Free Republic

Twenty-four years after farm invasions began in Zimbabwe it was time for me to go back to my farm again and have a look. Surely 24 years later, there would be something to see to support the legend that what happened on commercial farms was productive and beneficial to the people and the country. ... So what did I see when I went back to my farm last week? I did not see a thriving, productive farm. I saw houses, lots of houses, built on the most fertile fields, the lushest pastures and the livestock handling pens. ...

The Philippines announcing joint military maneuvers with the US, Australia and Japan tomorrow... "Some have been sent naked images, and two MP's are reported to have responded by sending images of themselves"...a few of the details...emerging 'sexting' scandal...in the UK... "Stay away so you won't get hurt" The message from Iran to the US ahead of...attacks on Israeli targets... ...messaging from Joe Biden today...Israel is doing what he wants... ...Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia calling for sanctions on Israel... In the African nation of Zimbabwe a new "structured currency" launched amidst rampant inflation... The Dutch naval support ship "Karel Doorman"...

-Mining workers and villagers near the Bikita Minerals lithium mine in Zimbabwe accuse the government and Chinese mining company Sinomine Resource Group of sidelining environmental and social standards in the scramble for lithium. -After a series of displacements, spills, labor abuses, a death, and little action by authorities, locals and experts accuse the government of failing to enforce its own laws and letting bad mining practices run loose. -According to industry experts, in theory, Chinese investments come with an increasingly robust set of ESG standards, but in practice these aren’t followed if host countries “shy away” from making such demands...

The debt load of the U.S. is growing at a quicker clip in recent months, increasing about $1 trillion nearly every 100 days. The nation’s debt permanently crossed over to $34 trillion on Jan. 4, after briefly crossing the mark on Dec. 29, according to data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It reached $33 trillion on Sept. 15, 2023, and $32 trillion on June 15, 2023, hitting this accelerated pace. Before that, the $1 trillion move higher from $31 trillion took about eight months. U.S. debt, which is the amount of money the federal government borrows to cover...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s powerful vice president said the government will block a university scholarship for young LGBTQ+ people, a move that human rights groups described Friday as a perpetuation of the African country’s homophobic practices. The state university scholarship for people between the ages of 18 and 35 is sponsored by GALZ, a membership organization for LGBTQ+ people in Zimbabwe. The association started offering it in 2018 without incident. But a recent online advertisement inviting applications attracted a harsh response from Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, a self-proclaimed devout Catholic and former army commander. In a strongly worded statement...

Zimbabwe's Cabinet decision to abolish the death penalty, announced on Wednesday, is being hailed by human rights advocates, but not all Zimbabweans are in favor of the move. Amnesty International — one of the rights groups which has pushed for the abolition of capital punishment in Zimbabwe — welcomed the announcement this week by Harare. "Zimbabwe has taken the right step towards ending this abhorrent and inhuman form of punishment that has no place in today's justice system," said Roselina Muzerengi, campaigns coordinator at Amnesty International in Zimbabwe. "Now that the Cabinet has given its nod, Parliament must ensure the...

On those bleak corners of the Internet that fret about economic growth, social cohesion, and other boring stuff, there’s a common question: What the heck happened in 1971? On one chart after another for the United States, there is a pattern of steady growth and improvement in life that suddenly goes haywire right around 1971. Wage growth stagnated for all but the richest Americans. Inequality explodes. Housing prices began a long upward march that has yet to level out. Fertility rates crashed while illegitimacy surged. And so on, and so on. Many other nations have data that tells a similar...

Man, this is great stuff, I don't care what race you are. Miss Universe Zimbabwe — that's in Africa, y'all — is a white woman, and the internet is not happy. Well, at least the half of the internet that's always crying about something. They're mad. That's Zimbabwe native Brooke Bruk-Jackson, and while she doesn't look the part, she is now the representative for Zimbabwe in this year's Miss Universe competition. She's beautiful and so were all the other candidates, but what's really got the internet upset is the fact that she's white. Because apparently you can't be white and...

Fri, September 22, 2023 at 11:09 AM MDT·2 min read 515 Zimbabwe will be among the countries represented at the 2023 Miss Universe pageant on Nov. 18 after selecting its first crowned beauty in 22 years. The African country’s return to the competition is an exciting fete, but not everyone is pleased with the woman chosen as the nation’s representative for the global stage. Brooke Bruk-Jackson, a white woman, was crowned Miss Universe Zimbabwe 2023 on Sept. 16. She is a native of Harare, the country’s capital. The 21-year-old model’s runner-ups were Black women, Amanda Mpofu and Nokutenda Marumbwa. But...

A four-strong gang in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, broke into the home of a white farmer chanting “kill the Boer, kill the farmer” and violently assaulted him and his wife, stabbing the latter with a spear. Tim and Amanda Platt were beaten with “pipes, crowbars, and other instruments” by the gang, said Jacques Broodryk, a spokesman for the AfriForum group which supports South Africa’s Dutch-descended Boer (Afrikaner) minority. Amanda was reportedly “beaten with a bolt cutter and lead pipes, and eventually stabbed with a spear.” Incredibly, she managed to escape the fracas while her husband was still fighting with their attackers,...

Remember all the speeches about apartheid? As I recall, Jesse Jackson got involved in South African politics. It was the issue of our time, as they often say. For the record, apartheid was terrible and a correction was needed. However, it's hard to see what's happening in South Africa today. The country is a financial mess and the extremes seem to be doing all the talking. This is the sad story: South Africa's Marxist-Leninist political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, celebrated its 10th anniversary over the weekend.After the radical group's demagogic leader emphasized, "We are with President Putin... We are...

Russian pomp and circumstance greeted 17 leaders of African countries who arrived in St. Petersburg earlier this week. Some delegations were welcomed with a military orchestra, and Zimbabwe’s president received a helicopter as a gift from President Vladimir Putin. Putin billed Russia’s second summit with African leaders and delegates as “a crucial event” to boost ties and partnership for many years to come. For Russia, the event was a battle for influence and allies, and showed how isolated Russia could become in the shadow of its invasion of Ukraine. “We see the same, reciprocal interest to act together, hand in...

The peace of a normally tranquil suburban road near South Africa's capital, Pretoria, is being shattered by the sound of drilling. These are not prospectors looking for a new source of the country's mineral wealth, but workers digging for an arguably more precious resource: water. Private boreholes - like this one being excavated in Garsfontein - are springing up across the wealthier neighbourhoods in the country's economic heartland, where taps have been running dry. "I am tired of not knowing when we will have water and when we won't," the frustrated homeowner says. Having a borehole means we won't have...

A growing number of countries are coming forward to join BRICS and accept the new currency for global trade. The South African ambassador Anil Sooklal hinted that the alliance could expand this year becoming BRICS+. The move could add pressure on the U.S. dollar as developing nations would end their reliance on the greenback. The global financial order could tilt from the West to the East creating a new multipolar economy. According to the latest report, the BRICS alliance has formally received applications from 25 countries to join the bloc. The 25 nations that expressed their interest to join are...

She's b-a-a-a-ck! Remember Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg? She's the tenured Marxist activist who from circa October 2001 until August, with the media's consent, manipulated coverage of last fall's anthrax attacks, in which five people were murdered and over a dozen sickened by anthrax-contaminated letters. She also engineered the smear campaign that sought to railroad scientist Dr. Steven J. Hatfill for the anthrax attacks. On September 22, 2002, Rosenberg published a long op-ed essay in the Los Angeles Times, in which she sought to resurrect her discredited theory, according to which the anthrax killer was an insider from the American biodefense...

Last summer, we looked at the collapse of the power grid in South Africa. The country which previously had the most economically stable and prosperous government in sub-Saharan Africa suffered waves of unemployment and looting as its economy buckled under the strain. They’ve managed to put together some foreign aid to apply patchwork fixes since then, but there are still rolling blackouts taking place on a regular basis. This winter, however, the power grid problems are spreading in one of the more underreported stories of the year. Zimbabwe and Nigeria are now also experiencing near-total collapses of their power grids....

While others in her Zimbabwean village agonize over a maize crop seemingly headed for failure, Jestina Nyamukunguvengu picks up a hoe and slices through the soil of her fields that are lush green with a pearl millet crop in the African country’s arid Rushinga district. “These crops don’t get affected by drought, they are quick to flower, and that’s the only way we can beat the drought,” the 59-year old said, smiling broadly. Millets, including sorghum, now take up over two hectares of her land — a patch where maize was once the crop of choice. Farmers like Nyamukunguvengu in...

Zimbabwe has banned all lithium exports after the government said it was losing 1.7 billion euros from exporting it as a raw mineral and not processing it into batteries in-country. Lithium is so valuable as a component of electronic batteries - mostly for cars mobile phones and computers - that it’s known as “white gold.” The price has gone up by 1,100 percent in the past two years alone. Zimbabwe has the largest amount of the mineral in Africa and has enough of it to supply a fifth of the world’s needs, the government says. Whilst it’s on track to...

In the US Constitution, there is a clause that prevents the government from taking your property without just compensation (Article 5). In recent years that has been called into question in various court cases. But still, in America, the government must pay you for taking your real property — at least they are supposed to. That is not the case in South Africa, where a new law was passed that demands land owners give up their land for seizure by the government. It is called the Expropriation Bill. The new bill awaits approval from the National Council of Provinces, and...

The British government is funding projects pushing Africans to farm and consume insects, including school-age children, in randomized trials, to assess their effects. The United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) – a subsidiary of the country’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – is responsible for backing the projects taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe. With a roughly $320,000 grant from the aid office, researchers in Zimbabwe will be experimenting with using mopane worms in porridge served to children in schools. Poor children aged seven to 11 in the towns of Gwanda and Harare...