IMF Sees ‘Nascent Economic Recovery’ in Zimbabwe

African Export-Import Bank grants Zim $60 mln tobacco loan

HARARE - The Zimbabwean government has secured a 60-million-U.S. dollar loan from a Tunisia-based African Export-Import Bank to boost tobacco production, local media said on Thursday.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti was quoted by The Herald as saying that his office was working on the modalities of releasing the funds, which would be disbursed through a consortium of local banks.

He was speaking during the 49th congress of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association on Tuesday. Biti, however, said he was aware that the loan secured was short of the industry's requirements.

Debate on constitution roars on

ZIMBABWE'S constitution making process continues to draw immense interest among the public as evidenced by the heated debates generated during a recent press club debating session in Harare where the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) and a representative of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) were panelists.

PSC chairman Douglas Mwonzora and NCA spokesperson Madock Chivasa on 30 June 2009 raised critical divergent views on how Zimbabwe should proceed in writing a new democratic constitution for the country.

Outgoing British Ambassador Pocock on Hot Seat

Hot Seat Transcript: Journalist Violet Gonda interviews Andrew Pocock, the outgoing UK Ambassador to Zimbabwe.

The Ambassador gives the UK ’s position on the targeted sanctions issue, which he says has been over-used by ZANU PF to deflect blame from their failed domestic policy.

Ambassador Pocock also says the accusation that Britain reneged on the Lancaster House agreement to fund land reform in Zimbabwe are not accurate, and is just one of ‘the convenient myths’ that has dogged the British-Zimbabwean relationship.

Tsvangirai and the Hecklers, on the Ticklish subject of Returning to Zimbabwe

ZIMBABWEANS heckled their Prime Minister, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, during his recent visit to London, in one of his touch-base meetings with people he had long held as fervent supporters. While at face value events of the day may be considered possibly, as Mr Tsvangirai’s lack of a ‘before-hand-social-mapping strategy’, at least, to understand what people in the diaspora want, it may also be necessary to acknowledge the various political undercurrents that may have influenced such a reaction.

However, it goes without say, that his advisors and handlers did a shoddy kind of job. Let me delve to the issue at hand by saying; first, we may want to understand that the political situation faced by most people in diaspora is so nuanced by a lot of factors so much so that seeking to understand it at face value might lead one to make very dangerous conclusions and possibly lead us into a dead-end.