MOST parts of Harare, including the city centre, were yesterday plunged into darkness after electricity supplies were cut off under yet unclear circumstances.

Residents and workers in areas such as Avondale, Chitungwiza, Highfield, Budiriro and central Harare were caught unawares after power went off almost simultaneously at around 5pm.

Supplies were only restored gradually in some parts of the city a few hours later. It had been expected that power would be quickly restored to the rest of the city given that a significant number of suburbs had been switched back on line.

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The whereabouts of Simon Mann remains unknown as his lawyer said that Zimbabwe’s regime may not have deported him to Equatorial Guinea.

Instead, the former SAS officer may have been injured by police and then hidden in a secret location inside Zimbabwe. The alleged mercenary has served a four-year sentence in Chikurubi maximum security prison outside Harare for attempting to buy weapons.

Last week, the authorities said that Mann, 55, had been deported to the West African state of Equatorial Guinea, where he is accused of plotting to overthrow the regime in return for a share of the country’s oil wealth.

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President Robert Mugabe faces an easy victory in Zimbabwe’s election in March after the bitterly divided opposition decided to run two candidates against him.

	Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara failed to agree an electoral pact

Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, the leaders of the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), failed to agree an electoral pact.

They will both run for president, a course that will split the anti-Mugabe vote and ensure defeat for both men.

Mr Mutambara apologised with a “heavy heart” for the failure and said that Mr Tsvangirai had rejected a “reunification agreement”.

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Zimbabwe’s inflation soared to a record high of 26,470.8 percent as the economy contracted by 6 percent, the central bank said — dealing a blow to President Robert Mugabe’s government ahead of March general elections. The veteran leader will seek another five-year term on March 29, against the backdrop of an economic meltdown widely blamed on his skewed political and economic policies.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Gideon Gono said inflation galloped to 26,470.8 percent year-on-year in November, 2007, from 7,982.1 percent in September. There were no inflation data for October.

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South African police have raided a church that was a sanctuary for Zimbabwean refugees, arresting scores of suspected illegal immigrants, the South African Broadcasting Corp. said on Thursday. The raid occurred around midnight on Wednesday at the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg, which had become a virtual refugee camp for those fleeing an economic crisis in Zimbabwe, the public broadcaster said.

About 1,000 Zimbabweans were staying in the church’s homeless shelter, with the blessing of church officials. They slept on mats in the corridors, foyer, meeting rooms and outside the building and were fed each day.

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The US Treasury said Wednesday it had blacklisted the chief of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization and a nephew of Robert Mugabe, the African state’s president.The Treasury identified Zimbabwe’s spy chief as Happyton Bonyongwe in a statement which also announced that Leo Mugabe, a nephew of the country’s president, would also be subjected to targeted US financial sanctions.

“The US financial system is closed to Robert Mugabe, his cohorts and their businesses,” said Treasury official Adam Szubin, who runs the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Officials said Leo Mugabe is a member of Zimbabwe’s parliament.

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South African President Thabo Mbeki is expected to tell southern Africa leaders at the AU summit in Ethiopia this week that his attempt to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis has failed. Peta Thornycroft reports for VOA that President Mbeki has been trying to continue negotiations for free and fair elections this week, even after President Robert Mugabe had issued a proclamation that polls would take place on March 29.

South African President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, left and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe brief journalists in Harare, 17 Jan 2008

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Zimbabwe’s High Court ruled on Wednesday that a former British special forces officer could be extradited to Equatorial Guinea to face coup plot charges, rejecting arguments that he might be tortured. Simon Mann was jailed in 2004 and was briefly released after serving his sentence in May last year. However, he was again arrested on an immigration warrant while awaiting deportation.

Mann, 55, was convicted of trying to buy weapons without a licence as part of a plot against Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

His lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, told Reuters on Wednesday he would appeal against Wednesday’s ruling.

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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe may have dealt a fatal blow to Pretoria’s “quiet diplomacy” by calling an election in the middle of mediation efforts by his South African counterpart, say analysts.

Mugabe’s announcement last Friday that polling would be on March 29 appeared to pre-empt a bid by South African President Thabo Mbeki to get an agreement between Zimbabwe’s government and opposition on the framework of the ballot.

Mbeki, who has steadfastly refused to publicly criticise Mugabe despite the economic meltdown of Zimbabwe, has once again bitten his lip over what analysts have interpreted as an insult and a repudiation of his softly-softly approach.

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A Zimbabwe court on Tuesday ordered the release of a controversial British property tycoon who was arrested last week for breaching foreign exchange laws and possessing pornography, his lawyer said.”The judge (Samuel Kudya) has ordered that he be released with immediate effect,” Nicholas van Hoogstraten’s lawyer George Chikumbirike told journalists outside the Harare high court.

The lawyer said the police would summon his client back to court if they still want to press on with the charges.

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