Free Republic

Zimbabwe’s finance minister has taken a hard look at the cash-strapped country’s bank accounts—and discovered it only has £138.34 left. Tendai Biti made the announcement at a press conference yesterday, declaring: “Last week when we paid civil servants, there was $217 in government coffers.” Mr. Biti went on to tell the shocked news reporters that they were individually likely to have healthier bank balances than the state’s. “The government finances are in paralysis state at the present moment”, Mr. Biti admitted. … The stunning confession about the country’s poor financial state is the culmination of years of ruinous economic policy...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog South Africa’s communist redistribution of farmland has been a colossal failure In their 1848 publication Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote: “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”In 2009, the people of South Africa elected communist Jacob Zuma to be their new President. In 2012, Reuters wrote about a black farmer named Koos Mthimkhulu, who was given farmland that the South African government had seized from white farmers.But perhaps “given” is not really an accurate word, as Reuters reports:But Mthimkhulu does...

AS ELECTION season rolls into full swing in the United States, American politics is once again building a steady following around the world. For those followers outside AmericaÂ’s borders, one big question is on their minds: whatÂ’s in it for them and how will the election affect the rest of the World? While the hysteria may not reach the levels witnessed during the historical 2008 election, the stakes are just as high today as they were four years ago. Why should we care about what happens in America, you ask? What does the outcome of the American election have to...

While negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program are at a standstill, news this week indicates that Iran is clearly losing the economic battle. As in other cases, currency problems in Iran may contribute to an unpredictable and destabilizing political outcome. Iran’s currency fell by more than 18 percent against the dollar on Monday and another 8 percent on Tuesday, marking a new low in Iran’s continuing economic crisis. The figures are grim: a sheaf of rials worth ten thousand dollars a year ago would be worth about $3,750 Monday and $3,500 Tuesday; on Wednesday, there were protests in the bazaar.Short of...

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's octogenarian president, has become a liability and must be replaced urgently because he is unable to stay awake in vital meetings, one of the country's senior politicians has said. Welshman Ncube, leader of the smaller of the MDC's two factions in uneasy coalition with Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF since 2009, complained that Mr Mugabe's penchant for napping was making Zimbabwe a laughing stock. He claimed that the 88-year-old president, who has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, had to be woken up by Michael Sata, the Zambian President and his staunch ally, during one session of the...

Islamic SocialismFrom the CIA factbook: Following a 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI began to espouse his own political system, the Third Universal Theory. The system was a combination of socialism and Islam derived in part from tribal practices and was supposed to be implemented by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy.[1] The "Green Book" - Arabism, Islam & socialism, with Islam the main line Author John L. Esposito: Under Qaddafi three interrelated ideas were woven into Libya's ideological identity: Pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islam. Qaddafi's appeals to Islam were influenced by his...

Remember when America was the world leader? Remember when it was America who would not sit idly by when outrageous evils were sanctioned by the collective negation of humanity (the UN)? Mugabe How low America has sunk under the fraud. Even the pathologically leftist NY Times has said that Mugabe should be tried for war crimes. And this just last week: President Robert Mugabe and his henchmen are accused of crimes against humanity, a British newspaper reported on Saturday, for among other things, "slowly hacking off the limbs and pulling out the teeth with pliers of his opposition's supporters. He...

With a line-up that includes Drew Barrymore, David Beckham, Orlando Bloom, and Ricky Martin, the UN's choice of ambassadors has been known to cause raised eyebrows or the odd smirk. Seldom, however, has there been such anger, or questioning of the organisation's credibility, as that greeting the appointment of a new international envoy for tourism: Robert Mugabe. Improbable as it seems, the Zimbabwean president, who is widely accused of ethnic cleansing, rigging elections, terrorising opposition, controlling media and presiding over a collapsed economy, has been endorsed as a champion of efforts to boost global holidaymaking.

Iran distributing hardline Islamic material in Zimbabwe By Staff Reporter 03/04/2012 12:09:00 (President Robert Mugabe and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) HARARE – In a move likely to cause panic in the region and ratchet up tensions between President Robert Mugabe and Western governments, Iran has started distributing hard-line Islamic materials in Zimbabwe with the blessing of Zanu-PF criminal cabal, an Iranian news agency said. Iranian cultural office in Zimbabwe is distributing hard-line Islamic material masked in cultural exchanges material distributed to unsuspecting members of the public and religious centres, a report coming from Iran has revealed. Zimbabwe is a...

Jimmy Carter - Mass Murderer Pravda 16.05.2012 Boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere. - Tiberius By John Fleming   ... Jimmy Carter affects a superficial appearance of amiability and since leaving the White House, besides his well-known work for Habitat for Humanity, he has espoused time and again humanitarian causes. He has been appointed a diplomatic plenipotentiary time and again, especially under Clinton, and he made a well-publicized trip to Cuba and met Fidel Castro recently, where he, without mentioning the repression under corporate monopoly capitalism, in Georgia and everywhere else in the U.S., chided Castro in a would-be...

More than a decade after Zimbabwe’s government began seizing sprawling white-owned commercial farms, a new fight is brewing here over who will profit from the nation’s vast bounty of platinum, chromium, nickel and diamonds. In a move rooted in politics, the party of the aging president, Robert G. Mugabe, has begun pressuring companies operating in the country to comply with a law requiring that black Zimbabweans own more than half their shares. Mr. Mugabe has ruled the country since its independence in 1980 but has seen his popularity recede considerably in recent years. He won fewer votes than the opposition...

Zimbabwean officials on Tuesday dismissed reports that President Robert Mugabe was seriously ill in Singapore, saying he was well and on holiday there with his family, and was expected to return home this week. Two senior officials from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, who declined to be named, said a website report about the 88-year-old leader battling for his life in a Singapore hospital, which was widely repeated by some international media, was not true. "The president is well and away on a private holiday to help his daughter prepare for post-graduate studies, but we are expecting him home this week," said...

Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 88, is fighting for his life in a Singapore hospital after handing over power to Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa. The Australian said Mugabe was undergoing intensive treatment in a hospital in Singapore. Some of his family members joined him Saturday. When Mugabe was admitted to hospital has not been announced. There has been no official announcement of Mugabe’s illness, but the Zimbabwe Mail, reported his Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU)-Patriotic Front (PF) party is pressing for early elections. A cabinet meeting set for today has also been postponed, the Mail said.

The white African died almost a year ago at age 78. Mike Campbell, a white farmer from Zimbabwe, was a man of conviction and vision — and he paid for it with his life.

PRESIDENT Mugabe yesterday said homosexuals and lesbians will be punished severely for their behaviour which is inconsistent with African and Christian values. He made the remarks at the launch of the Tongogara Community Share Ownership Tru-st at Unki Mine. Zimbabweans told Copac during the outreach programme that they want homosexuality outlawed. Said the President: "Do not get tempted into that (homosexuality). You are young people. Mukaenda ikoko we will punish you severely." He took a swipe at recent utterances by British Prime Minister David Cameron that London will not aid countries that do not respect gay rights. Mr Cameron said...

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe addressed the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Thursday attacking NATO countries for their “blatant, illegal, brutal, callous and murderous bombings” in Libya, helping the National Transitional Council topple Colonel Muammor Gadhaffi. In a speech ranging from what he said were “illegal” sanctions imposed on Harare by Western nations to Palestine’s desire for statehood, Mr. Mugabe said it was sad that the international Criminal Court and the U.N. Security Council were being used by powerful countries to target leaders from the developing world, in particular African leaders. Mr. Mugabe expressed doubts...

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has fled Libya to Zimbabwe on a jet provided by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, it was claimed today, as rebels began the march on his home town. President Mugabe's political opponents claim their spies saw Gaddafi arrive in the country on a Zimbabwe Air Force jet in the early hours of Wednesday morning. They say the Libyan dictator was taken to a mansion in Harare's Gunninghill suburb, where agents from his all-female bodyguard were apparently seen patrolling the grounds. 'There's no doubt that Gaddafi is here as a 'unique guest' of Mugabe,' a spokesman for Zimbabwe's opposition...

......His mother, he says, built the 700-pupil local school, his father sat on the local council, and whenever his black neighbours need helping out - be it a fellow farmer borrowing a tractor, or the local police borrowing fuel for their cars - it is his door on which they knock. ....He has already handed over another farm he owns to a group of black settlers who turned up in 2006, since when, he says, he has done his best to be neighbourly. He helps prepare the land for cultivation and offers advice when they need it, although driving through...

Harare, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- A police officer in Zimbabwe who has languished at a police detention barracks for a month for using a toilet reserved for President Robert Mugabe will learn his fate at end of this week following an appeal to his boss. Alois Mabhunu, a homicide detective was sentenced last week to 10 days after he was convicted by an internal police court for responding to a call of nature in a toilet which had been reserved for Mugabe at a trade fair in Zimbabwe's second biggest city. On Monday, a relative of Mabhunu said the officer was...

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe says South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon were “naive” to vote for a United Nations Security Council resolution which has been used by Western countries to carry out a sustained bombardment of Libya. “Our African countries were naïve, absolutely naïve, to vote with the West when the West had its interests, you know, its own motives ... ulterior motives,” Mugabe said in an interview published on Friday. “These motives include wanting to re-occupy our countries. They are in search of our resources, in search of political control. It's now the reversal of the freedoms that we attained through...