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Continue reading...Category Archives: Zimbabwe
Lebo M sues comedian Learnmore Jonasi claiming Circle of Life misrepresentation
Grammy winner seeks more than $20m in damages over mistranslation of The Lion King chant
A Grammy-winning South African composer who wrote and performed the opening chant in Circle of Life for Disney’s The Lion King is suing a comedian for allegedly damaging his reputation by intentionally misrepresenting the song’s meaning on a podcast and in his standup routine.
Lebohang Morake’s lawsuit accuses the Zimbabwean comedian Learnmore Mwanyenyeka, known as Learnmore Jonasi, of intentionally mistranslating the chant, which launches the 1994 movie and is central to staged versions as well as Disney’s 2019 remake.
Continue reading...Descendants of Zimbabwe resistance heroes urge UK to locate looted skulls
Relatives call on institutions to help them find remains of ancestors who led fight against British colonisers in 1890s
Descendants of freedom fighters executed and beheaded in southern Africa by colonial British forces have called on the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Cambridge to help them find their ancestors’ looted skulls.
Zimbabwean descendants of the first chimurenga heroes, who led an uprising against British colonisers in the 1890s, have long believed the museum and university hold several of the skulls.
Continue reading...Rising anger over ‘lop-sided’ and ‘immoral’ US health funding pacts with African countries
Zimbabwe refuses to sign agreement and Kenya faces a court case over data sharing as new aid deals come under scrutiny
A series of bilateral health agreements being negotiated between African countries and the administration of President Donald Trump have been labelled “clearly lop-sided” and “immoral” amid growing outrage at US demands, including countries being forced to share biological resources and data.
It emerged this week that Zimbabwe had halted negotiations with the US for $350m (£258m) of health funding, saying the proposals risked undermining its sovereignty and independence.
Continue reading...Robert Mugabe’s son charged with attempted murder over Johannesburg shooting
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, known for lavish lifestyle, also accused of theft and being illegal immigrant after man was allegedly shot in back
A son of the late Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has been charged with attempted murder after a 23-year-old man was allegedly shot in the back on 19 February in an upmarket area of Johannesburg.
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, 28, appeared in court on Monday for a brief hearing alongside co-accused Tobias Mugabe Matonhodze. Mugabe’s lawyer Sinenhlanhla Mnguni declined to comment when asked by reporters whether the two men were related. Mnguni said he would request bail for his clients at the next hearing on 3 March.
Continue reading...Aid cuts have shaken HIV/Aids care to its core – and will mean millions more infections ahead
Reports highlight devastating impact of slashed funding, especially in parts of Africa, that could lead to 3.3m new HIV infections by 2030
In Mozambique, a teenage rape victim sought care at a health clinic only to find it closed. In Zimbabwe, Aids-related deaths have risen for the first time in five years. In Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), patients with suspected HIV went undiagnosed due to test-kit stocks running out.
Stories of the devastating impact of US, British and wider European aid cuts on the fight against HIV – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa – continue to mount as 2025 comes to an end, and are set out in a series of reports released in the past week.
Continue reading...Simon Mann, mercenary behind failed ‘wonga coup’, dies aged 72
Former SAS officer led a group of 70 who attempted to overthrow Equatorial Guinea’s president
Simon Mann, an Eton and Sandhurst-educated ex-SAS officer, who led a botched coup involving Margaret Thatcher’s son to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea, has died aged 72.
Mann led a group of 70 fellow mercenaries who were arrested in Zimbabwe in 2004 for attempting to topple Equatorial Guinea’s despotic president, Teodoro Obiang.
Continue reading...Zimbabwe starts compensating white farmers 25 years after land seizures
Step is requirement for restructuring country’s debt, including new IMF programme
Zimbabwe has started to make compensation payments to white former farm owners, 25 years after Robert Mugabe’s government began confiscating land.
The government paid $3.1m (£2.3m) to a “first batch” of 378 farms, the ministry of finance said in a statement on Wednesday, the first payout under a 2020 agreement to pay $3.5bn in compensation.
Continue reading...UAE becomes Africa’s biggest investor amid rights concerns
Activists alarmed at emirati companies’ poor record on labour rights and fear projects may fail to address environmental concerns
The United Arab Emirates has become the largest backer of new business projects in Africa, raising hopes of a rush of much-needed money for green energy, but also concerns that the investments could compromise the rights of workers and environmental protections.
Between 2019 and 2023, Emirati companies announced $110bn (£88bn) of projects, $72bn of them in renewable energy, according to FT Locations, a data company owned by the Financial Times.
Continue reading...Mysterious mass elephant die-off ‘probably caused by toxic water’
Satellite data analysis suggests climate-induced algal blooms could be behind hundreds of deaths in Botswana that sparked flurry of theories in 2020
More than 350 elephants that died in mysterious circumstances probably drank toxic water, according to a new paper that warns of an “alarming trend” in climate-induced poisoning.
The deaths in Botswana’s Okavango delta were described by scientists as a “conservation disaster”. Elephants of all ages were seen walking in circles before collapsing and dying. Carcasses were first spotted in north-eastern Botswana in May and June 2020, with many theories circulating about the cause of death, including cyanide poisoning or an unknown disease.
Continue reading...Church of England ‘directly responsible’ for John Smyth abuse in Zimbabwe, victim says
Rocky Leanders, then 15, was beaten with wooden paddle by Smyth at camp where boys were made to swim naked
When John Smyth gave a presentation at their school about his Christian holiday camps in 1993, Rocky Leanders and his school friends were “blown away”.
“This is Zimbabwe in the early 90s; the technology wasn’t great. These guys set up a projector with colour videos of speed boats … abseiling, golf, tennis, paddle boarding, swimming pools, diving boards,” recalled Leanders, who was 15 at the time. “We insisted we needed to go.”
Continue reading...Mystery surrounds John Smyth after leaving UK and Zimbabwe for South Africa
Smyth enjoyed ‘opulent lifestyle’ in Cape Town after he was barred from Zimbabwe, where he abused boys at summer camps
The evangelical Christian barrister John Smyth abused as many as 130 boys and young men in the UK, Zimbabwe and possibly other African countries but an independent review has said there remains little concrete information on his time in South Africa.
The review into the Anglican church’s handling of Smyth’s abuses said he might have been brought to justice had Justin Welby, who on Tuesday announced he would step down as archbishop of Canterbury, formally reported him to the police when he found out in 2013.
Continue reading...Starmer refuses to back Justin Welby after clamor for archbishop to resign
Prime minister says victims of serial abuser John Smyth ‘failed very, very badly’
Keir Starmer has refused to back the archbishop of Canterbury, who has faced growing demands to resign over his handling of an abuse scandal.
Pressure on Justin Welby has been intensifying since the publication last week of a damning report on the church’s cover-up of John Smyth’s abuse in the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later in Zimbabwe and South Africa. About 130 boys are believed to have been victims.
Continue reading...Zimbabwe outlines plan to cull scores of elephants to feed people after drought
Culling after severe drought wiped out crops across region is also part of effort to decongest country’s parks
Zimbabwean authorities have set out plans to cull 200 elephants to feed communities facing acute hunger amid the worst drought in four decades.
The El Niño-induced drought has wiped out crops across southern Africa, affecting 68 million people and causing food shortages across the region. In Zimbabwe, 7.6 million people are set to face food insecurity from January to April next year, the height of the lean season, according to the World Food Programme.
Continue reading...Zimbabwe orders cull of 200 elephants amid food shortages from drought
Environment minister says country has more elephants than it needs while critics of hunt say they are a major tourist drawcard
Zimbabwe will cull 200 elephants as it faces an unprecedented drought that has led to food shortages, a move that tackle a ballooning population of the animals, the country’s wildlife authority has said.
Zimbabwe had “more elephants than it needed”, the environment minister said in parliament on Wednesday, adding that the government had instructed the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority (ZimParks) to begin the culling process.
Continue reading...Zimbabwean president declares state of disaster due to drought
Emmerson Mnangagwa says country needs $2bn of aid as severe dry spell caused by El Niño afflicts southern Africa
Zimbabwe has declared a national disaster over a drought caused by the climate event known as El Niño and President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said the country needs $2bn in aid to help millions of people who are going hungry.
The severe dry spell is wreaking havoc across southern Africa.
Continue reading...Zimbabwe police arrest apostolic ‘prophet’ and rescue 251 children from compound
Man claiming to be a prophet arrested along with seven aides ‘for criminal activities which include abuse of minors’
Zimbabwe police have said they arrested a man claiming to be a prophet of an apostolic sect at a compound where more than 250 children were allegedly being used as cheap labour, and where authorities found 16 unregistered graves.
In a statement, police spokesperson Paul Nyathi alleged Ishmael Chokurongerwa, 56, a “self-styled” prophet, led a sect with more than 1,000 members at a farm about 34km (21 miles) north-west of the capital, Harare, where the children were staying alongside other believers.
Continue reading...Australian tourist had been missing in Zimbabwe for nearly a week before search began
The 67-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was travelling alone when he left a luxury lodge to travel to Victoria Falls national park
An Australian tourist reported missing late last week in Zimbabwe near Victoria Falls already had been missing for nearly a week before that, according to new information released Monday by national park officials.
The 67-year-old tourist, whose name has not been released, was reported missing Friday in the area near the Zimbabwe Victoria Falls national park, and officials said at the time that a search with sniffer dogs was under way.
Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokesman Tinashe Farawo said on Monday that the missing tourist was male, and that he had last been heard from on 17 February.
The tourist, who was traveling alone, was staying at a luxury lodge about 3km from the rainforest park. He told the lodge management on 17 February that he was heading into the park, Farawo said.
However, the man was not seen entering the park on CCTV footage reviewed later, nor was he among those recorded as entering the park, as normally is done for accountability and security purposes, Farawo said.
“We have replayed the CCTV footage, physical records at the entrance of the falls have no record of him entering and our search team has been checking the rainforest. There is no sign of him,” Farawo said.
“We are looking at other leads because it seems he never entered the rainforest,” he said.
Farawo did not disclose any other details, saying investigations were still under way.
Such incidences are rare in Victoria Falls, a destination that attracts thousands of tourists from across the globe for its majestic water curtain that tumbles down more than 108 metres from the Zambezi River to a gorge below, sending up a mist visible from miles away.
The parks agency deployed a team that included the police and rangers with sniffer dogs, professional ground trackers and drones to track the Australian tourist on Friday, said Farawo.
A few cases have been recorded in other parks. A German tourist reported missing last October in Matusadona national park, which teems with wild animals in northern Zimbabwe, was found alive and in good health three days later.
Australian tourist missing in Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls national park
Zimbabwe’s national parks authority says a team, including police, sniffer dogs and drones, have been sent to search for the 67-year-old tourist
An Australian tourist has gone missing in Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls national park, home to one of the world’s natural wonders, according to the country’s parks authority.
Tinashe Farawo, a spokesperson for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said that the tourist went missing in the vast rainforest on Friday.
Continue reading...More than 160 elephants die in Zimbabwe, with many more at risk
Drought in Hwange national park was the cause of most of the deaths, and wildlife experts fear the climate crisis could make such events look normal
At least 160 elephants have died as drought conditions hit Zimbabwe, and with hot, dry weather likely to continue, conservationists fear there could be more deaths to come.
The elephants died between August and December last year in the 14,651 sq km Hwange national park, which is home to endangered elephants, buffalo, lions, cheetahs, giraffes and other species. At least six other elephants have recently been discovered dead outside the park in suspected poaching incidents.
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