27 July 2009 Zim News Flash
Written on July 27, 2009 by Emily
Zimbabwe unity deal at an all-time low
As a leader, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai must be enduring daily anguish. He has to carefully pitch each public statement he makes to ensure it sticks closely not only to the letter but the spirit of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) he signed with Robert Mugabe last September, whereby they entered a unity government. This means he has to hold his tongue and at every provocation contain his outrage. Meanwhile, independent monitors of the performances of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Mugabe’s Zanu PF, such as Sokwanele in Zimbabwe and Idasa in Pretoria, agree that even as the MDC has stuck both in deed and spirit to the GPA, Zanu PF violates it every day. And so Tsvangirai’s strict observance of the GPA, including refraining from criticising Zanu PF, is driving some of his supporters wild.
Soldiers to guard borders
South African soldiers, now spread over the continent, may soon be deployed on yet another “peacekeeping” mission - this time to guard their countries leaky borders. There they would keep the peace between angry South African farmers and the stock thieves and illegal immigrants streaming across the virtually unprotected borders with Lesotho and Swaziland in particular.
If all goes according to plan, the soldiers will co-ordinate border protection with several relevant departments working within a border management agency which President Jacob Zuma has promised to establish.
Peace day protesters arrested
15 people were arrested yesterday (26 July 2009) by the Zimbabwe Republic Police for wearing black in protest against the Peace days gazetted by President Robert Mugabe. They were detained at Mbare police station from 0800hrs and released without charge at 1800hrs the same day. The police interrogated the detainees for the whole day. Tichanzii Gandanga, the ROHR secretary general visited the 15 and assured them that they will be released soon when it became obvious that the motive was dubious and meant to just frustrate the protesters.
Zim sugar daddies ‘don’t have sugar’
Fewer Zimbabweans are being infected with Aids, and researchers speculate this is due, in part, to a battered economy that’s leaving men short of money to be sugar daddies (older men who attract young girlfriends with gifts and money) and keep mistresses. Presenting a study of the infection rate among pregnant women at a major international Aids conference in South Africa this week, Dr Michael Silverman said the prevalence of the virus that caused Aids fell from 23 percent in 2001 to 11 percent at the end of 2008. His study was based on tests of 18 746 women at a prenatal clinic where he works in rural Zimbabwe.
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