Job Sikhala defends himself
Outspoken
MP for St Mary’s, Job Sikhala, says opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has no
power to suspend him. Sikhala was suspended on Monday after making sensational
allegations that the MDC received illegal foreign funding from Nigeria, Ghana
and Taiwan. Although he later withdrew the charges claiming he just wanted to
force the squabbling leaders in the party to talk to each other, it was not
enough to avoid the suspension.
Behind
the Headlines tracked down the maverick MP and sought clarification on various
issues. He believes it does not need prophet Micah to come down from heaven and
proclaim to Zimbabweans, the fact that he has personal problems with Tsvangirai.
Narrating how he fell out with Tsvangirai after an initial honeymoon period in
the party, he denies being bitter over losing the Shadow Security Ministry in a
reshuffle. What next for Sikhala as he hides under the wing of the Vice
President, Gibson Sibanda, the custodian of the disciplinary process in the
party and currently Tsvangirai’s bitter rival?
UK's maize farmer tastes success
David Mwanaka, 40, has grown 20 acres of white maize in a field near Enfield,
on the north-eastern outskirts of London - despite the fact this is hugely
difficult to do as white maize usually only grows in a hot climate.
He spent six years trying to find the best ways to grow white maize in
Britain's colder climate.
Mr Mwanaka told BBC World Service's Outlook programme that it was "almost
impossible" to grow white maize in the UK.
"What I've always been told is that you can't grow white maize in Britain. In
countries where white maize is grown, the growing season is a bit longer than in
this country," he said.
Tasting to believe
Initially, Mr Mwanaka took on a number of low-paid jobs when he first moved
to the UK in 1991, including a parking attendant.
But during this time he made several efforts to grow the white maize in his
back garden in Essex, eventually achieving success in his fourth year of trying.
In 2002, he decided to quit his job in a bank and become a full-time farmer.
He placed an advert in the classified newspaper Loot seeking arable land.
Although he received no replies, a journalist with the Guardian newspaper saw
the advert and contacted him.
White maize is a relative of the corn normally grown in the UK and is an
important staple food in many African countries.
Mr Mwanaka explained that white maize is "much sweeter" than British corn,
and has a much higher starch content.
But unlike British corn - which Mr Mwanaka "could not stand eating" - it is
relatively little-known in the northern hemisphere.
White maize is usually grown in South America and southern parts of Asia as
well as Africa. Mr Mwanaka said that it had been "very difficult" to convince
people he was serious about growing the maize in the UK.
"Some people said they needed to see it to believe it - and then when they
saw it, they said they wanted to taste it, to make sure it was really white
maize," he added.
"I have got people from many countries who come to buy white maize from us -
people from east Africa, west Africa, southern Africa, and some from Asia and
South America as well."
A Zimbabwean who
moved to the UK 14 years ago and missed white maize - his country's staple crop
- so much he began growing it in a field near London, has become one of
Britain's most successful small farmers.
When the journalist
wrote up the story, offers began to come in.
Botswana-Zim negotiate passport waiver
MMEGI
FRASER
MPOFU
11/3/2005 11:49:44 AM (GMT +2)
There are plans to
allow Zimbabweans and Batswana living along the
common border to visit
relatives in each of the two countries without the
use of passports.
Botswana's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Pelokgale Seloma has
said they are
working on modalities to use permits, passes and national
identity cards for
visits by those living on the border. He told journalists
in the southern
Zimbabwe city of Masvingo last week that Harare and Gaborone
are negotiating
the passport exemption initiative.
This is meant for
people living along the common border and have
strong family relations on
both sides.
"We are not doing this because the people have no
passports.
"We want to do so because our people along the
border have
intermarriages on either side. People in such situations just
need permits
or passes which they use together with their national identity
cards," he
said.
He added that the people would require
identity cards to ensure that
the facility is not abused. Seloma explained
that bi-lateral relations
between his country and Zimbabwe date back to the
1960s and 1970s when
Botswana provided a safe passage for Zimbabweans who
fled their country to
go to Zambia, Angola and Tanzania for military
training during the war
against British colonial rule.
He
noted that the moves to waive the passport requirement for the
people living
along the border is part of a wider strategy to ensure that
Botswana-Zimbabwe relations are strengthened.
Seloma
reiterated that his country does not have a policy to mistreat
Zimbabwean
visitors, pointing out that only those who commit crimes in
Botswana are
prosecuted and punished according to the law. The ambassador,
who was posted
to Zimbabwe two months ago indicated that Botswana welcomed
visitors as long
as they obey the laws of the country. He said scores of
Zimbabweans work in
Botswana. Both countries are planning to open a new
border post at
Kazungula, a few years after opening two new ones at
Maitengwe and Mphoengs.
The opening of additional posts is meant to ease
pressure on existing
ones.
South Africa admits Zimbabwe is crucial problem
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
03 November 2005
Aziz Pahad, the deputy
foreign affairs minister in South Africa on
Wednesday admitted he was
alarmed at the increasing numbers of Zimbabweans
coming into neighbouring
countries to escape the economic crisis that has
continued to deteriorate.
This is significant because South Africa's
president Thabo Mbeki has refused
to criticise Robert Mugabe publicy or
admit Zimbabwe is causing problems in
his country. Pahad is the first
official to admit this.
But
despite his admissions, Pahad said President Mbeki would stick by
his policy
of quiet diplomacy as his way of finding a solution. However, the
opposition
party and the ruling party in Zimbabwe always deny reports of
Mbeki's
involvement in resolving the crisis.
The Zimonline news site
reports that at least three million
Zimbabweans, a quarter of the country's
12 million people, are living
outside the country. But the problem is being
felt most in countries next
door to Zimbabwe. In South Africa, Bishop Paul
Verryn has been taking care
of many Zimbabwean asylum seekers at his church
in Johannesburg. The bishop
told us that he deals with at least 8 new cases
everyday. Many are HIV
positive, but the hospitals are helping with those
cases.
As for South African officials, the bishop believes they are
very
aware of the situation but are being blocked by the bureaucracy that
surrounds them. Bishop Verryn specifically mentioned South Africa's home
affairs minister as one official who is not oblivious to their needs. But
there are no facilities for helping asylum seekers in Joburg. The
immigration office there was closed months ago and the Bishop is appalled
that a city this big does not have one.
Bishop Verryn also told
us about 200 blind Zimbabweans that have been
living in the middle of
Joburg. 80 were evicted from the building they were
in and the rest are due
to be evicted from the unsafe building they are
living in. No facilities
have been found yet to house them.
Meanwhile in the UK, foreign
secretary Jack Straw told the press that
Southern African states need to
pressure Zimbabwe to change and force Mugabe
to embrace democracy. And in a
speech at the UN headquarters Prince Charles
said: "I wonder, too, what
extra role the United Nations might be able to
play with regard to a
country, for instance, like Zimbabwe whose
independence celebrations I
officiated at on behalf of the queen over 20
years ago and which is now
undergoing such a traumatic experience."
SW Radio Africa
Zimbabwe news
Australia urges more pressure on Zimbabwe
By Lance Guma
03
November 2005
Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander
Downer has said their
country will continue to pressure the international
community to take
further action against Zimbabwe. He was responding to
admissions by Zimbabwe's
Deputy Agriculture Minister, Sylvester Nguni that
the country had no food
because land was given to people without a passion
for farming. The
situation in the country continues to deteriorate with
reports that 4
million people need food aid, but Robert Mugabe's government
has rejected
help from the United Nations.
He said they were
working 'to pressure countries like South Africa to
be more robust in
standing up to.Mugabe, to pressure members of the Security
Council to
consider a referral of ..Mugabe's regime to the International
Criminal
Court." Downer's statement follows increasing international
recognition that
thousands of Zimbabweans are dying silently from starvation
with most
international media outlets denied entry into the country to cover
the
unfolding tragedy.
Journalist Brilliant Pongo, now also exiled in
the United Kingdom
bemoaned the fact that news stories from Zimbabwe were
drying up to a
trickle. Experienced journalists have been kicked out leaving
behind a
fairly young and inexperienced generation. The international
community as a
result would never really get to comprehend the full scale of
the disaster
unfolding.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Zimbabwe migrant: Rejoice Mkwananzi
Last week the International Organisation for Migration launched a "Safe
Journey" campaign in Zimbabwe, with help from some of the country's best-known
musicians, to make would-be migrants aware of the dangers involved.
Rejoice Mkwananzi (not her real name), 49, gave up her position as deputy
head teacher of an infant school in Zimbabwe and moved to Israel to be a maid so
that she could support her extended family.
I was in charge of 45 other teachers and would have soon been promoted to
head teacher.
Basically at that time wages were too low - and then it was so much better
than it is now.
Almost half of my salary would go to the taxman. I then had my mortgage to
pay for, my car, my various policies and at the end of it all I was left with
almost nothing.
It was so hard to make ends meet. It felt as though the moment I received my
salary, it was all gone.
My life was hand-to-mouth.
My sister had recently died tragically and her two children were left all
alone. The way our society works is that the family steps in and takes over
caring and providing as needed.
And so instead of supporting myself and my poor-in-health mother, I now had
to provide for my sister's two little girls too.
If I had stayed at home I wouldn't have managed.
Initial intentions
At that time the situation in Zimbabwe was really desperate.
Now though, when I look back it was not all that bad!
I met a cousin of mine who had a job in Israel and she told me that the
family that she had been working for were looking for someone to help them.
I was just lucky.
The family paid for all my relocation expenses to where they live near Tel
Aviv and sorted out a work permit for me.
My initial intentions were just to stay a year.
But things, back home, went from bad to worse and now I don't see myself
going back. Well not soon anyway. I don't see how that would be possible.
Money
The work is so depressing. I never thought I would find myself doing these
jobs.
I clean the house, look after the children when they come home from school,
sometimes I cook, I do everything.
I leave my apartment at half-seven in the morning and get home at nine in the
evening, and between those hours I am constantly on my feet.
I only start work at the family's home in the afternoon but to make more
money I spend my mornings going about cleaning in different places.
Some of the people are welcoming and good to me but the woman that I mainly
work for, I couldn't call her exactly warm.
When I first arrived I used to share a three-bedroom apartment with a
Ghanaian and a Kenyan.
It was really difficult though and I had to be so accommodating.
People are different - our cultures, the food we eat and how it smells,
manners and all that.
I couldn't get used to it.
I am an independent woman and had always lived on my own, apart from when I
was married.
And so as soon as I could I found myself a one-bedroom apartment to rent.
Lonely
It is better to have my own space but I am lonely.
One does not have a social life living here. There are several Zimbabweans
and South Africans that I am friends with - we all stick together.
They normally visit over our weekends - from Friday afternoons till Saturday.
But few of them have the correct papers and so are too frightened to go out
in case the police stop them. Instead we meet in people's houses.
When I go around town I am sometimes nervous of a bomb going off. There was a
time two, three years ago when we would have to carry gas masks.
And you feel frightened taking buses, because of the bombing. You can feel
tensions amongst crowds of people.
Nothing bad has happened to me. God has really protected me.
Phone home
I miss home, so much.
I applied and was given political asylum and so I cannot go home, not even
for a holiday. If I went, I would not be allowed back.
I wish I could do a proper job - doing this is killing me mentally and I have
developed a low self-esteem.
I love children and would give anything to be able to teach once more.
My mother is physically very ill but is so strong mentally.
I phone home once a week and she tells me to think of what I have achieved.
I have achieved a lot and it makes me happy that I can support my mother and
nieces but I am living for my family. I don't even have a boyfriend!
My family depend on me for everything.
I send them money to pay all their bills, pay for the school fees. I make
sure my mother can pay to see a private doctor, and that she has all her
medications.
They depend on me left, right and centre.
I hope all the things happening in Zimbabwe end soon. I want to go home and
live the kind of life that I used to have.
The BBC News website has
been speaking to Zimbabweans who have left the country in recent years about
their reasons and the risks they took.
When I left Zimbabwe in 1999 I was the acting head teacher at a very
respected junior school.
I wish I could do a proper job - doing this is killing me mentally
and I have developed a low self-esteem. 
Mugabe says no to UN housing offer
IOL
November 03 2005 at
08:28AM
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe rejected a
United Nations
offer to help build temporary shelters for victims of a
demolition blitz
because the government wanted to build permanent homes, a
state-run daily
reported on Thursday.
"If the UN and donors are
keen to assist in augmenting government
efforts, they should assist in
constructing permanent structures, not
temporary structures," Mugabe's
spokesperson George Charamba said.
"The people affected are
permanent citizens," Charamba told the Herald
newspaper.
UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday voiced dismay that Harare
had
rejected an offer of UN aid for some of the victims of a controversial
demolition campaign carried out earlier in the year.
Annan expressed grave concern that tens of thousands of people still
lived
in the open five months after the housing demolition drive and feared
that
rains expected to start falling in two weeks would worsen the
conditions of
the homeless.
But Charamba said the government's policy was to
build permanent
structures, "which is the reason we had destroyed temporary
structures".
"The Secretary General's office gave government
material for temporary
structures and we went back to the UN office to say
that we were not keen to
build temporary structures," Charamba
said.
Meanwhile, a government minister has promised that all
victims of the
controversial Operation Murambatsvina who are still in the
open would be
housed in "quasi-permanent" structures.
"We will
not leave Zimbabweans in the open," said Social Welfare
Minister Nicholas
Goche.
"The government and other stakeholders are giving the
affected people
quasi-permanent structures so that when the rains come,
people will not be
in the open," Goche told parliament late on
Wednesday.
But local government minister Ignatius Chombo said
"there is no longer
a compelling need to provide temporary shelter as there
is no humanitarian
crisis".
Zimbabwe on May 18 launched what it
called an urban renewal campaign,
razing shacks, homes, small businesses and
market stalls in shantytowns and
other poor urban areas amid severe food and
fuel shortages.
A UN report released in the aftermath said the
demolitions had left
700 000 people homeless or without sources of income,
or both, in cities and
towns across the country while another two million
were affected in varying
degrees. - Sapa-AFP
Africa's shining path?
Mineweb
By: Barry Sergeant
Posted:
'03-NOV-05 18:52' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2004
JOHANNESBURG
(Mineweb.com) -- This week's news that Phelps Dodge
Corporation, one of the
world's leading copper miners, has taken a
controlling stake in the Tenke
Fungurume project is the biggest to-date
thumbs up by the private sector in
the freeing up of the Democratic Republic
of the Congo.
How things
have changed from October 16, 2002, when UN secretary-general
Kofi Annan
sent the Security Council a 25-page report, from the Panel of
Experts on the
Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of
Wealth of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. The report documented
precise criminal
instances, and named individuals, in a story that boggles
the brain on every
re-reading.
The UN took the report very seriously. After an initial DRC
peace agreement
was signed in December 2002, the UN increased its DRC
personnel to nearly
18,000 in November 2004. Just before this week's
announcement from Phelps
Dodge (which was ratified by Congolese presidential
decree), the Security
Council reinforced peacekeeper numbers in the province
of Katanga, where
Tenke Fungurume is situated, as the DRC continues to
prepare for its first
democratic elections in 45 years. The UN mission in
the DRC is the UN's
biggest, costing about $1 billion a year.
The
news from Phelps Dodge is very serious: mining the Tenke Fungurume
deposits
requires an investment that will run into hundreds of millions of
dollars.
J. Steven Whisler, chairman and CEO of Phelps Dodge, this week
described the
deposits as "the largest and highest-grade undeveloped
copper/cobalt project
in the world today." He wants the feasibility study
finished by mid-2006,
with first copper production targeted in early 2008.
The news has been
welcomed by companies operating in, or near to, the DRC,
not least Metorex
(listed in Johannesburg) and foreign-listed entities such
as Equinox, First
Quantum, TEAL Mining & Exploration, along with a number of
advanced
exploration plays such as Banro, which holds a huge gold concession
extending over 210 kilometres in the South Kivu province.
Phelps
Dodge has, of course, benefited from dollar copper prices, which have
tripled in the past three years. On the other hand, Tenke Mining
Corporation, now a minority partner in the project, has spent $88
milliontowards a feasibility study. The "force majeure" that was declared on
Tenke Fungurume in February 1999, upon resumption of a complex war, has now
been lifted. The "war" in the DRC, which left millions dead, according to
various non-governmental organisations, was no conventional war. It was all
about filthy lucre. In 2002, the Security Council read how the DRC conflict
attracted no less than seven African states to loot and plunder the country.
By 2002, the conflict had "diminished," but, said the report, "the
overlapping micro conflicts that it provoked continue."
The conflicts
over money, money, and more money focused on pre-money, in the
form of
metals and minerals, hardwood timber, land, and even farm produce
and tax
revenues. Some of the main beneficiaries, according to the UN, were
criminal
groups linked to the armies of Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, and the
DRC
itself, along with "powerful individuals in Uganda."
The "elite" network
of Congolese and Zimbabwean political, military and
commercial interests
transferred ownership of at least $5 billion of assets
from the DRC state
mining sector to private companies under control of the
network in
1999-2000, "with no compensation or benefit for the DRC."
Among the
individuals named were George Forrest, a Belgian national, who
"built up the
most wide-ranging private mining portfolio" in the DRC. The UN
found that
since 1994, Forrest had owned 100% of New Lachaussée in Belgium,
a leading
manufacturer of cartridge casings, grenades, light weapons and
cannon
launchers. Forrest was chairman of Gécamines, the DRC's state-owned
copper
miner, from November 1999 to August 2001. The techniques used by
Forrest
were allegedly replicated by - among others - Zimbabwean-backed
entrepreneur
John Arnold Bredenkamp, who has an estimated personal net worth
of over $500
million.
Today, despite the certainty of hiccups going forward, the DRC
is as primed
for success as it has ever been. Tenke Fungurume, first
discovered by Union
Miniere du Haut Katanga in 1918, is at long last going
to be mined. Charter
Consolidated, among others, tried its hand with the
deposits, but abandoned
the project in 1976, for reasons that require little
imagination. Phelps
Dodge this week said that it would now control 57.8% of
Tenke Fungurume,
with Tenke Mining Corporation at 24.8% and Gécamines at
17,5%. Back in 2002,
the panel reporting for the UN found that the-then
director-general of
Gécamines, Yumba Monga, facilitated several
asset-stripping joint ventures
between Gécamines and private
companies.
There may still be lots of worms to pop out of the woodwork.
For one thing,
there is agitation in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, for the
public release of a
report, finalised in May, that reviewed all contracts
signed by the state
from 1996 to 2003. But the vote cast this week by Phelps
Dodge says that
this time, the DRC could be for real.
Chingoka fights back as battle intensifies
Cricinfo staff
November
3, 2005
The crisis in Zimbabwe cricket plunged to new
depths with an escalation in
the damaging stand-off between the national
executive body and their
provincial chairmen.
The increasing
bitterness was apparent in the tone of Peter Chingoka's
response to a letter
from the provincial chairmen which contained demands
for explanations of
what they described as "unusual financial dealings" by
executives and
staff.
But Chingoka, the Zimbabwe Cricket chairman, dismissed the bulk of
the
queries, insisting the answers could be found in already published
documents. Almost all the others matters raised were, he claimed,
routine.
In a clear swipe at the chairmen's involvement in the game,
Chingoka said:
"I am surprised that responses to most of the questions
raised in your
document have not been furnished to you and your colleagues
who do not sit
on the board by those of you who do and some of whom are, in
fact, chairmen
of various ZC committees. I am sure you will agree with me
that those who
are chairmen of their respective committees are actually
closer than the
writer to several issues you raise."
The exposure
given to Chingoka's response in the state-controlled Herald
newspaper was in
stark contrast to the scant coverage it gave the original
meeting of the
chairmen on October 21. There was also every indication that
this latest
incident in an increasingly bitter row between the board and
stakeholders
was being flagged as a racial battle.
The chairmen's letter probed the
board's finances, asking why ZC made a $2.4
billion loss, why there were no
explanations on debts and staff loans, no
explanation on income, no
breakdown on sponsors and grants of $1.4 billion,
and why there was no
explanation on secretarial costs that chewed up $3.8
billion. The dossier
also accused the board of constantly breaching its own
constitution and
demanded answers about the package of Ozias Bvute, the ZC
managing
director.
The board's critics have also accused it of attempting to
sidestep any
attempted coup by the provincial chairman by creating new
provinces and
disrupting exiting ones. Max Ebrahim, the chairman of Masvingo
and the head
of national selection, made clear that there was no racial
divide. "It's a
case of six provinces and the players being together," he
said. "It's a case
of stakeholders versus two or three individuals bent on
holding on to
power."
The deepening crisis is being monitored by the
ICC, although as this is a
domestic matter, it is unlikely to become
directly involved.
© Cricinfo