Zimbabwe Power-Sharing Talks Reportedly Resume

Johannesburg, Sth Africa: Aug 29th (Voice of America) - Officials in South Africa say the stalled talks between Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition have resumed Friday. The announcement came as the Zimbabwean government said it was lifting a ban on humanitarian agencies working in the country. Southern Africa correspondent Scott Bobb reports from Johannesburg.

South Africa's Deputy Foreign Minister, Aziz Pahad, announced the resumption of the Zimbabwe talks more than two weeks after they stalled over power sharing between President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and two parties of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC. "Today's talks must now try to see what else can be done to get a consensus among all three parties on the way forward. So if it takes them longer, I hope they will stay longer and resolve these outstanding issues," he said.

Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai talks to journalists in Nairobi, 21 Aug 2008

The MDC won a majority of the parliamentary seats in general elections in March and the leader of its main faction, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the most votes in the presidential poll. But Tsvangirai did not win a 50 percent majority and withdrew from the runoff election against Mr. Mugabe, ZANU-PF supporters of waging a campaign of violence that killed more than 100 activists. Since then, the two sides have been negotiating an end to the crisis. They reportedly were close to an agreement in which Mr. Mugabe would remain as head-of-state and Tsvangirai would occupy a newly created post of prime minister. But the talks collapsed two weeks ago reportedly over the distribution of powers. Mr. Mugabe Wednesday threatened to form a Cabinet without the opposition after being heckled the day before during the opening of parliament.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, during Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, 16 Aug 2008

The Zimbabwean government Friday said it was lifting a three-month ban on private humanitarian organizations that had been providing food, health care and other aid to millions of Zimbabweans. The Red Cross has issued an urgent appeal for donations, saying five million Zimbabweans, or one-half of the population, were facing food shortages. South African official Aziz Pahad noted that the international community has drawn up an economic recovery plan that could help ease the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. "But unless there's a political solution you don't have the necessary framework in order to implement an economic recovery program. So the talks are crucial, all talks are crucial now, in order to find a way forward," said Pahad.

Zimbabweans have been hard hit by an economic crisis characterized by hyper-inflation, 80 percent unemployment and shortages of food and fuel.

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World Bank Finds More People Live in Steep Poverty

WASHINGTON Aug 26th (Reuters) — The World bank said Tuesday that more people were living in extreme poverty in developing countries than previously thought as it adjusted the recognized yardstick for measuring global poverty to $1.25 a day from $1. The bank said there were 1.4 billion people — a quarter of the developing world — living in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day in 2005 in the world’s 10 to 20 poorest countries. Last year, the bank said there were 1 billion people living under $1 a day.

The 2005 figures, the latest available, are likely to put fresh pressure on big donor countries to move more aggressively to combat global poverty. Even so, the new estimates, based on updated global price data, show how progress has been made in helping the poor over the past 25 years. In 1981, 1.9 billion people were living below the $1.25 a day poverty line. The data are based on 675 household surveys in 116 countries. “These new estimates are a major advance in poverty measurements because they are based on far better price data for assuring that the poverty lines are comparable across countries,” said Martin Ravallion, director of the World Bank’s Development Research Group.

While the developing world has more poor people than previously believed, the World Bank’s new chief economist, Justin Lin, said the world was still on target to meet a UN goal of halving the number of people in poverty by 2015. However, excluding China from overall calculations, the world fails to meet the United Nations poverty targets, Mr. Lin said. The World Bank data show that the portion of people living below the $1.25 a day poverty line fell over nearly 25 years to 26 percent in 2005 from 52 percent in 1981, a decline on average of about one percentage point a year, he said. Mr. Lin said the new data meant that rich donor nations needed to keep their promises of stepped-up aid to poor countries. “The sobering news that poverty is more pervasive than we thought means we must redouble our efforts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa,” Mr. Lin said.

The new figures come ahead of an updated assessment of progress in meeting the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, which will be released next month at a meeting of the General Assembly. While most of the developing world has managed to reduce poverty, the rate in sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s poorest region, has not changed in nearly 25 years, according to data using the new $1.25 a day poverty line. Half of the people in sub-Saharan Africa were living below the poverty line in 2005, the same as in 1981. That means about 380 million people lived under the poverty line in 2005, compared with 200 million in 1981.

Elsewhere, poverty has declined. In East Asia, which includes China, the poverty rate fell to 18 percent in 2005 from almost 80 percent in 1981, when it was the poorest region. In China, the number of people in poverty fell to 207 million in 2005 from 835 million in 1981. In India, the number of people below the $1.25 a day poverty line increased to 455 million in 2005 from 420 million people in 1981. But the share of the population in poverty fell to 42 percent from 60 percent.
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Zimbabwe Opposition Says 2 Are Held

HARARE, Zimbabwe: August 25th (AP) -- Two Zimbabwe opposition politicians were arrested Monday as they entered parliament to be sworn in, their party said. Eliah Zembere was among seven Movement for Democratic Change activists police have said they were seeking, alleging they were involved in election violence. The other man, Sure Mudzingwa, was not on the list.

Two uniformed and three plainclothes officers who made the arrests did not say why or where the two were being taken. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was unaware of Monday's arrests: ''It would be illegal for anyone to be arrested while they were proceeding to parliament,'' he said. Independent human rights groups have said that President Robert mugabe's forces were responsible for most of the violence since the opposition won the most seats in March 29 legislative election. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat Mugabe and two other candidates in presidential elections held alongside the legislative balloting, but did not gain the simple majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff. Mugabe and Tsvangirai have entered into power-sharing negotiations.

Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the Movement for Democratic Change remained determined to take up seats in parliament, which Mugabe was to open Tuesday for the first time since the elections nearly five months ago. Chamisa charged that the arrests were politically motivated -- an attempt by Mugabe's ZANU-PF party to regain control of parliament. ZANU-PF had controlled parliament since independence in 1980 until the March vote. ''ZANU-PF are in a desperate attempt to try and stop or abort our victory,'' Chamisa said. ''It's a struggle. We have to fight it out.'' Tsvangirai's party has 100 seats in the 210-seat legislature; Mugabe's party holds 99. A faction that broke away from the opposition has 10 and an independent politician who broke away from Mugabe's party has the remaining seat.

Tsvangirai had criticized the reconvening of parliament given the deadlock in power-sharing talks mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki. Leaked documents from the talks show Tsvangirai balked at signing a deal based on an offer making him prime minister with limited powers and answerable to Mugabe, remaining as president. The documents show the prime minister would be deputy chairman of the Cabinet and the president and the prime minister would need to agree on ministerial posts. With the prime minister reporting regularly to the president, Mugabe's power would be left virtually intact. The political impasse has worsened Zimbabwe's economic meltdown. Official inflation is given as 11 million percent, but independent financial institutions say it is closer to 40 million percent amid acute shortages of food, gasoline, medicine and most basic goods.
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No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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