HARARE – Scenes of unpaid workers in agitated mood showing up in person to hold employers hostage have not yet become much of a common feature at cash-strapped firms. But simmering discontent might prompt hordes of rankled employees to snap hard on their employers’ heels demanding arrear salaries as happened in post-independence war America when…
HARARE – Vumba’s pristine rainforest — a cradle to some of Zimbabwe’s unique flora and fauna — is under siege. Illegal settlements and poaching are threatening to leave its breath-taking mountains bare. Its Msasa woodlands and Montane forests among where the rare Star of Africa Oak stand are being broken and retreating further into the…
HARARE – I want, no I demand justice for baby X; at what point is life imprisonment appropriate?! “Seven-month old baby raped” said The Herald, “Paedophile gets 20 years” screamed the Daily News. These shocking headlines made the mother in me grieved, I felt pain and revulsion. The lawyer in me wanted to understand what…
HARARE – Justice, Legal & Parliamentary Affairs minister Emmerson Mnangagwa — who officiated as guest speaker at commemorations marking World Day Against Death Penalty in Harare recently told anti-death activists that capital punishment must be completely abolished from the country’s statutes as it is inhuman and degrading. The minister’s call comes barely half a year…
HARARE – Anyone who thinks that the struggle for a better quality of life for the people of any country is less than a “long walk to freedom” (Mandela) is no student of history. I recently watched the story of the abolition of slavery in the film on the life of William Wilberforce in the…
HARARE – The Toyota Raum is an “unassuming” little car. If we were to give it human characteristics, it would be an introvert. Much like my namesake, minister Francis Nhema — quiet but effective in his own way. The car doesn’t have the looks of its more “showy” cousins the Toyota Altezza or the Runx…
MUTOKO – After being employed in Mutoko as a matron of Mother of Peace orphanage home in 1994, Jean Cornneck received her “first baby”, an infant that had been dumped in a village latrine pit. Cornneck recalls that a young girl, gave birth in a toilet and dumped it into the pit, then disappeared into…
HARARE – The re-emergence of insurgencies by Renamo (Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana) in Mozambique threatens the economic interests of Zimbabwe and must be repelled with military might before further escalation occurs. Given its historical banditry exploits, Renamo has double the capacity of Al Shabbab and Boko Haram combined and its actions can be least be described…
HARARE – She had warned me for two decades when it finally happened. I expected her to be all over me with “I told you and you didn’t listen”, but she was modest about it. She only said:” If you had listened, you wouldn’t be going through all this pain. I thanked her but she…
HARARE – When the desperate deal with the greedy, the conclusion is foregone. The desperate always lose. But then, the greedy have a habit of tripping themselves in the end — sometimes. And this is what happened in 2009 when Zimbabwe dolarised the economy. A year before, there were hordes of young people on the…
