start to be judged by their own deadlines: work must have begun by
February
on all the new stadiums. In the country's most attractive city,
Cape Town,
that may be tight. Greenpoint stadium, with its retractable roof
- June can
be squally in the Cape - is planned for a site by the ocean in
view of some
handsome properties, but a local civic association is resisting
aspects of
the current plan.
Outside Nelspruit, 1,200 miles
away in Mpumalanga province, two
schools have to be relocated for the
Mbombela stadium to rise on community
farmland. In places such as this, the
World Cup will have a transforming
effect. "I hope it will bring some jobs,"
says Kaizer, 19, a student at the
John Mdluli school, where classrooms are
to make way for centre circles and
penalty areas, "and I hope my journey to
school won't have to be longer
now."
World Cups are obliged to
leave a positive legacy and it is legitimate
to suppose that if one fails to
do so in Africa, it would weigh heavier on
the host nation than one that
makes no lasting impact in a wealthy economy
of western Europe. The
tournament will make a huge profit for Fifa, whose
income from broadcast
rights and only a tranche of the big sponsorship deals
has already reached
$3.1 billion, exceeding its previous tournament income ,
with more rights
still to sell.
The benefits to a nation are harder to specify but
South Africa would
expect a significant boost to its thriving tourist
industry. If tens of
thousands of jobs are created - one of the more modest
forecasts - it will
also put a dent in the unemployment figures that show a
quarter of the
population to be jobless.
"If it doesn't leave a
legacy, you question the wisdom of the whole
thing," says Trevor Phillips,
the chief executive of South Africa's Premier
Soccer League (PSL). "There
are huge challenges but I've no doubt it will be
a great
success."
Phillips was the commercial director of the Football
Association when
England hosted Euro 96, so he knows a little of what a
successful tournament
can do to the landscape. He feels that South Africa,
while on the right
track, may be left with one or two expensive white
elephants. His PSL, for
instance, has no club in Mpumalanga to inherit the
new stadium there and
bring in regular sizeable crowds. "I can understand
why politically you need
to spread the venues out, but commercially not all
of them make sense," he
said.
Commercially, Phillips adds, the
local organisers have to find a
sensitive middle ground that ensures World
Cup events do not exclude
ordinary South Africans come June and July 2010.
The price of a soft drink
at one of the successful Fanfest sites - big
screens and Fifa- endorsed fast
food - in Germany last summer would be half
a day's pay for a Johannesburg
shelf-stacker. A formula for match ticketing
that will not price out the
vast majority of South Africans is among the
organising committee's
priorities; and keeping those cheaper tickets off the
black market is as
tough a riddle.
Then there is the South
African story that never goes away: crime. The
US ambassador in Pretoria
made public this month the experience of a group
of German tour operators on
a World Cup fact-finding mission to South
Africa. They were robbed. Crime
figures are falling but are still horribly
high. For all that, the country's
security record at previous events such as
the rugby union and cricket World
Cups of 1995 and 2003 was close to
impeccable.
The football
equivalent is of a different scale, and the
infrastructure may creak. The
trains that carry supporters between venues in
2010 will not be as slick as
those that shifted fans in Germany last summer
or in Japan in 2002. There
will also be fewer of them: rail is the one area
in which South Africa's
infrastructure conspicuously falls short. Most fans
will move around by air
or road.
Most teams, meanwhile, will travel less than they are used
to, the
first-round groups being based around specific areas of the largest
country
to host a World Cup since the USA in 1994. Where they base
themselves may be
open to tender throughout not just the country but the
region. The local
organisers, keen to stress that this is a continent's
tournament, not simply
South Africa's, are encouraging neighbouring states
to offer training sites
to qualifying nations ahead of the event (and, if
Fifa sanctions it, perhaps
during the competition too). Portuguese-speaking
Mozambique is lobbying the
Brazilian FA. And here's a prospect to raise
eyebrows at the FA and 10
Downing Street: Zimbabwe might invite England to
spend time there.
There are plans to set up World Cup fan sites in
every African
capital. "You have to bring in the local culture," says
Phillips, "and I'm
sure they will. I can't help but feel that fans who come
here will
experience the diversity, the noise, the colour and be
overwhelmed."
Future Looks Bright for
Zimbabwe
The Herald (Harare)
December 30, 2006
Posted
to the web December 31, 2006
Harare
TOMORROW, the curtain comes
down on an eventful 2006 that saw our country
make important inroads in the
quest to consolidate our economic
independence.
Operating purely on
domestic resources, under the overbearing pressure of
sanctions, we still
managed to run our affairs, and met all our obligations
even to the IMF that
was being manipulated by forces inimical to our
progress.
And as
we enter 2007 on Monday, the year President Mugabe has declared to be
the
period for fundamental turnaround, we are hopeful that the labours of
the
past six years will be duly rewarded in the coming months.
Our monetary
authorities tussled against hyperinflation, which our
detractors were
predicting to be over 4 000 percent around this time, but we
are emboldened
by their ability to maintain it around 1 000 percent giving
us hope that
they are on top of the situation.
And with all indications pointing to
better productivity in all sectors next
year, there is no doubt in our minds
that the target of 400 percent by
December can not only be achieved, but can
even be surpassed.
Already significant deposits of diamonds have been
discovered in the
Marange, Wedza and Mutasa areas; a development that bodes
well for increased
revenue from this sector.
On the agricultural
front, the issuance of 99-year leases to newly resettled
farmers should give
them peace of mind and enable them to make long-term
investments to boost
productivity.
The rains falling in many parts of the country, though
erratic, should also
translate to improved yields.
All this should
enable us to fell inflation below the projected figure of
400 percent by
next December, we did it before and we can do it again with
unity of
purpose.
What animates us more are indications that the illegal sanctions
imposed by
the EU at the instigation of Britain have hit stormy waters as
the majority
in the European bloc feel that they should not be renewed next
February.
Already France and Portugal have declared their intentions to
overlook the
travel ban imposed on top ruling party and Government officials
by inviting
President Mugabe to the France-Africa, and EU-Africa Summits to
be held at
the beginning and mid 2007.
This development should
inspire us all to continue working for the
eradication of these illegal
coercive sanctions that have brought so much
suffering.
We are
encouraged by the support of our friends in the region and abroad,
who
continue thwarting the machinations of British premier Tony Blair, who
is
clearly running out of both time and friends in his quest to bring us
down.
Even his proxies in Harare are at loggerheads and
cross-purposes as their
supporters continue ignoring their calls to sabotage
the economy.
From the foregoing, and many other positives, there is every
reason to wish
our country and ourselves, a happy and prosperous 2007.
What a Vigil! We had erected our
banners and were debating whether to put up
the green tarpaulin in view of
threatening weather when it suddenly became
apparent that there was no
alternative. It bucketed down which meant we had
to frequently prod the
tarpaulin with an umbrella to release the trapped
water - sometimes onto
some innocent passer-by. The last Vigil of 2006 was
certainly the wettest
for some time and the erratic blasts of wind tested
our knot-tying abilities
on our banners and tarpaulin. Our intrepid stance,
in sympathy with so many
suffering people back home, impressed passers-by
who stopped to sign our
petition and give us encouragement. It strengthened
our resolve and created
a wonderful camaraderie at the Vigil. One man
called by and said "I've seen
you here for 5 years". We have become a
fixture. We hear the tour guides on
the open deck buses passing along the
Strand saying "and this is the
Zimbabwe Vigil".
At times the weather made it impossible for us to drum
and sing, but
Ephraim, MDC UK Chair, rallied the troops. He congratulated
those who had
turned up for their commitment and spoke of how people in
Zimbabwe looked at
the Vigil diary every week to see what was happening in
London. Many people
spoke with joy that they had been in touch with their
families back home
over Christmas and this had reinforced their commitment
for change back
home. Ephraim also talked of the need to step up action in
2007. The world
would not be allowed to forget Zimbabwe. We would continue
to put pressure
on Southern African leaders via weekday protests at their
High Commissions
in London as well as further lobbying the EU not to relax
targeted sanctions
on Mugabe and his cronies. We know there is still much
work to do on raising
awareness: one woman came over to us to say "This is
London, not Zimbabwe".
A more local campaign is the fight to allow asylum
seekers to work to
support themselves. We know of several vigil supporters
who have been
imprisoned for working with bogus papers. These people should
not be treated
as criminals. They are trying to survive. We will always
support our
activists striving for change at home.
PS - some people
at the Vigil expressed anxiety about the welfare of Jeff
Sango, a regular
supporter who has not been seen since September. Jeff was
also a committed
opposition activist in Zimbabwe. Anyone who has
information on him, please
email the Vigil: zimbabwevigil@yahoo.co.uk.
All
good wishes to our supporters for 2007 - here's hoping for a better year
for
Zimbabwe.
For this week's Vigil pictures:
http://uk.msnusers.com/ZimbabweVigil/shoebox.msnw.
FOR
THE RECORD: 35 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY: Monday, 8th January,
7.30 pm, First Central London Zimbabwe
Forum of 2007. Monday, 15th January,
7.30 pm, Forum + MDC Central London
Branch Assembly. Upstairs at the
Theodore Bullfrog pub, 28 John Adam
Street, London WC2 (cross the Strand
from the Zimbabwe Embassy, go down a
passageway to John Adam Street, turn
right and you will see the pub).
Vigil co-ordinator
The Vigil,
outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday
from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of
human rights by
the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will
continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held
in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
From The Sunday Independent (SA), 31 December
Myrtle Ryan
The National
Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) is up in arms over the fate of a group
of juvenile
elephants being held in unacceptable conditions in Zimbabwe.
Under the
spotlight is the potential long-term consequence of removing an
animal from
its herd, then training it to carry tourists. Animal rights
groups such as
the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) maintain
that such animals
could one day turn on humans, especially if they have been
abused during
their training. The 10 baby jumbos, aged from five and 10
years, were
forcibly removed from their herd in the Hwange National Park in
early
November and handed over to Shearwater Adventures, which operates
elephant-back safaris in the Victoria Falls area. Since then representatives
of the Zimbabwe National SPCA have informed the NSPCA that the animals are
being held in tiny bomas - 5m by 5m, and one of only 2,5m by 5m - and
standing in huge piles of their own dung. Their condition is deteriorating
rapidly and they have reportedly developed dermatitis. The NSPCA's Marcelle
Meredith said Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management allegedly
issued a permit to Shearwater Adventures to remove the youngsters from the
herd. After their capture one animal died and another managed to escape and
successfully integrate into an existing bachelor herd of six elephants on a
surrounding property.
The Zimbabwe National SPCA approached the
country's wildlife authority,
appealing for its intervention. It seemed the
unhappy animals might be
returned to their herd, but so far this has not
transpired, and the NSPCA
has taken up the cudgels on their behalf. Rick
Allan, a senior inspector
with the NSPCA, said that the trauma experienced
by the captured elephants
as well as the remaining herd could result in
future problems. He cited
problems with elephants in the Pilanesberg
National Park that had been
separated from their herd. Similar problems were
experienced with elephants
in KwaZulu-Natal. The youngsters' family herds
were culled in the Kruger
National Park and they were transported to their
new home in the
Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. But without the guidance of older
bulls, they turned
delinquent in their teens, goring rhinos. Ifaw has often
pointed out the
dangers of removing young animals from the herd with a view
to training them
for elephant-back safaris. Ifaw's Christina Pretorius has
called this "an
accident waiting to happen", pointing out how elephants have
turned on their
trainers on occasion. As elephants were used in commercial
ventures for
profit, there was a danger that competition would increase as
the industry
expanded. There would be more pressure on trainers to train
animals quickly,
Pretorius said. Shearwater Adventures was not available for
comment.
Toledo Blade
Article published Sunday, December 31,
2006
TO THE detriment of Zimbabwe, President
Robert G. Mugabe's party, which
governs the country, has decided to extend
his term from 2008 to 2010.
Zimbabweans have not had much hope for a
brighter future since independence
in 1980, when Mr. Mugabe took power. The
last presidential elections, held
in 2002, were marred by government
intimidation. The next round of balloting
is scheduled for 2008, raising the
possibility that Mr. Mugabe, 82, would
honor his hint that he might step
down at that point.
Mr. Mugabe has been a disaster for the 12 million
people of the southern
African country since he came to power with bright,
conciliatory words upon
its independence. Virtually his first act was to
raise new troops from his
Shona tribe, with North Korean help, to stamp out
his Ndebele minority
opposition.
Then, over the years, he destroyed
the Zimbabwe economy. Apart from his
army's depredations in Ndebele country,
he went after Zimbabwe's white
farmers, who grew not only tobacco and other
commercial crops for export,
but also the bulk of the country's food. He and
thugs who had his authority
simply grabbed the white farmers' land,
installing in their place not
peasant farmers, but military and civilian
Shona cronies of Mr. Mugabe.
Zimbabwe's people now suffer starvation from
time to time and depend to a
large extent on food relief. Through corruption
and economic mismanagement,
Mr. Mugabe has also severely damaged the rest of
the economy, with inflation
sometimes reaching four digits.
An
opposition confronts him internally, but it has no chance against the
army
and the Shona majority, which accounts for 80 percent of the
population.
Zimbabweans' only hope is that Mr. Mugabe will die soon.
If he were
overthrown, it would likely be by the military, which he tends,
and its
members are almost entirely Shona and have no knowledge of
economics.
South Africa could bring landlocked Zimbabwe down fairly
easily, but it does
not for two reasons. First, South Africa's African
National Congress
leadership sees Mr. Mugabe as a fellow former
revolutionary against white
rule. Second, South Africa does not want to
worsen the already considerable
flow of Zimbabwean refugees into its own
land.
So, Zimbabwe, once a flourishing country, with agriculture, mining,
and
industry, will likely just have to wait to prosper. That wait has just
gotten two years longer.