2010 07 04
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/5552.html
04 July, 2010 04:52:00 Staff
Reporter
Harare
Banks across Zimbabwe have been
instructed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to increase their security following
the increase in robberies after the abolition of the Zimbabwean currency and
introduction of the foreign currencies in Zimbabwe.
These robberies have mainly been
carried out by local and some of the South African gangs. They have mainly
targeted the United States Dollar, British Pound and South African Rand. The
currencies were introduced in Zimbabwe to deal with the economic meltdown and
hyperinflation being experienced by the economy.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has
warned the banks to be more careful as the World Cup is going on in South
Africa.
The robberies have also been carried
by criminal syndicates operating in Zimbabwe and South Africa and this has also
sparked fears among the people and the banking sector in Zimbabwe.
The banks are being told to take
more steps to increase security and to deal with these incidents in an
effective manner. They are also being told to deal with threat posed by
internal factors like the help provided by the staff in aiding these robberies.
Many robbers loot these banks and
then cross the border and go to South Africa when they can spend this money
easily without any fear.
2010 07 04
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article533322.ece/More-than-a-million-came-to-SA-last-month
* * * * * * * * *
Jul 4, 2010 10:25 PM
By Sapa
The number of foreign visitors to
South Africa during the World Cup has exceeded a million, according to the Department
of Home Affairs.
"This figure is expected to
rise further as the World Cup enters the semi-finals," said department
spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa yesterday.
The government this year launched a
movement control system linked to SARS and law enforcement agencies. Mamoepa
said the system enabled the government to monitor the movements of people
entering the country, particularly during the period leading up to the World
Cup, and during the tournament.
The system recorded 1020321 visitors
entering the country between June 1 and July 1. About 819495 people visited
South Africa in the corresponding period last year. This year's figure is a 25%
increase.
Forty-three people classified as
undesirable were not allowed into the country.
" The Home Affairs airline
liaison officers in various airports abroad have denied entry to South Africa
to 188 people due to possession of fraudulent documents - including visas,
permits, travel documents and stamps - or failure to meet immigration
requirements," said Mamoepa.
He said the system also recorded
people from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Malawi and
Zambia as among the top visitors during the period.
They were followed by the UK, US,
Germany, Australia, Brazil and Mexico.
About 300000 people flocked to Cape
Town this weekend as Germany clashed with Argentina on Saturday.
http://www.go2010.co.za/
Shakira in surprise visit to Zimbabwe
2010 07 05
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/5554.html
* * * * * * * * *
05 July, 2010 12:15:00
Shakira, who was expected to fly to
South Africa today, was a guest of a game ranch, which is in the Gonarezhou
National Park.
CHIREDZI
Colombian singer Shakira made a
surprise visit to Zimbabwe yesterday and spent the day at a game park in
Chiredzi.
The famous voice behind the World
Cup song Waka Waka (This Time's For Africa) landed at Buffalo Range Airport, in
Chiredzi town, on a private visit.
Shakira, who was expected to fly to
South Africa today, was a guest of a game ranch, which is in the Gonarezhou
National Park.
The singer said that, through her
work for Fifa, she had become aware of the country's potential.
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (born
February 2, 1977), known professionally as Shakira (pronounced, Spanish: or, is
a Colombian singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, and
philanthropist who emerged as a musical prodigy in the music scene of Latin
America in the early 1990s.
Born and raised in Barranquilla,
Colombia, Shakira revealed many of her talents in school as a live performer,
demonstrating her vocal ability with rock and roll, Latin and Middle Eastern
influences with her own original twist on belly dancing. Shakira is a native
Spanish speaker and also speaks fluent English and Portuguese.
After commercial flops with local
producers on her first two albums, and little-known outside Colombia, Shakira
decided to produce her own brand of music.
In 1995 she released Pies Descalzos,
which brought her great fame in Latin America and Spain, and her 1998 album was
a critical success. Since then she has gained many fans in semi-Hispanophone
countries, and many non-Spanish-speaking countries, especially the United States.
In 2001, and aided by heavy rotation
of the music video, "Whenever, Wherever", she broke through into the
English-speaking world with the release of Laundry Service, which sold over 13
million copies worldwide.
Four years later, Shakira released
two album projects called Fijación Oral Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation Vol. 2. Both
reinforced her success, particularly with the most successful song in the 21st
century to date, "Hips Don't Lie". From October-November 2009 Shakira
released her latest album She Wolf worldwide.
She has won two Grammy Awards, seven
Latin Grammy Awards, twelve Billboard Latin Music Awards and has been Golden
Globe-nominated. She is also the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time,
and the second most successful female Latin singer having sold over 50 million
albums worldwide.
Additionally, she is the only artist
from South America to reach the number-one spot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100,
the Australian ARIA chart, and the UK Singles Chart. Shakira is to be given a
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Shakira's latest success story is
the superhit "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)", the official song
for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, along with its Spanish language version, titled
"Waka Waka (Esto es África)". The song has received generally
positive critical reception, and has become a worldwide hit.
As Noose Tightened, Spy Suspect Sought Help from Dad - (Anna Chapman the
Russian spy suspect)
2010 07 03
http://www.aolnews.com/us/article/as-noose-tightened-spy-suspect-sought-help-from-dad/19541199
Lauren Frayer
Contributor
AOL Canada
(July 3)
A lawyer for Anna Chapman, the
flame-haired Russian spy suspect whose father was reportedly a KGB agent, says
his client sought help from her father in the days before her arrest, as the
FBI honed in on her.
Attorney Robert Baum told The
Associated Press that Chapman phoned her father, Russian diplomat Vasily
Kushchenko, after an undercover FBI agent posing as a Russian consulate worker
asked her to deliver a fake passport to another female spy.
"She spoke to her father, and
her father said, 'Go turn the passport in,'" Baum told the AP. "Her
father said, 'You've got this passport. It's forged. Go turn it into the
police,' and that's exactly what she did."
Baum believes the exchange shows
Chapman wanted to do the right thing, and hopes to use it in his appeal of a
judge's ruling denying his client bail.
Meanwhile, it's emerging that U.S.
authorities may have had Chapman and her family on their radar as long as a
decade ago, after her younger sister dated an American diplomat's son in
Africa.
Matthew Joseff told the New York
Post that his half-brother Nathan Joseff dated Chapman's younger sister Katya
Kushchenko ten years ago in Zimbabwe when they were teenagers. At the time,
Chapman's father was the Russian ambassador to the country. Joseff's parents
were U.S. intelligence officials posted in the country, and both families had
brought their teenage kids to live there as well.
"My mom, the deputy chief, was
required by her job to disclose [to US officials] that her son was dating a
diplomat's daughter, a foreign national," Matthew Joseff told the paper.
"She told the [U.S.] embassy."
Nathan Joseff, who's now married and
lives in Virginia, split up with Chapman's sister years ago, but his brother
said the two stayed in touch. Katya Kushchenko has been living in Moscow.
Romantic links between Chapman's
sister and the son of a U.S. diplomat could have been a harmless fling between
expatriate teenagers. But it also fits the mission the FBI has attributed to
the deep-cover Russian spy ring of which Chapman is alleged to have been part.
Prosecutors say she and nine other suspects, plus their handler, strived to
penetrate U.S. financial and policy-making circles, to glean insider
information and then funnel it back to Moscow. Katya Kushchenko hasn't been
charged with any involvement.
Meanwhile, Chapman's former in-laws
are rejecting the idea that the secretive Russian beauty may have married their
son in order to get a British passport and help Russia infiltrate the West.
"I'm convinced it wasn't a
honey trap," Kevin Chapman, Anna's former father-in-law, told London's
Daily Mail newspaper. "They were so much in love. It just doesn't add
up."
"She's simply not some Mata
Hari, she can't be... She's just an ordinary girl," Chapman said.
The spy suspect's former
mother-in-law, Jane Chapman, told the paper: "I knew Anna, I saw her with
my son and they were genuinely in love. I don't believe you can fake that. I
couldn't have wished for a nicer daughter-in-law. If she were found guilty,
then I would think because of her age she'd been sucked into something."
Kevin Chapman also added that if
Anna had been out to marry for connections or money, his son Alex, a student at
the time of their marriage, wasn't at all rich.
"If she was being groomed by
the KGB, you would have thought they would have set her up a bit better... They
didn't give her a very good expense account," Chapman said.
His son Alex, who divorced his spy
suspect wife four years ago, has said she confided in him that her father had
been a KGB agent, as well as a Russian ambassador in Africa. He also was quoted
as saying that Anna suffered a mid-life crisis in her twenties, developing an
obsession with money and mysterious Russian friends that ultimately led to the
breakup of their marriage.
Anna Chapman, who kept her husband's
name after their divorce, was arrested last weekend in New York and charged
with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. She was denied bail
at a hearing Monday where prosecutors called her a highly-trained "Russian
agent" and "practiced deceiver."
The 28-year-old self-described real
estate business owner had a huge presence, personally and professionally, on
the Internet, which she used to market her business and make connections. The
FBI alleges it was one way that she reached out to influential figures to try
to get secret information from them, and court documents even describe the
computer she used to pass secrets, a Mac laptop.
Some of those business contacts have
also talked to the media in recent days, describing a friendly but driven young
business owner.
"She's very charming,
attractive, very smart," David Hantman, who works in New York real estate
appraising and was introduced to Chapman through mutual friends, told The
Washington Post. "I was surprised at how young she was to be in a position
to negotiate with these big companies... She had so much business acumen for
someone so young."
But Chapman's networking ability, at
least on Facebook where her profile last weekend listed nearly 200 friends, may
be dwindling. Apparently many of her so-called Facebook friends have
"de-friended" her while she's behind bars, perhaps unsure whether her
spying arrest will be good for business.
Copyright 2010, AOL Inc.
______________________________________________
.. ..
Spy probe focuses on rich businessman (Ken Sharpe)
2010 07 05
http://gulfnews.com/news/world/usa/spy-probe-focuses-on-rich-businessman-1.650069
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
MI5 interested in mysterious
Zimbabwean
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *
Daily Mail Published: 00:00 July 5,
2010
London
Links between the alleged spy Anna
Chapman and a controversial Zimbabwean businessman are being investigated by
MI5.
The Russian redhead at the centre of
the American espionage probe worked with multi-millionaire Ken Sharpe for three
years at a UK-registered company based in the London flat she shared with her
then husband, Alex.
Chapman revealed yesterday that an
MI5 agent who called herself ‘Clare' spent much of a five-hour interrogation
last week asking him about his ex-wife's relationship with Russian-speaking
Sharpe.
During her time with the company,
Southern Union, the 28-year-old moved millions of pounds between Zimbabwe and
the United Kingdom, raising questions over whether the cash may have been
laundered for the purposes of espionage.
The MI5 agent also quizzed Chapman,
30, about Sharpe's close relationship with Chapman's father, Vasily Kushchenko,
a top Russian diplomat accused last week of involvement with the KGB.
According to Chapman, it was
Kushchenko who first introduced his ex-wife to Sharpe, 38, whose businesses
include property development and a plant exporting vodka bottles to Russia.
Sharpe is a fluent Russian speaker
who lives in his native Zimbabwe with Russian wife Joanna.
Chapman claims that his ex-wife and
Sharpe set up Southern Union, which has charitable status, to enable Zimbabwean
expats to send money home at competitive exchange rates.
Chapman was made a director of the
company but was asked to leave just one month after he split from his wife in
2005.
He said his interview with the MI5
agent on Monday had covered his "life with Anna" but that the
conversation had repeatedly returned to her father and, in particular, Sharpe.
However, Sharpe denied the claims
and said: "I have not heard from MI5. Southern Union in the UK was not my
company."
Southern Union is still registered
as an active company at Companies House. Its sole current director is Steven
Sugden, who lives in Dublin. Sugden has denied any involvement with the company
and said he had been listed as a director without his knowledge.
______________________________________________
MI5 probe links Russian spy at centre of US espionage ring to Zimbabwean
(Ken Sharpe)
2010 07 04
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/5550.html
* * * * * * * * *
04 July, 2010 03:57:00
By Daniel Boffey
British Intelligence's MI5 HQ - Mr
Sharpe lives in his native Zimbabwe with Russian wife Joanna.
London
Links between the alleged spy Anna
Chapman and a controversial Zimbabwean businessman are being investigated by
British Intelligence organisation MI5.
The Russian redhead at the centre of
the American espionage probe worked with multi-millionaire Ken Sharpe for three
years at a British registered company based in the London flat she shared with
her then husband, Alex.
Mr Chapman revealed yesterday that
an MI5 agent who called herself ‘Clare’ spent much of a five-hour interrogation
last week asking him about his ex-wife’s relationship with Russian-speaking Mr
Sharpe.
During her time with the company,
Southern Union, 28-year-old Ms Chapman moved millions of pounds between
Zimbabwe and the UK, raising questions over whether the cash may have been
laundered for the purposes of espionage.
The MI5 agent also quizzed Mr
Chapman, 30, about Mr Sharpe’s close relationship with Ms Chapman’s father,
Vasily Kushchenko, a high-ranking Russian diplomat who was accused last week of
involvement with his country’s secret services, formerly known as the KGB.
According to Mr Chapman, it was Mr
Kushchenko who first introduced his ex-wife to Mr Sharpe, 38, whose businesses
include property development and a plant exporting vodka bottles to Russia.
Mr Sharpe is a fluent Russian
speaker who lives in his native Zimbabwe with Russian wife Joanna, a former
bellydancer.
Mr Chapman claims that his wife and
Mr Sharpe, who is understood to be linked to tyrant Robert Mugabe’s regime, set
up Southern Union, which has charitable status, to enable Zimbabwean expats to
send money home at competitive exchange rates.
According to Mr Chapman, the money
was deposited in an HSBC account in London then distributed through a maze of
international bank accounts and front companies, to avoid scrutiny by
Zimbabwean authorities, before being distributed by Mr Sharpe.
Mr Chapman was made a director of
the company but was asked to leave just one month after he split from his wife
in 2005.
He said his interview with the MI5
agent on Monday had covered his ‘life with Anna’ but that the conversation had
repeatedly returned to her father and, in particular, Mr Sharpe.
He said: ‘I had just put the phone
down on my father, who had told me the news about Anna, when I received a call.
'A woman said, “This is Clare from
the security services. You are probably aware by now that your ex-wife is being
accused of espionage.” I said I had just been told about it.
'She said she was coming to see me
and that she wanted a detailed report about Anna and her father. She wanted to
know the workings of Southern Union and all about Ken Sharpe.
‘She asked if there were any
strangely large amounts of money going through the company. She wanted to know
where Ken was from and what he did.’
Mr Chapman added: ‘I told the agent
that the only thing I found weird about Anna’s father was that he could split
himself into two different people. In one moment he was business, business and
next moment he was saying, “Let’s go fishing.” ’
During the interview, which took
place in a conference room at the Milford Hall Hotel in Salisbury, Wiltshire,
the agent suggested that his former wife may have been persuaded by her father
to work in espionage.
Mr Chapman, a former public
schoolboy from Bournemouth, said: ‘Clare asked whether Anna being held by the
FBI and charged with spying came as a shock to me, and I said, “Yes.”
‘Then she said that in their view
Anna’s father was a rather shady character. She gave me the impression that she
believed Anna had got caught up in something but didn’t really understand how
serious it was.
'She said she would have been lured
by the glamour and the glitz and that she thought she was doing her country a
service.’
Mr Chapman claimed he spoke on the
phone on Friday to his ex-wife in the Metropolitan Detention Center in
Brooklyn, New York, where she is held.
He said that he got through to her
Russian mobile phone just hours after she was denied bail on charges of
conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The crime
carries a potential penalty of five years in prison.
He said: ‘I rang her because I was
extremely worried about her. She answered and I immediately recognised her
voice although she sounded utterly drained. She initially claimed she was her
sister, Katya.
‘She just said, “So much has
happened. I am not surprised about everything that is happening in England. It
is happening everywhere. But I would prefer you not to speak to people about me
for a couple of weeks.”
‘I said that I was sorry about her
father’s name being linked to the KGB and she kept on saying, “Don’t worry,
don’t worry.” ’
Ms Chapman’s lawyer Robert Baum
yesterday told a bail hearing she was ‘very frightened’ by jail and had been
embarrassed by details of her private life emerging in recent days, including
stories of her love of the high life.
But Mr Baum told the court: ‘The
truth is she is probably no different from your typical single 28-year-old
woman in New York City. She runs a successful business, goes out at night. She
dates men, enjoys a social life.’
However, concerns have been raised
within the British secret service that Ms Chapman may have been involved in
espionage during her five-year stay in the UK, in which time she became a
British citizen.
MI5’s investigation appears to be
focusing on the network of contacts around her father and Mr Sharpe.
Mr Sharpe, who is said to have been
expelled as child from his country’s top private school Peterhouse, is
understood to be linked to Mr Mugabe and his Zanu PF party.
Mr Chapman met his ex-wife, born
Anna Kushchenko, at a rave in London in 2001 when she was on a break from
studying for an economics degree at Moscow University.
She was wearing ‘a stunning white
dress and pair of red high heels’, he said, and that night he stole her away
from her travelling partner and boyfriend. Within eight months they had married
at a register office in Moscow.
They honeymooned in Zimbabwe in
March 2002 - and Mr Chapman took a picture of his new wife lying half-naked on
their hotel bed.
He said: ‘We were just having a bit
of fun. We were in love.’ But he admits that early in their relationship there
were signs that there was much more to Anna and her father.
He recalled: ‘We were going to a
nightclub in Moscow, but the doormen were not letting us in. All of a sudden a
guy got out of a Diablo [Lamborghini] car, had a word with the people on the
door and we were just whisked through.
'They almost bowed to us - it was incredible.
Apparently this guy was some Persian Prince. I didn’t understand how well
connected she seemed to be.’
After six months in Moscow, the
couple returned to London where they worked for Southern Union from their flat
in Stoke Newington.
Mr Chapman said: ‘Mr Sharpe would
call us all the time. He would say you need to move this amount of money from
this bank account to that bank account.’
But as Ms Chapman sought the
material comfort that her husband could not provide, their relationship became
strained and they split up in 2005.
A month later, Mr Sharpe told Mr
Chapman that Southern Union was closing. Following her time at Southern Union,
Ms Chapman worked for private jet lease company Netjets, hedge fund Navigator
Assets and as a business manager at the Uxbridge and Ealing Broadway branches
of Barclays bank.
Mr Chapman said: ‘When Anna left
Southern Union she became very business orientated. She wanted to move to
Mayfair and go to posh clubs. When she wanted something, she went and got it.’
Ms Chapman moved to America in 2008
to set up an internet property company. Mr Chapman said: ‘That was the most
surprising thing, this sudden move to America and getting her green card so
quickly.
‘She said the UK was far too
relaxed, in as much as that politicians say things and it never gets done.
'In Russia, they say things and it
gets done. But she liked everything about the English culture - Benny Hill,
James Bond and Harry Potter. She would send Benny Hill on to her father in
Zimbabwe. He roared with laughter at it.'
Yesterday Mr Sharpe said: ‘I have
not heard from MI5. Southern Union in the UK was not my company.’
Southern Union is still registered
as an active company at Companies House.
Its sole current director is Steven
Sugden, who lives in Dublin. Mr Sugden has denied any involvement with the
company and said he had been listed as a director without his knowledge.
Internet firm was propped up by $ 1m
from Russian state
The internet company run by Anna
Chapman, which the FBI is understood to be investigating as a smokescreen for
her alleged spying, was propped up by a $ 1million cash injection from the
Russian state.
Ms Chapman founded her international
property venture following her divorce from Briton Alex Chapman in 2006.
She boasted that the business made
her a millionairess and financed her lavish lifestyle in New York.
Mr Chapman, who kept in touch with
his ex-wife after their divorce, said last week he was puzzled about how she
had kept the struggling company afloat.
He said: ‘She moved over there to set
up her internet property firm and it always seemed to be in the red, but it
took off suddenly in 2009 and she said she was employing 50 people.
‘I couldn’t understand how she could
pay them. At some point someone had pumped a lot of money into it.’
However, in statements to Russian
business journalists that have been obtained by The Mail on Sunday, she boasts
she received a cash boost estimated to be $ 1million (about £657,000) from
Russian backers supported by the Russian state.
Ms Chapman, who confided to her
former husband that her father was a ‘high-ranking’ officer in the Russian
security forces, had told journalists that she had launched the ambitious
venture in Russia by pawning her jewellery.
Eight months later, she had used up
her capital and, after being met with rejections from private investors, faced
bankruptcy.
‘Everybody I asked for money said
no. All of them did, laughing at me,’ she said.
Finally, in 2008, she received the
injection of money with the help of Russia’s Department of Support for Small
Business and Agency for Developing Innovative Business.
Her website domdot.ru can still be
accessed on the internet.
She told Moscow-based journalists
that her investors were her ‘business angels’ - insisting the Kremlin wanted
nothing in return for its generosity.
But US investigators are believed to
be interested in whether her alleged paymasters could have used the business to
provide an elaborate cover for her alleged spying.
A US intelligence source said last
night: ‘If Anna indeed is a deepcover agent, it was a brilliant stroke.
'Her role apparently was to
infiltrate the US Establishment by posing as a fabulously rich, self-made woman
with a wild streak - kind of a honeytrap for the dotcom age.
‘If that is the case, it may be that
the company served as a pipeline for Moscow Central to continue generating a
cashflow to finance her lifestyle that couldn’t be traced.’
Guest at lavish party with Royal
connection
Anna Chapman attended a lavish
London party held by a Russian who is close to his country’s embassy and has
links to Britain’s Royal Family.
Guests gathered on a ship moored in
the Thames in 2007 to celebrate Victory Day, the Russian equivalent of VE Day.
Those invited included prominent
City financiers, including representatives of Barclays bank where Anna worked.
Entrepreneur Eugene Kasevin, a
leading figure in the Anglo-Russian community, organised the event which is
held annually and has been attended by ambassadors, businessmen and Prince
Michael of Kent.
Mr Kasevin, 40, said he recalled Ms
Chapman as a quiet individual. ‘I remember her look, her hair. But that’s it,’
he said from his home in Moscow.
‘She faded into the background. She
was very timid.’ Allegations that she was a spy struck him as ‘a little
unlikely’.
However, another guest at the party,
politician Paul Wiffen, who now works for UKIP, said: ‘She was working the
room. She was the sort of girl you noticed.
‘She asked me who I was and what I
did as if sniffing around for who I knew.’ - Daily Mail (UK)
______________________________________________
…
Zim tycoon fingered in espionage probe - (Zimbabwean businessman Ken
Sharpe)
2010 07 04
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-2772-Zim+tycoon+named+in+spy+probe/news.aspx
[ 31/07/2010 00:00:00 ]
by Staff Reporter
Face of a spy ?.
... Anna Chapman
HE UK’s counter intelligence and
security agency MI5 is said to be probing links between alleged Russian spy
Anna Chapman and a controversial Zimbabwean businessman, Ken Sharpe.
The Russian woman, who is at the
centre of the American espionage probe, reportedly worked with
multi-millionaire Ken Sharpe for three years at a British registered company
based in the London flat she shared with her then husband, Alex Chapman.
Alex revealed to UK media that an
MI5 agent had spent much of a five-hour interrogation last week asking him
about his ex-wife’s relationship with the Russian-speaking Sharpe.
During her time with the company,
Southern Union, 28-year-old Anna is said to have moved millions of pounds
between Zimbabwe and the UK, raising questions over whether the cash may have
been laundered for the purposes of espionage.
The MI5 agent also quizzed Alex, 30,
about Sharpe’s close relationship with his wife’s father, Vasily Kushchenko, a
high-ranking Russian diplomat who was accused last week of involvement with his
country’s secret services, formerly known as the KGB.
According to Alex, it was Kushchenko
who first introduced his ex-wife to Sharpe, 38, whose businesses include
property development and a plant exporting vodka bottles to Russia.
Sharpe is said to be a fluent
Russian speaker living in his native Zimbabwe with Russian wife Joanna, a
former bellydancer.
Alex claimed that his wife and
Sharpe, who is understood to be linked to Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe,
set up Southern Union, which has charitable status, to enable Zimbabwean expats
to send money home at competitive exchange rates.
According to Alex, the money was
deposited in an HSBC account in London then distributed through a maze of
international bank accounts and front companies, to avoid scrutiny by
Zimbabwean authorities, before being distributed by Sharpe.
Alex was made a director of the
company but was asked to leave just one month after he split from his wife in
2005.
Anna is one of 10 people accused by
the US of being agents of Russia's intelligence service - the SVR - and part of
a spy ring.
She was denied bail on charges of
conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The crime
carries a potential penalty of five years in prison. Daily Mail
2010 07 05
President Mugabe has approved the appointment of Mr Godwills Masimirembwa as the chairman of the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, taking over from Ms Gloria Mawarire who held the post from March last year, says the Herald, Zimbabwe’s state-owned newspaper.
“Masimirembwa is now the chairperson and he started working on Tuesday,” said Mines and Mining Development Minister Mpofu.