We received a sad and tragic report from the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum
(ZEF) in South Africa on Monday, that 5 deportees died and 36 were injured in an accident while they were in transit on Saturday. The accident occurred between Musina and Beitbridge and it involved a truck owned by South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, which was transporting mainly women refugees back to Zimbabwe. The 36 injured were admitted to a hospital in Musina. Most were treated and released, except for 6 women and two children who are still in hospital.

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Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday that he will not return to lead the country as president or commander-in-chief, retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution.Castro, 81, said in a statement to the country that he would not seek a new presidential term when the National Assembly meets on February 24.

“To my dear compatriots, who gave me the immense honour in recent days of electing me a member of parliament … I communicate to you that I will not aspire to or accept — I repeat not aspire to or accept — the positions of President of Council of State and Commander in Chief,” Castro said in the statement published on the Web site of the Communist Party’s Granma newspaper.

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Zimbabwe has been described as a sad nation full of fear by former Finance Minister Simba Makoni as he launched his manifesto for president. “[It is] a polarised nation in deep stress and one characterised by disease and extreme poverty,” he said.

If elected on 29 March as an independent candidate, he said he would start a process of reconciliation.

He said he was not against President Robert Mugabe, but urged ruling party members wanting “renewal” to join him.

Mr Mugabe is seeking a sixth term in office and told state media earlier this week he is “raring to go” in the polls.

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Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader has urged the South African president to end his “quiet support” of President Robert Mugabe.

At a news conference in Johannesburg, Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, urged President Thabo Mbeki to show “a little courage” in dealing with the Zimbabwe crisis.

In Harare, former Zimbabwean finance minister and one-time Mugabe ally Simba Makoni called on officials from Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party to join his campaign to oust the 83-year-old president in the March 29 elections.

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FORMER Finance minister Simba Makoni  yesterday said he was still a Zanu PF member amid reports that the ruling party was on the verge of a major split.

Addressing a media conference in the capital yesterday, Makoni dismissed assertions by Zanu PF legal secretary Emmerson Mnangagwa and commissar Elliot Manyika that he had expelled himself from the party by declaring himself a presidential candidate on Tuesday.

“I plan to continue my functions as a member of the party until I am excluded by the due (disciplinary) process,” he said.

Makoni said there was no provision in the Zanu PF constitution allowing for self-expulsion.

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An ambitious plan by the Zimbabwe government to recruit thousands of new police officers ahead of next month’s elections has virtually collapsed after it found no takers among hordes of school leavers roaming the streets, ZimOnline has learnt.

The police force, hit hard by massive resignations and desertions over poor pay and working conditions over the past eight years, is struggling to maintain adequate staff levels.

Sources said despite an aggressive recruitment drive launched late last year, the law enforcement agency failed to meet a target of 27 000 new recruits.

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Zimbabwe’s former finance minister Simba Makoni — who announced his bid to challenge President Robert Mugabe in presidential elections next month — on Thursday taunted the octogenarian leader, suggesting he could unseat Mugabe as the ruling party’s candidate and stand for the presidency in his place.

Makoni (57) a junior member of Mugabe’s politburo, rattled the Zimbabwean political scene on Tuesday when he declared he would stand against the “failed leadership” of Mugabe.

The move came ahead of an election which has been looking like a repeat of the last three polls which were dismissed internationally as rigged by Mugabe.

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Zimbabwe’s former finance minister, Simba Makoni, a senior member of the ruling Zanu-PF party, announced on Tuesday that he would challenge President Robert Mugabe as an independent in elections next month.

“Following very extensive and intensive consultations with party members and activists countrywide, and also with others outside the party, I have accepted the call and hereby advise the people of Zimbabwe that I offer myself as candidate for the office of president,” Makoni told a press conference.

“Let me confirm that I share the agony and anguish of all citizens over the extreme hardships that we all have endured for nearly 10 years now,” added Makoni, who was Mugabe’s finance minister from 2000 to 2004.

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Manchester City’s new striker Benjani Mwaruwari must play 75 times for the club before Portsmouth recoup anything near the £7.75m they were seeking for the player. Benjani, 29, who will be unveiled on Friday, will recoup Portsmouth £1m a time when he plays his 25th, 50th and 75th games for City, which means the first appearance fee will not be due until next season, even if the Zimbabwe captain plays in each of City’s remaining fixtures this season.

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Potholes have assumed the character of a national disaster, as they continue to widen, turning roads into death traps.

Below is car stuck in a pothole along Samora Machel in Harare

Inevitably, one wag coined this adage: “If you saw Zimbabwean motoristdriving in a zigzag manner, they are not drunk they are merely dodging potholes in the roads.”

A drive around the city centre and other residential areas illustrates the sorry state of the dilapidated roads.

The problem has been excabertated by the end of the lifespan of many tarred roads, especially in the high-density areas, most of them built by the colonialists, cheaply and overcrowded.

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