WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-10-03 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: The BeardedMan
Howzit
Foreign currency mid-rates updated…
“Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said on Monday he would travel to Zimbabwe this month to recommend multilateral mediation by African heads of state to try to solve the crisis in the southern African country. Wade said he wanted to discuss with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe how African leaders, including himself and South African President Thabo Mbeki, could mediate between Mugabe and his opponents, both domestic and international. “I’m going to go there in two weeks’ time… to talk with him (Mugabe) to see what Africa can do,” the Senegalese president told a news conference in Dakar. Wade said the situation in Zimbabwe was deteriorating, with inflation running at well over 6,000 percent, the highest rate in the world, and basic goods running short.“
There again, Mugabe may jump at the chance as it means that he can waste more time on ‘mediation’ whilst his party continues to rig next year’s election behind closed doors.
It may just buy him not only more time, but also some added respect from the regional leaders who worship the ground he walks on…
“But Wade, who from his small West African country has often sparred with Mbeki over leadership on African issues, said Zimbabwe should be dealt with on a wider basis. “Mbeki is a man of goodwill… (but) we should tackle the problem at the level of several heads of state, including Thabo Mbeki,” he said. Wade said any mediation for Zimbabwe should also bring in former colonial power Britain, which had been party to a 1979 accord on reforms to end land ownership imbalances between blacks and whites in former Rhodesia. Wade said the British government had stopped compensating white farmers under the land redistribution reform accord, while Mugabe had stepped up seizures of land without redress. “I think that this method is not acceptable… the whites should have compensation,” Senegal’s president said.“
Trust me – it will never happen that Britain is invited into any mediated talks with Mugabe. He is a staunch and very vocal provocateur of everything British/English/Western and he will tersely discard any suggestion that England participates or even just observes.
A very noble idea, but one which, in the broad light of day, will not make it out of the starting blocks…
Read on…
“I wake up on my first morning to another beautiful day. The house is eerily quiet. No radio. No television. Not even the boys on their PlayStation. I realise the electricity is off. My friend Nozipho tells me it will be on again about 2pm. It is Sunday. That's the schedule in her neighbourhood. I soon learn that in the leafy suburbs there is a regular schedule for power cuts and occasionally for water cuts too. So you can schedule your life – when to do the laundry, when to iron, what time to start cooking… By the end of the first week I have the schedules worked out. I know whose house to go to for breakfast, whose for lunch and when to recharge my cellphone. But things are not so easy in the non-leafy, high-density townships, where the power goes off at any time. Perhaps the thinking is that poor people are too poor to need regular schedules.
But there are some things you can't schedule, like the ever-present funerals, mostly the result of HIV and Aids. How do you conduct a wake by candlelight? How do you feed the mourners in the dark? We soon find out. My friend's dad passes away in Bulawayo. The power goes off in the middle of his wake. Dozens of candles hardly make a difference in the pitch darkness. The women – always the women – struggle to heat water, cook and feed the large crowd. They manage. At yet another funeral in a less well-heeled township, things don't go so well. The candles run out after midnight. The firewood runs out after one meal. No one has fuel to go on a quest for these essentials. The mourners go hungry. Many leave. By the time the burial is over there are barely 30 people left. We drive into Mkoba township in Gweru on a dark evening when the power is off. The entire place, 20 villages in total, is in darkness. Thick smoke hangs in the air. I am worried about women's and girls' safety and security. Several scurry hurriedly to get home from work, the market, shops, church. I am scared to ask if the statistics for violence against women have gone up.“
But that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Or does it? This is not a small blip on radar – this is all day, every day. Without respite.
And this is not away in the bush – in the communal lands. This is in the cities, the towns – the full-on built up areas!
“On day two I experience cut-off number two. Water. I am shown the dozens of buckets, containers, pots, plastic bins – anything that can hold water. Every household I visit is the same. You keep storing the stuff, just in case. Unlike electricity the schedules for water cut-offs are less regular in every area. But things are worse in the high-density areas. It is much worse in Bulawayo, where cut-offs last anything from one to seven days. No one has that many containers. Once again I see crowds of women and girls around the few boreholes or water points. There is an almost festive atmosphere as they converge there. They laugh, talk, joke and wait. Sometimes the water comes out quickly, but often it's a slow trickle. The lines move slowly. Nerves get frayed. Pushing and shoving starts and pandemonium breaks out. Local youths come to “restore order”, abusing women in the process. Meanwhile, back home the children wait, home-based care patients fret and husbands get angry.“
Not the perfect advert for Zimbabwe, but I’d much rather get it honest and in the face than go in ill-prepared and uninformed.
“I finally get confirmation of those images I have seen time and again on TV. The rows of empty shelves in supermarkets. TM, the largest supermarket chain in my hometown, Gweru, has two items filling up two rows: plastic buckets and bran flakes. The first I can understand as people need buckets for storing water. Bran flakes? Maybe nobody grabbed them when prices were slashed and they just remain on the shelves. I see a woman cleaning an empty fridge and my hopes rise. I ask what will fill it. “Ah Aunty, we just clean them (fridges), so that they remain in good condition.” Back in the leafy suburbs in Harare one supermarket is filled with imported foodstuffs; all kinds of pastas with names I do not know. I see six kinds of fancy cheeses, pasteurised milk from South Africa, imported washing powder, coffee and wine. Who buys this stuff?“
So – if you are planning a trip to Zimbabwe, a) be prepared for major shocks, and b) makes sure that you have enough food – and that you are charged duty for importing foodstuffs…
Be a scout… Be prepared.
“Yet I come out refreshed and happy. After a visit to my gynaecologist and my dentist – both of whom treat me like a human being and not a tropical disease in progress, as I am normally treated in South Africa – I have every right to be happy. I am greeted with a smile and a chat at the bank. In Johannesburg I am “X-rayed 55 times”, as I call it, and my ID photocopied four times every time I visit my bank. Having spent three weeks travelling under the most beautiful African sun in three of the safest cities in the world, I am at peace. For three weeks I do not obsess about locking doors and windows and clutching my handbag. The laughter, community and sense of hope in everyone I see is something I will live on for the next few months. Even in the most trying of times, or in the longest bread queue, there is hope and faith.“
Just a pity that the likes of you and me will probably be too old to enjoy the spectacle of a new, free, democratic Zimbabwe… Only because the damage done is so deep, that it will take much longer to rebuild than it took to destroy.
“Life has become hell for many, but it is a slightly good hell. There is hope. The struggle to reclaim our beautiful country must continue.“
This is the same address Gono used to label Zimbabwe a ‘nation of drunkards’ that I commented on yesterday.
Gono, presenting a largely unimaginative monetary policy yesterday in which he made token attempts to heal the economy, slammed the Indigenization and Empowerment Bill charging “we must avoid grab, take all and run policies.“
The central bank chief, occasionally pausing to gulp down mineral water, said he was aware there were “senior well positioned personalities” planning an “unstructured intervention into shareholding of foreign-owned banks” warning “there will be no free lunch.“
Regardless of what Gono says, there will be the same rush on businesses as was experienced on the farms.
Unless someone or some organisation takes full and irrevocable control, chaos will prevail. People get hurt. Businesses will go under. Money will be lost – in bucket loads*…
“We call upon those with interests in the financial sector to approach the central bank with their applications for new banking licences,” Gono said to applause. “There would be vigorous vetting. We can't bring crooks into the realm of banking. Banking is about confidence… trust.”
In pointed remarks, believed to have been directed to Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister Munyaradzi Mangwana who recently told Parliament during debate of the bill that “foreign-owned companies are free to go,” Gono urged Parliamentarians to desist from making populist statements that undermine his turnaround efforts.
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Mangwana was quoted in the Hansard as having told Parliament last week that, “If Standard Chartered Bank feel they cannot continue they can simply go and CBZ can take over. Metropolitan Bank can take over, and FBC can do the same. They frighten you that there will be capital flight but they are neo-liberals. Blacks run these banks but decisions are made in London. They want to create white islands in a liberated Zimbabwe. We are not going to take that.“
So Mangwana would have you believe that he has it all mapped out – and he probably has… in his simplistic mind. But theory and practise are often two different animals.
Any risk not calculated is really not worth taking, but I am willing to bet that Mangwana, regardless of the warnings and words of caution he has heard, will go in with both guns blazing and will force his will on companies already struggling to break even.
As Mutasa is the man responsible for the fury, anger and ill-feeling behind the land grab, Mangwana will become the dark figure behind the firm grab.
And I sincerely hope his knows just how vilified and hated a figure he will become if he allows the ‘programme’ to run out of control – which, with ZANU PF supporters baying for blood, is bound to happen…
“Gono warned against such “reckless statements” which he said were causing capital flight and hurting investor confidence. Gono said that government had to ensure that the empowerment drive is not derailed by ZANU PF chefs, “some who are already making the most noise in ostensible support of this initiative, who would want to amass wealth to themselves in a starkly greedy but irresponsible manner whilst the majority remain with nothing as happened in the past with government empowerment schemes such as the land reform programme.“
A valid warning, but it will fall on greedy but deaf ears…
* I have always hated footnotes and asterisks, but in this case I do make an exception. Bucket loads of Zimbabwean money may not amount to very much elsewhere in the world – but ANY money lost – especially if it is not ZANU PF’s – is someone’s livelihood, so I will not make fun of the situation…
I really don’t think any pressure being exerted on Mbeki (or Mandela, for that matter) will get very far, because mediated talks rely heavily on the two main protagonists. The MDC may be keen, but if Mugabe wants to stall things and slow everything down – which I believe is his main objective – he will not be moved.
Mugabe is seen as some sort of icon in African politics and I feel that he resented falling into the shadow of Mandela within 15 years of Zimbabwean independence. Mandela stole Mugabe’s thunder and he wants to make up for it now – the elder statsman in Africa – or so he would like to think.
“Pretoria has hailed a recent agreement on constitutional reforms between ZANU PF and the MDC as a sign that dialogue was bearing fruit, but critics remain unconvinced and Western governments say free and fair elections are impossible in Zimbabwe unless Mugabe moves to level the political playing field and scraps tough security and media laws.”
I feel that it is important to note that Mugabe calls himself “Hitler – tenfold” and the influence of the German leader is huge in his life – maybe Merkel’s position will hold some clout with Mugabe.
We don’t hear him proclaiming himself “Mandela – tenfold”, or “Bush – tenfold” – there is just a slim chance he might just take note of Merkel’s input… but I am not holding my breath.
The deputy minister is from the Agricultural ministry – is he actually going to be privy to financial solutions awaiting the ‘go!’ in higher circles of government?
Mugabe and his cabinet play their cards very close to their chests and I don’t think they tell everything to their underlings as they worry they may let the cat out of the bag. But that is not to say that the ‘new’ currency will be a dollarisation.
“Dollarisation involves the replacement of the Zimbabwe dollar by the more stable United States greenback or other prominent currencies such as the Euro so that any of these currencies becomes the medium of exchange and standard value in the country.
Official dollarisation would imply that Zimbabwe would relinquish its own independent monetary policy and import the monetary policy of the issuing nation.
There will effectively be no further role for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) since most of its functions – such as the monetary policy function, the issuing of notes and the lender of last resort function – cease to exist.“
Thereby doing the erstwhile Dr Gono out of a job…
To put the crisis is context – at independence in 1980, the Rhodesian dollar, then the Zimbabwean dollar was on a par with the British pound. That the British pound officially trades at ZW$62000, when we add the three zeroes that Gono took off 14 months ago, we arrived at ZW662000000 – sixty six million to the pound! Whatever they do, it has to be drastic, quick – and must work…
The prime minister is also facing stiff resistance to his demand that the EU appoint a special envoy to deal with the Zimbabwe crisis, according to sources in Brussels. “It’s the working assumption that Mugabe will be coming if invited by the Portuguese as expected,” said a European Commission official familiar with the preparations for the first Europe-Africa summit in seven years.
While a Portuguese official said no invitation had yet been issued to Mr Mugabe for the summit on December 8, he also cautioned against concluding that the Zimbabwean leader would not be coming to Europe.
“It looks like the authorities will be playing their card at the last possible minute – but it also looks like they will invite Mugabe to Lisbon – and therefore expect the English Prime Minister to boycott. And I for one will not cast asperions upon Brown for his stand.
If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
“The shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, yesterday joined Mr Brown’s effort to bar Mr Mugabe despite all the signs of failure. “We have asked our government to ensure Mugabe is not invited to the African summit with the EU and support the stand they have taken,” he told the Tory party conference in Blackpool.
But EU and Portuguese officials showed exasperation with the British position, shrugging off the British boycott threat.“
If the EU wants to be cowed into submission by the various calls and threats by African regional leaders, so be it – but do us a simple favour… Do NOT give Mugabe to floor in December. He has said it all before and it would be a waste of time, resources and money to allow the Zimbabwean leader to repeat his anti-West rants, his anti-Brown/Bush declarations.
We have heard it all before and it means nothing – and will achieve nothing (apart from making Mugabe feel a whole bunch better…).
Ending today with a story that is a lot more positive than much of which I report on each day.
We watched Takudzwa Ngwenya score a brilliant try the other day against the Springboks. He has a fiercesome turn of pace and has specialised in the body swerve… He is quick there is no doubt, and if he agreed to play rugby in England, he would offer a new, exciting talent for us armchair experts to watch.
Ngwenya joins a long line of impressive Zimbabwean sportmen and women who have done the country proud – giving the population something to smile about in the face of all the political adversity.
Nick Price, Mark McNulty, Cara Black, Bruce Grobelaar, Kirsty Coventry, the Flower Brothers, Henry Olonga – and I am sure that there are many more… Remember the “Golden Girls” in 1980, winning the hockey gold medal in that year’s olympic games in Moscow? And we can’t forget the Zimbabwean cricket time kicking Ozzie butt at the Twenty20 World Cup recently…
“Ngwenya has been in the news since Sunday when he dinked and outpaced Springbok star Bryan Habana – regarded the fastest rugby player – to score one of the United States’ two tries in their 64-15 loss to South Africa.“
Take care.
‘debvhu
Source: http://thebeardedman.blogspot.com/2007/10/wednesday-3rd-october-2007.html