Zimbabwe

The recent crowning of a white Zimbabwean as the nation’s Miss Universe representative was met with much derision after many voiced their disapproval over the winner’s race in a country where white people make up a small minority.

Tendai Gambiza, a 33-year-old resident of Zimbabwe, forced his way into the Supreme Court building and threatened his ex-wife with an ax.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi paid a rare visit to Africa this week, with stops planned in Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. While in Uganda on Wednesday, Raisi praised President Yoweri Museveni for passing a law that increased punishment for homosexual activity, all the way up to capital punishment in some cases.

The Fourth of July is a celebration of the most successful revolution in the history of mankind. By any objective measure, the rebellious colonies that broke away from the British empire in 1776 were more successful in forming an enduring new nation than other rebels and separatists throughout history. Indeed, the United States of America was soon put to its own rebellion test and the Union endured, surviving one of the most devastating wars ever fought.

A report by the Rand Corporation on the growing influence of China and Russia in Africa found that Beijing is not far behind Moscow in exporting weapons and private military contractors to African nations, especially those participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The White House on Monday announced $55 billion in economic aid, health care, and security support for Africa. President Joe Biden hosted a meeting for African leaders that began on Tuesday, during which the White House promised more details of the massive benefits package would be divulged.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the largest trade federation in that African nation, on Wednesday warned that government officials are covering up massive violations of workers’ rights by Chinese companies.

The Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday that a coalition of major U.S. companies, including Walmart and General Motors, is quietly lobbying the government to make certain import data confidential — a change that would make it much more difficult for journalists and human rights activists to link imported goods to abusive labor practices abroad, including forced labor in China’s Xinjiang province and child labor in Africa.

If you’re hungry you’ll eat anything to survive. This basic premise is being tested in hunger-stricken African nations where UK aid agencies are trialling insect diets for those suffering starvation in countries once able to feed themselves.

Zimbabwe’s latest outbreak of measles — an infectious viral disease that typically occurs during childhood — has killed at least 157 children in the country in recent weeks and caused more than 2,000 cases of the disease nationwide, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Tuesday.

Zimbabwe’s government last week blamed recent gatherings by members of the country’s various Apostolic sects for an ongoing outbreak of measles that has killed 80 children nationwide since April, Reuters reported on Sunday.

The Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) on Wednesday accused the Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe of “threatening” a local newspaper called The Standard after it published articles about alleged “violations by Chinese mining companies,” Voice of America (VOA) reported.

Billionaire Nawab Shaji Ul Mulk, who is based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, broke ground this week on a project that aims to build Africa’s tallest building and an accompanying tech hub north of the Zimbabwean capital city of Harare.

Extreme poverty has recently forced girls in rural Zimbabwe to use dried cow dung as an alternative to sanitary pads during menstrual cycles, Africanews reported on Monday.

China’s ruling Communist Party gifted the parliament of Zimbabwe — a severely impoverished nation that regularly struggles to feed its own citizens — a new luxury building on Wednesday, with Xinhua, China’s official state press agency, describing the opulent space as a “six-story building [that] is a fine piece of magnificent architecture.”

Massive flocks of the red-billed quelea bird — a notorious African crop pest — have decimated grain harvests across farms in western Zimbabwe in recent weeks, causing fears of a local food shortage in the near future, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported Monday.

South Africa’s government recently erected four separate checkpoints along its border with Zimbabwe in an effort to detect and arrest “hundreds of undocumented Zimbabweans” who have crossed into South Africa illegally in recent days, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported on Tuesday.

Provincial elections held by Zimbabwe’s ruling socialist Zanu-PF party dissolved into chaos on Tuesday with widespread allegations of vote-rigging, plus confusing election rules that reduced voters to helpless frustration.

The Chinese government is racking up favors from Third World leaders by intervening in conflict zones to offer economic support and security assistance, buying itself positions everywhere from Africa to the Middle East.

Zimbabwe’s state power grid failed to meet national demand on Tuesday causing blackouts across “most parts of the country,” the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported Wednesday.

Cuba’s communist regime said Monday it will resume plans to build a vaccine manufacturing plant in Zimbabwe halted by the coronavirus pandemic, adding it is “possible” the plant may produce a coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by Cuba, the Herald, a Zimbabwean state-owned newspaper, reported.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa will travel to Glasgow, Scotland, for the United Nations (U.N.) Climate Change Conference next week along with a “bloated entourage of over 100 people” of whom “more than 60 have nothing to do with Climate Change,” New Zimbabwe reported Thursday.

Zimbabwe’s federal government confirmed on Sunday that any civil servants unvaccinated against the Chinese coronavirus will be denied the right to work and be paid starting on Monday, Voice of America (VOA) reported.

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested at least two Christians in recent days for violating the country’s Chinese coronavirus gathering ban by holding outdoor church services, the Herald, a Zimbabwean state-owned newspaper, reported Wednesday.

A Chinese-owned company plans to push forward a coal mining project in western Zimbabwe despite protests by local residents that the activity threatens to contaminate their natural water supply, Voice of America (VOA) reported Monday.

Zimbabwe’s government on Sunday rejected an African Union donation of three million doses of the Chinese coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson “citing lack of storage facilities” for the shots, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported on Monday.

A non-profit organization supporting victims of Zimbabwe’s 1983-1987 genocide accused unnamed members of Zimbabwe’s socialist government of “stealing Gukurahundi [genocide] memorial plaques in [Zimbabwe’s] Matabeleland South and Midlands provinces” last week, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported Monday.

Chinese nationals have infiltrated Zimbabwe’s gold industry and developed “questionable partnerships” with leaders of Zimbabwe’s left-wing ruling party, Zanu-PF, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported on Monday.

The regime of socialist President Emmerson Mnangagwa was forced to deny on Thursday that Zimbabwe leaders are interested in exhuming late longtime dictator Robert Mugabe in a quest to find a magical scepter believed responsible for his nearly 40-year rule.

A Zimbabwean village chief on Monday ordered the remains of the late Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe to be exhumed from his country estate and reburied at a national cemetery in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa received the Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine candidate “Coronavac” in public on Wednesday to help dispel vaccine “conspiracy theories” that the shot is unsafe.

Vice President Kembo Mohadi of Zimbabwe resigned Monday after a month of media exposes that purportedly caught him soliciting sex from married women, including an intelligence officer who was one of his subordinates.

Zimbabwean media reported Monday that villagers have accused Chinese mining companies of bribing local leaders to take control of mining areas, displacing village residents, and seizing control of land inside protected game preserves.

The government of Zimbabwe took delivery of 200,000 doses of China’s dubious Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine on Monday and urged its citizens to sign up for shots as quickly as possible.

Local artisanal miners assaulted Chinese nationals operating a gold mine in east Zimbabwe with crowbars and shovels this week, leaving them with serious injuries, New Zimbabwe reported on Thursday.

Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister, Sibusiso Moyo, died on Wednesday after he “succumbed” to the Chinese coronavirus, the Zimbabwean government announced.