ZimEye – President Robert Mugabe has revealed that Zimbabweans might go for elections next year when the two-year period for the shaky government ends.

Mugabe said he would contest in the elections. He said the fresh elections would be held even if a new constitution is not in place.

Mugabe said he would contest in the elections if given the chance by Zanu-PF, a party that gave him a five-year term at the December congress.

“Yes I will contest the elections if Zanu-PF says yes. I will go for the elections,” said Mugabe.

Mugabe told editors of various media  organisations at Zimbabwe House Thursday that it was highly likely that elections will be held in 2011.

The polls will be harmonized just like the shamed 2008 March elections but Mugabe hinted that local government elections would be suspended.

Read more – http://www.zimeye.org/?p=14351

It has been a difficult few weeks for the Tories – the Ashcroft affair, talk of splits, erratic poll numbers and doubts over their economic policy. But at last they can enjoy some good news: no lesser global statesman than Robert Mugabe has offered David Cameron his endorsement.

“We have always related better with the British through the Conservatives than Labour,” Zimbabwe’s president said today. “Conservatives are bold, [Tony] Blair and [Gordon] Brown run away when they see me, but not these fools, they know how to relate to others.”

Mugabe fell out with the British government when, under his land reforms, he encouraged Zimbabweans to seize the farms of British descendants. After Mugabe was accused of rigging the 2002 election, Blair imposed sanctions on the Zimbabwean leader and some of his associates, banning their travel ban and freezing bank accounts.

Today Brown restated the British government’s position telling the visiting South African president Jacob Zuma, involved in brokering Zimbabwe’s unity accord, that the sanctions would not be lifted#

Read more – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/04/robert-mugabe-david-cameron-conservatives

  NEWZIMBABWE – PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has urged western countries to remove “all sanctions” on Zimbabwe, in the same week that the United States extended sanctions by another year.

Tsvangirai is growingly frustrated by western countries’ publicly-expressed doubts over the power sharing government he formed with President Robert Mugabe in February last year.

After meeting Soren Pind, Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation, on Monday, Tsvangirai said countries wishing to help Zimbabwe should do so through the unity government.

“If you want to support the people of Zimbabwe you have to support the coalition government,” Tsvangirai said in comments carried by state television.

Read more – http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-1945-PM+wants+all+sanctions+lifted/news.aspx

IRIN – Zimbabwe’s still-limping economy can provide few essential services, so children living along the border cross into South Africa to attend school during the day or even to see a doctor, often at great risk to their personal safety.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) regional child protection advisor for East and Southern Africa, Cornelius Williams, said the movement of unaccompanied child migrants from Zimbabwe was one of the biggest problems confronting humanitarian agencies in the region. Between 3,000 and 15,000 Zimbabwean children are known to move into and out of their country every month.

“Unfortunately, governments continue to devote most of their resources to child trafficking, where much smaller numbers of children are involved,” Williams told IRIN at a meeting of officials from 15 countries in Pretoria from 23 to 25 February to discuss ways of strengthening cross-border co-operation to protect children at risk.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88249

(NEWZIMBABWE) SOUTH African President Jacob Zuma will tell Britain to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe when he arrives in London for a state visit next week, he said in an interview published Thursday.

Zuma suggested European Union sanctions, largely instigated by former colonial power Britain, were now being used by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party to “maintain tension” in the lead up to a new election.

The United States has also imposed its own set of sanctions on Zimbabwe, and the South African leader told the Financial Times these measures have made it more difficult to establish a viable coalition government in Zimbabwe.

“What have sanctions done to help the situation?” Zuma said. “Zanu PF says [it is] in a cabinet of this unity government. But part of the cabinet can go anywhere in the world for their work and part [the Zanu PF members] can’t go out of the country. This unity government is being suffocated. It is not being allowed to do its job by the big countries.”

Read more – http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-1902-Lift+Zim+sanctions,+Zuma+to+tell+UK/news.aspx

(PlusNews) – A new Zimbabwean short film on multiple concurrent sexual partnerships (MCPs) runs for just 24 minutes, but the producers are hoping that its message will last much longer.

The film, “Big House, Small House” is the latest offering from the OneLove Campaign, which works to reduce HIV prevalence and MCPs in 10 southern African countries. The title refers to the colloquial expression “small house”, used to denote long-term, illicit sexual relationships in Zimbabwe.

The film was produced by the Action Institute for Environment, Health and Development Communication (ACTION), a local NGO, in partnership with the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication, a South African NGO, and Zimbabwe’s National AIDS Council (NAC).

Television stations around southern Africa will air the movie as part of a series of 10 films – one from each of the campaign’s focus countries – highlighting the dangers of MCPs.

MCPs have been identified by both UNAIDS and regional leaders as one of the key drivers – along with inconsistent condom use and low levels of male circumcision – of southern Africa’s HIV epidemic and Zimbabwe is no exception. Although the country has experienced a decline in HIV prevalence within the last decade, attributed to mortality and behaviour change, HIV prevalence remains high at about 15 percent, according to UNAIDS.

Read more – http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88169

(IRIN) – A measles outbreak has hit 28 of Zimbabwe’s 62 districts and is still spreading, but efforts to vaccinate people in some quarters is being hampered by religious convictions.

According to the latest World health Organisation (WHO) Epidemiological Bulletin, “Nearly 1,200 suspected cases were reported since the start of the outbreak in October 2009 … 221 cases have been confirmed … 50 community deaths have been reported.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as well as other organizations in the health sector have embarked on an intensive vaccination programme. “The campaign is targeting all children between the ages of six months and 14 years,” UNICEF’s Zimbabwe spokesperson, Micaela Marques de Sousa, told IRIN. In eastern Zimbabwe, in the Buhera district of Manicaland Province alone, more than 25,000 children had been vaccinated against measles.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88199

(ZimEye)President Mugabe (85) slept during an investment conference in Harare today (Wednesday)

Immediately after his sleeping session, Mugabe came out announcing on the recently gazetted indigenisation law which has raised a lot of international interest, saying foreign investors who would refuse to accept 49 percent

Read more – http://www.zimeye.org/?p=13542

(NEW ZIMBABWE) PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe on Wednesday threatened to defy the Kimberley Process to sell diamonds from a field where the global regulator accuses the military of forced labour and other abuses.

The Kimberley Process (KP) has given Zimbabwe until June to rectify abuses by its army against civilians at the eastern Marange diamond fields, but Mugabe threatened to sell the diamonds without the watchdog’s permission.

“We are trying to play it their own way, that is following the KP, but we can do it otherwise,” Mugabe told reporters in the capital.

IRIN – The European Union’s decision to extend sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and senior members of the ruling ZANU-PF party was endorsed by a leading human rights organization.

“In view of the situation in Zimbabwe, in particular the lack of progress in the implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed in September 2008, the restrictive measures … should be extended for a further period of 12 months,” the Official Journal of the European Union reportedly said on 16 February 2010.

The EU first imposed sanctions on 18 February 2002, including travel bans and freezing bank accounts; the list has since grown to more than 200 targeted individuals and 40-odd companies linked to Mugabe and his party.

“These targeted sanctions are aimed solely at those whom the EU judges to be responsible for the violence, for the violations of human rights, and for preventing the holding of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe,” the EU said in a previous statement.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88127