Zimbabwe’s consumer inflation stood at -1.1 percent month-on-month in April compared to -3.0 in March, the Central Statistical Office [in Harare] said on Friday. The CSO did not release a yearly figure.

Zimbabwe has allowed the use of multiple foreign currencies to stem hyperinflation that destroyed the value of the Zimbabwe dollar.

Aid agencies warn that more people in Zimbabwe people will have to rely on food handouts as an acute shortage of food persists.

The Zimbabwean Music Festival is an annual celebration of Zimbabwean music and culture. A fun-filled three-day weekend of concerts, workshops, community conversations, a marketplace and more, Zimfest is the largest annual gathering in North America of students, teachers, performers, and fans of Zimbabwean music.

After months of violence, negotiation, pressure and reluctant compromise, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in on Wednesday as the prime minister of a government in which his nemesis, President Robert G. Mugabe, still dominates the repressive state security forces. 

From the BBC:

Zimbabwe is revaluing its dollar again, removing twelve zeros from the currency with immediate effect.

The country’s central bank is introducing seven new notes in an effort to stave off economic collapse.

The country is in the grip of world-record hyperinflation. The most recent estimate in July 2008 put it at 231m%.

Only last month, a Z$100 trillion note was introduced and the government moved to allow people to use foreign currencies alongside Zimbabwe’s dollar.

The announcement will see Z$1 trillion reduced to Z$1.

The denominations of the new notes are Z$1, Z$5, Z$10, Z$20, Z$50, Z$100 and Z$500. 

The governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono, said: “Yesterday’s trillionaires, I am sorry, will not be able to buy their favourite drink today,” according to the AFP news agency.

After months of resisting intense pressure from leaders across southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, announced Friday that he would do as they have insisted and join a power-sharing government as prime minister with his longtime nemesis, President Robert Mugabe.

…

The challenges are monumental, and the distrust of Mr. Mugabe is so deep that it is uncertain whether the United States and European nations will lift sanctions and infuse substantial new aid for the reconstruction of Zimbabwe until they have solid evidence that he will agree to sweeping changes in the country’s disastrous economic policies, the restoration of the rule of law and democracy.

• Cholera: 2,755 died since August
• Anthrax: Eight deaths since November
• HIV/Aids: Estimated 400 deaths a day
• Maternal mortality: Risen from 168 per 100,000 in 1990 to 1,100 in 2005

Zimbabwe is introducing a Z$100 trillion note, currently worth about US$30 (£20), state media reports.

Other notes in trillion-dollar denominations of 10, 20 and 50 are also being released to help Zimbabweans cope with hyperinflation.

However, the dollarisation of the economy means that few products are available in the local currency.

BBC Africa

The Botswana government has sealed off its Botswana-Zimbabwe border. Botswana Defence Forces have been deployed allegedly with heavy artillery, along the long boarder (sic) between the two neighbors.

It is suspected that this is the first step Botswana is taking along with breaking ties with Zimbabwe,as it reviews its recognition and legitimacy of the Zimbabwean government. Botswana might recall its ambassador Pelokgale Seloma from Harare and expel his Zimbabwean counterpart.

The death toll from a spreading cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe has soared to 1,111, the United Nations said on Thursday, adding to pressure for a quick solution to the crisis in the southern African country.

South African ruling African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma ruled out military intervention and backed a diplomatic push as the way to end political deadlock and prevent a total collapse of the once relatively prosperous nation.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs Jendayi Frazer also backed a political rather than military solution but was far from hopeful about talks between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition on forming a unity government.

“We certainly think that the power sharing deal is on life support, it’s close to dead,” Frazer said in Mozambique.

According to a very well-written article featured on the front page the New York Times’ website today, inflation in Zimbabwe is currently 8,000,000,000,000,000,000%.

President Mugabe has declared the cholera epidemic to have ended, while thousands more are infected every hour and the number dying increases by the day. One family lost five children in two days. And the story of this girl’s tragic end brought even more tears to my eyes:

The death toll mounts each day. Chipo and Tecla Murape rushed their orphaned 5-year old niece, Moisha, to the clinic in Chitungwiza, a city just south of Harare, last week. Nurses told the family the veins in the girl’s arms had collapsed because she had lost so much fluid. No doctor ever saw her, her relatives said, and the nurses never hit a vein. Moisha, a shy, but friendly girl, instead drank rehydration fluids.

Throughout the day, she complained of a terrible thirst and a painful stomach ache. On the advice of clinic workers, her aunts did not even hold her hand as she lay dying, fearing infection. After night fell, the nurses said there was nothing more they could do and suggested Moisha’s relatives take her to the city’s hospital, some two and a half miles away.

But there was no ambulance. Tecla Murape, 42, swaddled Moisha to her back and set off hurriedly for the hour-long walk, her heart pounding with worry. Under a dark, moonless sky, she took a shortcut through a maize field, leaping across yet another putrid sewage spill. By the time they arrived, Mrs. Murape’s clothes were soaked with Moisha’s watery diarrhea. Hours later, Moisha passed away.

South African officials were in Zimbabwe to assess the scale of the crisis, responding to an unprecedented call for international help from Mugabe’s government.

Basic foodstuffs are running out and a cholera epidemic has killed at least 575 people, infected thousands and spread to South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana and Zambia. The South African delegation was due to report back late on Monday.

South Africa’s health ministry said on Monday that eight people had died from cholera in the Limpopo province bordering Zimbabwe.

Prices of goods are doubling every 24 hours, and the 100 million Zimbabwean dollar a week limit for bank withdrawals buys only three loaves of bread in the once relatively prosperous country.

Reuters Africa.

The cholera outbreak I wrote about last week is actually much worse than anyone suspected. Estimates put the number infected well over 15,000 and the number dead near 600. The Zimbabwean government seems to think Britain is planning a military invasion under the cover of cholera and will use that guise to oust Mugabe from power. The economic situation, believe it or not, has worsened and the government is “cracking down” on illegal currency trade. Inflation is officially at 231 million percent but that figure was last updated in July!

Finally, Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate and former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, said:

“I think now that the world must say: ‘You have been responsible with your cohorts for gross violations, and you are going to face indictment in The Hague unless you step down.’”

It seems that the pressure is mounting.

He added, “The West is afraid to be accused of being neocolonial, as Mugabe accuses it of being. But this is not what is happening. What is happening is that twelve million people are under siege by a purported liberator.” Mudzuri concluded, “Why is it O.K. to help Iraq and fund everything there, but wrong here? To leave Africa to the dictators and the looters doesn’t help you. Where is Big Brother? He is not here.”

I’m not sure how long The New Yorker archives their essays online, so here’s a PDF for download.

The BBC:

The number of people being infected with cholera is rising and nearly 9,000 cases have now been confirmed, the United Nations says.

Aid agency Oxfam earlier called on Zimbabwe’s government to declare a national health emergency.

It said ordinary Zimbabweans were desperately short of food, health care, clean water and safe sanitation, and the crisis is set to worsen significantly in December.

The economy is in free fall, with inflation last listed in July at 231,000,000%.

“The situation is under control, there is no need to declare it [an emergency],” Zimbabwean Deputy Health Minister Edwin Muguti told AFP news agency on Wednesday. ”These are results of punitive illegal sanctions imposed on us by the West… I am sure they like what they are seeing from this outbreak.”

Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights believes many people are dying at home where they are not being treated.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who at 84 clings to power after 28 years in office, barred another famed 84-year-old, former President Jimmy Carter of the United States, from entering the country Saturday.

“It seems obvious to me that leaders of the government are immune to reaching out for help for their own people,” Carter said at a news conference in Johannesburg. Carter said Zimbabwe’s ambassador in Washington had advised him he would not be issued a visa after he applied for one several weeks ago.

(IHT)

(via Matador Pulse)

My wife met Obama in South Carolina a year or so ago, and he “promised” Jude he would help Zimbabwe. I doubt very seriously Obama will open his arms to this asshole.

The government of Zimbabwe, led by President Robert Mugabe, spent $7.3 million donated by an international organization, the Global Fund, to fight killer diseases on other things and has failed to honor requests to return the money, according to the organization’s inspector general.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank, the custodian of the Global Fund’s money, has been spending large sums this year on a variety of things, according to reports in Zimbabwe’s state-owned media.

Mr. Gono gave the country’s judges new vehicles, satellite dishes and televisions and allocated 79 vehicles for the Information Ministry. He announced the provision of 3,000 tractors, 105 combine harvesters and 100,000 plows for the country’s farm mechanization program. Mr. Ndlovu, the information minister, said the Reserve Bank had been getting foreign currency for imports of food and medicine.

The most shocking part is:

The United Nations’ daily posting of the country’s exchange rate showed that the number of Zimbabwe dollars required to buy a single American dollar rose from 3 million on Oct. 23 to 1 billion the next day, and then to 40 billion on Wednesday and 1.1 trillion on Saturday. For Unicef to continue operating, he said, it must start using American dollars.

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai missed talks in Swaziland on the crisis in his country on Monday because his rival and negotiating partner, President Robert Mugabe, refused to give him a passport.

Zimbabwe’s information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, disputed the idea that the military commanders feared prosecution. “President Mugabe is commander in chief of the armed forces and head of the security ministries,” he said. “There is no one guilty here. No one is talking about arrests of anyone. The army is apolitical.”

I’ve got some swampland in Florida for Mr. Ndlovu.

Reuters News Africa:

Thousands of poor blacks are still waiting for farms promised to them by the ANC, which sees land redistribution as a cornerstone of black majority rule.

“We would not be transforming our country if we do not end the marginalisation of rural areas. That is why we will work to intensify our land reform programme,” Zuma said in a speech at a metal workers union conference.

Land restitution is a sensitive issue in South Africa, troubled by the decline in agriculture in neighbouring Zimbabwe where white commercial farmers were often violently evicted by President Robert Mugabe’s government.

In a step that could jeopardize a painstakingly negotiated power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe, in office for 28 years, has unilaterally declared that his party will retain ministries that control the military and the police, state media reported Saturday. The crucial Finance Ministry was still in dispute.

“They selected all the good ones for themselves and dumped the rest on us,” said George Sibotshiwe, a spokesman for the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who was to serve as prime minister under the power sharing agreement. “We will not be part of such a government.”

Did anyone not see this coming?

Zimbabwe’s state Herald newspaper quotes official statistics saying annual inflation in Zimbabwe has hit 231 million percent.

Independent economists say the southern African nation’s hyperinflation is running in the billions of percentage points.

These inflation statistics are from July 2008 — months before this historic and pathetic power sharing deal. 

Steve H. Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics at The Johns Hopkins University and Senior Fellow at The Cato Institute, publishes the Hanke Hyperinflation Index for Zimbabwe (HHIZ). Last updated on October 3rd, the HHIZ put Zimbabwe’s hyper-inflation at 2 trillion percent.

Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate — already the world’s highest — has soared to 231,000,000%, newly released official figures for July show.

The rise — from 11,200,000% last month — was largely due to increases in the prices of bread and cereals.

From 11 million percent to 231 million percent in 1 month.

Making matters worse, cash itself has become scarce. Business executives and diplomats say Zimbabwe’s central bank governor, Gideon Gono, desperate for foreign currency to stoke the governing party’s patronage machine, sends runners into the streets with suitcases of the nation’s currency to buy up American dollars and South African rand on the black market — drying up Zimbabwean dollars that would otherwise go to the banks.

Because of the cash shortage, the government strictly limits the amount people can withdraw. Even so, Zimbabweans say they often wait in vain for hours at banks that send their customers away empty-handed.

Mr. Gono, who blames Western sanctions for the nation’s troubles, did not respond to requests for an interview, but he has shown few signs of doing anything differently.

“I am going to print and print and sign the money until sanctions are removed,” he told state media this week.

The Zimbabwean central bank has issued higher denomination banknotes in order to battle the cash shortage caused by the world’s highest inflation rate.

New 10,000 and 20,000-dollar notes have been released to help Zimbabweans deal with crippling hyperinflation which is said to be at 11.2 million per cent.

The central bank has issued a slew of new notes since August when it sliced 10 noughts off the local currency.

Cash supply is so tight only Z$20,000 (US$20) can be withdrawn daily.

Sokwanele has the full agreement, while the BBC has the good, the bad, and the ugly on the deal.

The good, he said, was a commitment to economic change (no more printing of money, for example) and talk of a new constitution (though not for 18 months).

However, the good was balanced by the bad and the ugly.

The most worrying element was a lack of clarity about where power actually lay.

There is to be a cabinet chaired by President Mugabe and a Council of Ministers made up of the same people but chaired by Prime Minister Tsvangirai.

The first will decide policy and the second will carry it out. The MDC and its breakaway faction do have a majority in both.

The share-out of ministries has not been fully agreed, though Mr Mugabe retains control over the military and Mr Tsvangirai says he must have the police.

Western governments think that the agreement could go either way – either to confirm Mr Mugabe in effective control or to confirm a shift of power.

Petra High School was not available for comment but two teachers confirmed that if parents failed to raise enough cash, they could pay in whatever they have, including livestock.

It is not clear how many parents have handed over animals, but the practice is said to have been going on for some time.

“It’s not only Petra High school that is doing that,” said Dumisa Tshabalala of Magwegwe township, who has two children at Embakwe High School in the neighbouring province of Matabeleland South.

“Many schools these days are doing it and we should blame the government not schools.”

Cows are the usual method of payment because of their higher value, though poor people in rural areas have also used goats.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Sunday his party would rather quit power-sharing talks than sign an unsatisfactory deal and challenged President Robert Mugabe to call a new election.

“We are saying to him you can call another election under international supervision and let’s see who is going to win that race,” he told a rally to celebrate the ninth anniversary of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).