Which supermarket does Mugabe shop

I am wondering where our good president Robert Mugabe does his shopping, if ever he does. On Friday, i went to this downtown supermaket where i bought this 500 ml juice for $48 000 but only to go back to the same shop today and that juice now for $180 000 in a space of three days. At the same time someone claims to be in control, what hell we are going through in Zimbabwe. Lord have mess tatambura.

Rest in peace Isabel

I work up this morning to be greeted by an unfamiliar e-mail, aptly titled, Isabel is dead. It was a mail from a female journalist friend of mine in Zambia who was announcing the death of Isabel Chimangeni, a chief reporter at the Times of Zambia, who died in London after a short illness. I was in the middle of preparing a visit to Lusaka and i was going to stay at her place. She was known to many Zambians around the world because of her journalistic profile. I had a chance to enjoy a piece of her profile last year when i visited former Zambian President Freddrick Chiluba at Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. I also had a good time with her at a Reporting Africa conference last year in June.
May her soul rest in peace.

New wave of crackdown against dissenting voices in Zimbabwe

During the past week, the police in Zimbabwe has been cracking down on dissenting voices nad perceived enemies of the state by banning theatre plays. A play by Bulawayo-based playwright Continueloving Mhlanga entitled, The Good President, was banned by the police in Bulawayo which said that it undermines the person and authority of the president. But surelly can one go to such length of trying to suppress the creative prowess of Zimbabwean artists to preserve power.
It is however encouraging to here that the producer of the play Daves Guzha and Mhlanga have vowed to fight the injustice nad help preserve Human Rights in Zimbabwe by continuing with the play.

Tswane Brief- George

I found George aka The Boss to be an interesting character and very much full of life and posesses this carefree attitude that if you don't know him well you would think that he is never serious about life. He likes his drink as if he is cut for for it in life.
Like most of the colleagues in Pretoria, he laughs a lot probably thats why he is that healthy. One other thing is that he likes KiSwahili and sometimes forgets that some of his peers are noy initiated in that language.
Despite this small blemish, he is also a big lover of humankind and is generous too.

Mereki a tragic sign of just how things have changed in Harare

KwaMereki was at one time Morgan Tsvangirai's favourite spot. You could see him on an almost everyday basis with his trade unions peers. I went there this afternoon with a colleagues from my work place after a long time and i was just left with a sour taste in my mouth. The place now resembles some kind of a shanty town, where meat is roasted in the open with dust blazing all over the place. But one thing stands out that Mereki is an epitome of just how the city has been mismanaged. If you go to Johannesburg places like Mereki have been turned into some tourist attractions. For example at Waddis in Soweto. The place looks just like an ordinary place from outside but has become famous over the years attracting eminent visitors such as Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown and Paul Scholes an his Manchester United teammates. One wonders why cna't we do it the same way.

Fair talk on Zim

Unathi Kondile, News24 User
A cold Cape morning followed by a long walk up the Mount Nelson driveway saw me at this year's press conference for the 2nd Cape Town Book Fair.
The line-up consisted of Trevor Ncube, the Zimbabwean publisher and 2007 recipient of the Freedom to Publish Award; Anna Maria Cabanellas, President of the International Publishers Association (IPA); Dudley Schroeder, Executive Director of the Publishers' Association of South Africa (PASA) and Vanessa Badroodien, Managing Director of the Cape Town Book Fair.
After introductory talks and welcomes from Badroodien, Cabanellas and Schroeder; Ncube then took to the podium, delivering a short yet emotionally charged talk on the state of publishing in Zimbabwe.
Whilst giving thanks for the Freedom to Publish Award, he went on to state the brain drain statistics of Zimbabwe that entail over four million well-educated Zimbabweans emigrating and boosting foreign economies.
Not that anyone could blame them as the situation in Zimbabwe is not conducive for intellectuals who'd like to pursue their careers without any creative restrictions or being subject to Mugabe's ongoing theatrics.
Foor for thought
This made me think. If there's one thing Mugabe has done right in his reign it would have to be the education he availed to his fellow Zimbabweans in the 80s, making Zimbabweans one of Africa's most educated nations.
One would think that being equipped with education would be enough to accelerate economic growth and habitable living environments, but no, instead we find that South Africa has Zimbabwean teachers, doctors and lawyers who are either domestic workers or sleeping outside home affairs.
When question time came, only one South African journalist had a question and the rest were from international media organisations.
The questions sought to find means in which Zimbabwe's press and society in general could be uplifted from their plight - questions which reiterated Zimbabwe's catch-22 situation, as presently, we have a offensive West taunting Mugabe and a virile Mugabe who's "voetsek-ing" them all.
No hope?
It is now widely believed that the only tangible hope of restoring the situation in Zimbabwe would come through President Mbeki and other Southern African regions.
However it is vital to note that coercive measures from these Southern African regions will yield no fruitful results - quiet diplomacy and calculated improvisations are the only route to get closer to the Zimbabwean villain in his hard-hitting and saddening reality show.
Why can't the West be more subtle in their dealings with Zimbabwe? Why do they always have to rub salt into wounds to get their way? By now you'd think they know the Mugabe they are dealing with, yet instead they keep on proving that it's their way or the highway.
Maybe the solution does lie with the West. They could easily lift their sanctions and start dealing with Mugabe on a humanitarian level, but no, to them Mugabe is the next Saddam Hussein.
And thinking Mugabe is the next Hussein makes with shudder to think what the West has in store for our poor old Zim neighbours.

Tswane Brief- Tina Alai

I am not sure from her surname if she is of a muslim background but she is a fantastic woman with a great demenour and an impressive character.I think her face and smile takes you right to her heart. I enjoyed her company very much while we were in Pretoria, infact she always made my day. She one person who can understand every other character and treat it the way it should. Just imagine being sandwiched by a Tonga man with that name funny name Collardo and a Zimbabwean women with a high propensity for assertiveness but she easily handled both of them with a great sense of humour. I think she is a great women and strong willed too but i can tell you that behind that georgous body and the beautiful face lies a great lawyer and a champion of human rights particularly women rights.
Keep keeping on gal and all the best in all your endeavours.

Tswa

Mugabe's snooping bill

Most of us in the media world received the news of the Interception and Communications bill in parliament with a lot of trepidation. I thought of my work with international news agencies and how it will be monitored and also the possiblity of these thugs getting into my e-mail and even laughing at some of the e-mails that i always exchange with my girlfriend. But at the end of it all, media freedom will be the biggest casuality if the government succeeds in passing this bill which is likely going to happen. I tell you all journalists will be forced to eat Vava Mugabe pie just like those working at ZBC and Zimpapers. I have friends at the these two institutions and they have told me implicitly just how Vava Mugabe pie tastes, i can confirm that a poorly baked samoosa from Mbare is better that the Vava Mugabe pie which comes in the form of ill-advised bill. May the world please help us.

Tswane Brief- Florence

Although Florence is a Zimbabwean and a journalist too, i only met her for the first time in Pretoria and to be honest, i thought she was from Swaziland. This was because she was speaking a lot of Ndebele and had this Swazi accent. But hey, what a bundle of energy she is, i liked her for asking some questions which most people were not prepared to ask. She always liked to have it her way and if she could consider a career in politics i am sure she can be an acoomplished politician with her robust approach to issues. On a lighter not she made a good team with Collardo and always enjoyed it when they were conniving to do those tantrums but with Geoffrey, they were like a brother and a sister always quarelling on almost everything which is why they took their rivalry to the CRC e-mail forum. Next on the brief is my good friend George from Tanzania.

A WOZA member shows off her breasts after police attack

The big Friday

Friday June 8 2007 was a big day for Zimbabwean journalists as they finally managed to launch the long awaited Media Council of Zimbabwe (MCZ) which the government says is a creation of the British government aimed at toppling the ruling ZANU PF party from power. But i say long l say congratulations to all Zimbabwean journalists who were part of the whole process. I however propose that Luke Tambarinyoka and Gift Phiri who in recent months suffered at the hands of the Mugabe regime be granted honorary posts at the MCZ secretariat.
Long live MCZ and goodbye Mahoso, the poddle.

saying of the day

“When I was seven, I thought Propaganda was an African country” - Binyavanga Wainaina, Mail and Guardian Online columnist.

saying

Saying of the day

“The size of my chequebook or the contents of my pocket don’t change my social consciousness. I am with my people.” – Tokyo Sexwale responding to a question on whether he is still in touch with the poor after making huge fortune from his businesses.

You are a winner, i am proud of you