• Bring your own disinfectant - the nightmare of giving birth in Zimbabwe's crumbling hospitals
• Zimbabwe opposition awaits day in court
• Mugabe moves to rescue economy
• Hogwash and lies
• Help for Zimbabwe Pensioners
• MDC Chinhoyi employee abducted by suspected CIO operatives
• Let the people speak meeting
• Mugabe condemns black market fuel traders
• In Zimbabwe, Jews carry on after fire destroys biggest shul
• Kunonga a disgrace to the Anglican Church
• Zimbabwe Gov't Agrees to Talks with Strikers; Mugabe Plans to Overhaul Economy
• CHOGM: Nigeria Consults over Zimbabwe's Suspension

"You'll have to take your own Dettol." It's not exactly what you want to be
told about the hospital where you are planning to give birth. But then this
is Zimbabwe, land of famine, political crisis and shortages of essentials.

I never intended to get pregnant. Not in Zimbabwe, where our sleep is
already broken by fears of the knock in the night.

Thanks to President Robert Mugabe's disastrous economic policies and the
effects of his chaotic land reform programme, 16 nappies cost more than a
very good meal out. Supplies of fresh milk are erratic.

So it's Dettol, bedclothes and food I'll need to pack. And this is a private
hospital we're talking about. Not the city-run ones where several babies
have died this month because of a lack of oxygen, according to newspaper
reports. There is no foreign currency to import oxygen cylinders.

Once the envy of the region, Zimbabwe's public health service is crumbling.
A tub of aqueous lotion costs as much as an office cleaner's monthly wage.
Inflation - now running at 456 per cent - is doing its worst. HIV and Aids
kill an estimated 3,700 people a week. Non-emergency operations have been
suspended in Bulawayo, the second city.

Zimbabwe needs 19,000 nurses: it has 10,000. There are four
gynaecologist-obstetricians left in Harare, including one with whom I had an
appointment. The army had to be brought in to man hospitals this week.

Nurses and doctors - like teachers, lawyers and judges - have joined the
great trek out of the country in search of more money, the promise of
pensions, and, in many cases, political freedom.

My husband has been instructed to store a can of fuel ahead of "the day".
It's illegal, but everyone who can does it.

I am one of the lucky ones. We still have medical insurance, even if our
monthly payments have gone through the roof. I am to have a scan - the one
scan to which I am entitled. But there is no paper to print the photos.
"This is Zimbabwe, I'm afraid," the doctor said.

There are other worries to contend with. Will the hospital, threatened by
strikes over pay and mounting overheads, actually be open? What if there is
a power cut and I need a Caesarean?

My thoughts turn to Zimbabwean women. Expecting a child is no guarantee of
safety here. Pregnant women have been arrested at demonstrations. Last year
Urginia Mauluka, a photographer for theDaily News, the country's only
private newspaper, now shut down, a was forced to spend a night in police
custody, separated from her newborn child. She has since fled the country.

My friends and I used to have discussions about having babies. We were going
to achieve things and be somewhere before we had kids. For Zimbabwean women,
there's no biological clock dilemma. Having children is a part of life.

Here, you get your baby out, strap it on your back -using two long towels,
not one - and get on with things.

The problem is if you can't conceive. Childlessness can be an enormous
disadvantage.

"You'd have been sent back by your in-laws by now [for not producing]", my
friend Chipo giggled. That was a year ago.

What about names? Will we give our baby a local one? Zimbabwe has its own
inventive way of naming. I could name my baby Happiness. Or Killer, like the
head of the Cross Border Traders Association. Or Jealousy, like a prominent
state-approved journalist. There's always the hopeful-sounding Psychology.

There are the gentler Shona names such as Chipo (gift) or Nyasha (grace) or
Rugare (peace). I'd like my child - and other people -- to know that we
value this country's culture, if not its leadership.

I have bought my two bottles of Dettol. Friends send me Babygros, pandering
to my long-distance phone calls when I complain that my child won't have any
clothes.

But spare a thought for the other mothers, tens of thousands of them, who
have no access to private hospitals and cannot even afford the most basic of
baby things.

      Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader Mr Mugabe beat at the polls last
year, has few illusions about his prospects of winning the case, however.
David Coltart, the MDC's shadow minister for legal and constitutional
affairs, says that while there is "overwhelming evidence" that the poll
result was rigged, the party has concerns about the independence of the
judiciary.

      But such concerns are only part of the story. Legal challenges to
earlier parliamentary elections, held in June 2000, have already been going
through the courts for three years.

      The results were initially challenged in 35 of the 62 seats won by the
ruling Zanu-PF party. The MDC has won eight of these actions and lost five.
However, no by-elections have been held, as the government has taken the
cases on appeal to the Supreme Court. The MDC says it has had to drop other
challenges because of witness intimidation.

      Mr Tsvangirai's presidential election challenge is likely to face a
similar fate. But the MDC has also been using the court challenge as a
bargaining chip, offering to drop it provided the Mugabe government agrees
to set up a transitional government of national unity, as a prelude to
calling fresh presidential and parliamentary elections. So far that offer
has been spurned.

      The opposition legal team, led by South African advocate Jeremy
Gauntlett, will produce evidence of electoral irregularities, intimidation
and voter fraud.

Harare - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is to overhaul both his cabinet
and the central bank in a bid to kickstart the faltering economy, the
state-owned Herald said on Saturday.

Mugabe blames the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for failing to stem the black
market in foreign currency.

Zimbabwe has critical foreign currency shortages affecting a wide variety of
imports including fuel. Foreign currency is readily available on the black
market though, where it trades at more than seven times the official rate of
US$1 US/Z$824.

The overhaul of the central bank is to begin next week "to make more of a
developmental institution that protects the national interest", the Herald
quoted Zanu-PF officials who attended a central committee meeting in Harare
on Friday as saying.

Mugabe's cabinet, appointed soon after his re-election in March last year,
is also to be overhauled, the paper said.

"The president said the restructuring and overhauling exercise will not be
limited to the Reserve Bank only, but will be extended to other key national
institutions. He told the meeting that this would include cabinet," an
official told the paper.

It is not clear exactly what form the overhaul of the central bank and of
the cabinet will take.

Cabinet reshuffles are rare in Zimbabwe. There has however been widespread
speculation that Mugabe might get rid of ministers accused of taking more
than one farm under a controversial land reform programme, though there has
been no confirmation of that from the government.

A new vice president also has to be appointed following the death in
September of Simon Muzenda, one of two ruling party officials who hold the
post.

In Zimbabwe, Jews carry on after fire destroys biggest shul

By Moira Schneider

Cape Town - Anti-Semitism doesn't appear to have played a factor in the
burning of a Zimbabwean synagogue the day before Yom Kippur - but the same
can't be said for a letter that followed the blaze. Barely a week after the
Oct. 4 fire, which completely destroyed the 90-year-old landmark in the city
of Bulawayo except for its foyer and facade, a controversial letter written
under the pseudonym "Busybody" appeared in the Bulawayo Chronicle. In it,
the writer asks "what really was in the Jewish church" that day, opining
that it was not "just a beautiful carpet that went up in smoke. A normal
church building would have nothing except the alter (sic), a few effigies of
Jesus and perhaps the church library and furniture, but not this one it
seems." One theory, he writes, was that "church members" were keeping
foreign currency and millions of dollars in local currency there to "cushion
themselves against the cash shortages" that Zimbabwe is experiencing. The
writer also said the synagogue members were keeping their passports there,
as well as "Jewish mementoes" that they intended on "repatriating" to
Jerusalem and archives that were "guarded by the Israeli army day and
night."

And then he delivers his coup de grace. "Several, and so Busybody
understands, had found a 'safe' place to keep their hoarded fuel," at a time
that Zimbabwe is suffering from food and fuel shortages, with people queuing
for days at gas stations. "Sources say it was that fuel that might have
triggered the fire." Former Bulawayo resident Abe Abrahamson told JTA that
Jews who congregated at the site of the destroyed synagogue on the day of
the fire wept and recited Kaddish. In his letter, the letter writer latches
onto this fact in support of his theory, saying that whatever was being kept
there must have been "very big, judging by the amount of emotion, dejection
and desperation on the faces of the victims that fateful Saturday." Alan
Feigenbaum, president of the 110-year-old Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation - the
country's oldest synagogue and, in its heyday, the largest in Zimbabwe -
said that despite the publication of the letter and the anti-white sentiment
rampant in the country, the community did not feel threatened as Jews. "We
are not having any real major problems in that way," he said. He said the
community had been "devastated" by the fire, "but we'll carry on and see how
to reorganize our lives, and we will have services on a regular basis."

Despite the dwindling number of Jews in the country - down to 600 from a
peak of 8,500 in the 1960s - the community had engaged a rabbi from Israel
in time for the High Holidays. The Jewish exodus has come amid a time of
turbulence and upheaval in Zimbabwe, which is ruled by the mercurial Robert
Mugabe. Over the past several years, black "war veterans" have invaded
white-owned farms across the country and turned out their owners. Hundreds
of thousands of black farm workers and their families also have been thrown
out of their homes. The country's economy has deteriorated into massive
unemployment and runaway inflation, and over 80 percent of the black
population now lives below the poverty line. A long-standing drought has
exacerbated the risk of hunger.

For now, the 159-strong Bulawayo congregation is holding services in the
Sinai Jewish Community Center, using prayer books and prayer shawls sent
from communities in Cape Town and Johannesburg - some of which arrived in
time for Yom Kippur services the day after the fire. "They are coping very
well and are quite satisfied with using the Sinai for their immediate needs.
From there, I don't know," Feigenbaum said. Ignoring the warnings of
firefighters, congregants Rodney Lepar and Raymond Roth braved the flames
and managed to save all the Torah scrolls, as well as a 350-year-old curtain
that covers the Holy Ark. Lepar, 51, who has lived in Bulawayo all his life,
said he too had been "devastated" by the fire. "Part of our lives and our
history has just gone. The wonderful memories are there, though," he said.
"I was heart-sore to see the shul go up in smoke." In a poignant twist,
Leizer Abrahamson, 104, recited from the Torah - as he does at most
services - at what proved to be the last service held at the shul.

        OPINION COLUMN: THERE has been much talk in recent months about
church mediators being involved in promoting and encouraging dialogue
between Zimbabwe's two main political parties, ZANU PF and the MDC.

      In July and early August, a team of religious leaders trotted
backwards and forwards between the two parties and said they had been well
received by both sides, who they reported were receptive and willing to
begin the process of dialogue.

      Before an agenda for talks had even been set, ZANU PF appeared to be
doing its damnedest to make sure that dialogue would not take place.

      Speaking on Heroes' Day, President Mugabe insisted that the MDC should
repent: "Those who would go together with our enemies abroad cannot at the
same time want to march alongside us as partners. ...No, we say no to them,
they must first repent."

      Next to take the podium was Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who
attempted to discredit the religious leaders. "Their interest is out of
self-interest," Chinamasa was reported as saying in The Herald. "They are
MDC activists wearing religious collars."

      The Minister accused the clerics of becoming involved in the mediation
effort on behalf of their "foreign masters".

      Two months later, talks have not begun between the two sides and now
comes the shocking revelation that one of the country's most senior
religious leaders has grabbed a

      commercial farm.

      As if the Anglican Church did not have enough controversy around the
world already with the raging arguments about the appointment of homosexual
priests, now Zimbabwe enters the ring to discredit them further.

      Zimbabwe has waited for three and a half years for the Anglican church
to say something about their representative here, Archbishop Nolbert
Kunonga.

      They said and did nothing when Kunonga was named as one of the 78
people on whom targeted sanctions were imposed for his associations with
ZANU PF.

      Surely, now they must do something about their Zimbabwean Archbishop.
It is reported that 49-year-old Archbishop Kunonga has taken over St
Marnock's Farm just outside Harare and that his son is now living in the
homestead.

      It is believed that the Archbishop was allocated the farm as a reward
for his outspoken and overt support of President Mugabe and ZANU PF.

      Archbishop Kunonga does not, by any stretch of the imagination, meet
the criteria for being allocated a commercial farm in Zimbabwe.

      He is neither a farmer nor a landless peasant, but a priest. The legal
owner of the farm, an

      agricultural graduate from Circenster, reports that the 2 000 acre
farm is lying derelict as Zimbabwe enters its main growing season.

      Seized equipment and machinery sits in rusting heaps and there is no
sign of any land preparation on the property.

      By accepting the ironically religiously named St Marnock's Farm,
Archbishop Kunonga has dispossessed 50 Zimbabwean black farm workers and
their families of a home and job.

      These people, men, women and children, are now homeless and destitute
as they, along with the legal owners, were evicted from the farm to make way
for the cleric.

      By the laws of average, it is very likely that at least one of those
evicted people was an Anglican.

      Zimbabweans are left with a foul taste in their mouths knowing that a
priest, and the leader of hundreds of thousands of Anglicans in the country,
could have done such an evil deed.

      Here is a man sworn to devote his life to serving God and his
parishioners. His mandate is to ease suffering and offer comfort to his
parishioners.

      A man whom we should look to for comfort, guidance and leadership, is
behaving no better than a greedy and uneducated political pawn.

      How now can his parishioners, who belong to both ZANU PF and the MDC,
go to him or any of the priests under him and expect guidance in their lives
and forgiveness for their sins?

      Archbishop Kunonga has compromised himself and thrown yet more
disrepute on the Anglican church in Zimbabwe.

      He has again shown the country and the world that he too has been used
and paid. We demand that the Anglican Church does something about this
outrage immediately.

      At the very least, we expect Archbishop Kunonga to stand down from his
post and then repent to his church and his God.

      State of the Nation with The Litany Bird.

The government of Zimbabwe has reversed its earlier decision and agreed to
talk to striking junior and mid-level doctors in an effort to end their
strike over pay.
Until now, the government has refused to meet with the striking doctors
until they go back to work, arguing that as essential workers the doctors
have no right to strike. The government changed its position Friday, but did
not set a time for the talks.

Zimbabwe's medical professionals went on strike last week after earlier
attempts to get a pay raise failed. Junior doctors are paid the equivalent
of $460 a month, while their mid-level counterparts get $580. They are
demanding a pay hike of at least 10,000 percent.

A spokesman for the striking doctors Dr. Phibion Manyanga said the doctors
will go into the negotiations with an open mind, but will not go back to
work until an agreement has been reached. He said that more than
three-quarters of the approximately 800 doctors in the public sector are on
strike and more are joining in all the time.

Nurses, who struck on Monday, have since then returned to work. The
Independent, a Zimbabwean weekly newspaper, reports that the nurses agreed
to an 800 percent pay raise.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe reportedly is planning to
overhaul his nation's central bank and state-run utilities, along with his
Cabinet, in an effort to revive the moribund economy.

The official Herald newspaper says restructuring of the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe is scheduled to begin during the coming week.

The newspaper said Mr. Mugabe told members of his ZANU-PF party that the
move is intended to re-shape the bank into a developmental institution that
protects the national interest.

The central bank has come under fire from government officials this year as
Zimbabwe grappled with acute shortages of foreign currency and a four-month
shortage of local banknotes, which worsened the country's deepening economic
crisis.

It was not immediately clear when Mr. Mugabe would initiate shakeups of the
Cabinet and state utilities.

In September, Mr. Mugabe fueled speculation he planned to sack some
ministers, after he received a report showing multiple instances of
officials grabbing property from white farmers during the government's
seizure of land for redistribution to landless blacks.

Mr. Mugabe has said his land re-distribution program is meant to correct
colonial imbalances that left most of Zimbabwe's best farmland in the hands
of minority whites. Critics say government ministers and senior ZANU-PF
party officials have taken over the most productive farms.

Some information for this report provided by AFP.