LLC World News Blog

Tatenda Chirusa

The talk for the last few weeks has been about Zimbabwe’s main opposition party the MDC which has been going through some turbulent times. After disagreement over participation in the Senate elections last year, the party into two factions, the Pro-Senate and the Anti-Senate. The Pro-Senate faction (which is the splinter group) just had their own elections and elected an outsider, a former student leader whose views are openly Anti-Senate.

If politics is anything close to rocket science, then the new elected leader of the Pro-Senate faction is the right man, because he actually is a robotics engineer and scientist and worked for NASA among his many accomplishments. There are two stories for this; take your pick or read both!

More political wheeling and dealing

Some opposition leaders were recently arrested in connection to an “arms cache” found by the police in the eastern part of the country. This comes after the main opposition leader went to trial a few years ago on treason charges. So it will be interesting to see how this case shapes up; does the state have a legit case, or is it just intimidation by the police?

Inflation worsens (what else is new)

And just in today, inflation has hit a record high 782% and is on track to hit the 1000% mark predicted by some economists at the beginning of the year. The numbers speak for themselves and the link is below.

And on top of it all, IMF debt looms...

You would think after the news articles above that someone would feel sorry for the poor nation. In actuality, the IMF is continuing its sanctions against Zimbabwe because the country has not paid the debt it owes.

On top of the drought, hunger, high inflation, high unemployment and an economy in the intensive cares, the country has to scrap funds together to pay off the IMF. I’m Zimbabwean so maybe I will always look at this situation differently...but you can check it out for yourself.

Posted by Kei Otawa at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (162) | TrackBacks (0)

It has been a while since I last made a contribution to the lovely Willamette World News and an update on what’s happening the other side of the world was definitely long overdue. Like always, there is much happening in Zimbabwe.

The first article I have here is about the current emigration of Zimbabweans. When a country of about 10million has over 2million of its citizens living outside the country, something definitely is not right. This article talks about why people are leaving Zimbabwe, and where they are going.

And continuing on the same track, one of the reasons people are emigrating is the current condition of the economy. You can figure out what state it is in by the inflation, which currently is around 600% but is expected to hit 1000% sometime in the next few months. Do I hear someone worried about the single-digit expected US inflation? Didn’t think so.

Even back in the days, in times of economic prosperity when Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of southern Africa (sounds like a long time ago), droughts were a problem, but the country was in better shape. They could maintain enough food supplies, or had the money to import food whenever it was necessary. Now, with the government being actually broke (having defaulted on its IMF debt payments), the current drought is hard to even fathom.

And lastly, I know many of you listened to the “State Of Union” speech by President Bush last week. Among some of his worries was a list of countries that you’re all familiar with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, et cetera. Except for one you didn’t know: Zimbabwe.

But yeah, probably you’re wondering why a country you never heard of, like Zimbabwe, would make the President of the United States of America lose sleep. Does it really? Check out the link below...

Posted by Kei Otawa at 12:54 PM | Permalink

It’s been a while since the last publication and a lot has happened in the Republic of Zimbabwe since then. What caused a lot of uproar all over the world was when the government destroyed what it called "illegal residences" and "slums," which left nearly a thousand people without shelter. A UN envoy was sent out to Zimbabwe to assess the situation and later produced a report which condemned the government’s action as horrific human rights abuses.

And to continue in the same trend of nothing good happening in Zimbabwe, the army has been sending soldiers on “forced leave” because it could not provide them with food. About half the population is facing starvation, and with rampant shortages most of the basic commodities must be found on the black market.

And I guess the happier news is that the country has made interest payments on its IMF debt. The first payment was made last month after the IMF threatened to throw the country out of the organization.

And on the continent of Africa, a white South African farmer was sentenced to life in prison for killing a black worker and feeding him to the lions. It’s so disappointing to hear things like this happening after what people have gone through to mend the racial tensions on the continent.

Lastly and unfortunately on race, is what has been happening in this beloved “land of the brave and the free.” The statement by former Education Secretary William Bennett for hypothesizing that, “aborting every black child would reduce the crime rate in the United States.” Wow. I don’t think I have any response to that, I’m just appalled. If educated men can make such comments, I wonder how destructive education can be.

Posted by Kei Otawa at 08:48 AM | Permalink

Tatenda Chirusa

My name is Tatenda, which means “thank you” in my native Shona language and I’m from Harare, which means “the city that never sleeps” and the republic of Zimbabwe, which actually means “a house built of stones.” I’m starting my second and last year at the business school and I’m excited to be part of the WWN team again, I couldn’t miss it for anything. Just like last year, I will be giving updates on what’s happening in Zimbabwe (which has been in the news lately), and also in Africa as a whole.

Posted by Kei Otawa at 09:06 PM | Permalink

A lot has been happening in Zimbabwe since my last submission. The country just finished voting in the Parliamentary elections and the results will have a far reaching effect than people just choosing their constituent representatives. A two-third victory by the ruling ZANU PF will enable President Robert Mugabe amend the constitution and one of the moves he’s looking forward to doing is hand pick his successor when he decides to step down, which is expected to be within the next few years. Unlike in the previous election where there was widespread violence with many lives lost, the word on the ground is that the lead up to this year’s elections was quieter. No deaths were reported only few scattered reports of intimidation. But the results themselves wouldn’t be more disappointing, not from my point of view, but speaking as an average Zimbabwean, with many observers reporting that the elections were not free and fair at all. Life has been hard and things need to change and the results of these elections don’t offer any hope, but mean five more years of suffering for the ordinary citizen.

Now to give you an understanding of what actually has been happening, I think Zimbabwe currently has the worst economy in the world. With inflation as high as 600% at one point in time, unemployment thought to be around 70%, and a financial crisis that led the many of the country’s financial institutions to collapse, I don’t think any country can beat that.

In other news, a 23-year old lady was arrested for possessing books that criticized the president. In the last few years draconian laws have been enacted limiting freedom of speech and this is just an example of how extreme these laws are.

Moving away from politics and to the next most important thing football, as it is called that part of the world. The warriors (Zimbabwe senior national soccer team) kept their hopes alive by beating Angola by 2 to nil. This was good news, something to cheer the masses in these trying times. Also making the Zimbabwean football news is a 15 year-old Chinese boy who is looking to start his professional football career in Zimbabwe. It’s usually that Zimbabwean players go to play in China, not Chinese players playing in Zimbabwe.

Posted by Kei Otawa at 11:44 AM | Permalink

Male athlete wins medals in female competition

I guess compared to the rest of the world, Zimbabwe is where it is happening right now. It started with a friend of mine sending me a link to an article about a Zimbabwean male athlete who had performed as a female athlete and won a lot of medals. Actually prior to my friend sending me the link I had read the article on some Zimbabwean online paper, but I didn’t really trust the source and the story didn’t really sound realistic to me, till my Americano friend sent me the e-mail after having seen it on Sports Illustrated. My response to it? Well, I guess we (Zimbabwean man) are really good looking to pass for a woman, and that’s my two cents to the story.

Miss World Tourism pageant in Victoria Falls

As I speak right now, 100 of the most beautiful people in the world are in Zimbabwe right now, what a blessing. The Miss World Tourism pageant is being held in the resort town of Victoria Falls, home of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Victoria Falls. Maybe that can be a good reason for me to take a leave of absence from school. So that’s some feel-good news for a country which seems to make news for the wrong reasons all the times.

Recent slavery in Niger

Last, but definitely not least is something that really touched me. I was shocked as I’d ever been, I didn’t think this still happens right now in the 21st century. The article is about slavery in Niger which is a different country from Nigeria; I thought I would make that clear. I don’t think I’ve really gathered my thoughts enough to comment on this issue, but I can just say I’m really shocked and disappointed.

Posted by Kei Otawa at 11:57 AM | Permalink

Hi! I’m really excited about this opportunity to be working with the Willamette World News team this semester. My name is Tatenda and this is my second semester here at Willamette University as a 1st-year MBA student at the Atkinson Graduate School of Management. I’ll be representing the whole continent of Africa, and thought it was my responsibility to share with the school news from this part of the world. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write on Zimbabwe, Harare being the city I come from. What you missed in Zimbabwe: Actually there is a whole lot to talk about especially recently with Condoleezza Rice mentioning during her recent inauguration speech that Zimbabwe was one of the spots of tyranny that President Bush had to deal with during his second term I just think there is more I can let people know about Africa too, a places I have close to heart. Alright before I get all emotional and mushy about how much I love Africa and all that, I have to introduce the first article I have, which is on Zimbabwe. This coming March is parliamentary elections, and that’s as hyped as the country can ever get. With the last presidential elections still being disputed in court for rigging and electoral fraud, I can bet you the next elections will have similar squabbles and ruckus. With the government already being accused of going through a delimitation process (redrawing the parliamentary lines) which has already dissolved three parliamentary seats held by the opposition, there is likely going to be far more out-cry during the next elections. Also not to be forgotten will be all the opposition members and all the innocent civilians that were killed in the violence and intimidation of the last elections. We all hope and pray it will be a free, fair and peaceful election, we hope. Now something I thought would be good news to you all that have been paying high gas prices. The oil supply has just been increased, by how much I don’t know but I think it should be significant. Libya the biggest oil producer in Africa wasn’t able to export oil since sanctions were imposed in the 1980s. So since those sanctions have now been removed, Chevron Texaco and Occidental, American oil companies have already won bids to go and explore for oil there.

Posted by Kei Otawa at 11:16 AM | Permalink