Zimbabwe Defence Minister invites Chissano to Gweru

In what may unlock Zimbabwe’s decade-long political dilemma, former Mozambican President and respected Statesman, Mr Joaquim Chissano will give a public lecture on peace and development in Gweru next month at the invitation of Zanu PF political heavy weight Emmerson Mnangagwa, The Mirror can exclusively reveal.

Zimbabwe Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa

It is understood that Chissano, a renowned peace broker will make a strong plea for Zimbabwe to avoid war and political instability for the sake of development. He is going to tell delegates that no industry will spew smoke when war or political instability is raging on.

The lecture is understood to have been put together by Mnangagwa and Sekai Holland to fundraise for projects at the Midlands State University (MSU). Mnangagwa and Holland who is from the MDC and both hail from the Midlands Province are co-patrons of the MSU Fundraising committee.

Although this looks like a fairly innocent fundraising function, analysts said the move where Mnangagwa brings Chissano to his hometown in Zimbabwe has far-reaching political implications on the power games and succession race in Zanu PF. It is Mnangwagwa flexing his muscle, proving to his rivals that he has powerful connections in the region, said some analysts.

Mnangagwa and Vice President Joyce Mujuru are in a bitter fight to succeed Mugabe as the President of this country. The fight has resulted in tow camps that have split Zanu PF through the middle with VP Mujuru being sponsored by her husband, Retired General Solomon Mujuru.

The analysts also contended that such a visit by Chissano could only take place with the approval of President Mugabe.

Chissano, it is understood, will tell delegates in no uncertain terms that even the political bickering that has been raging in the country was no good for development. Development and war can never mix is the message Chissano had always spread. The message is likely to be taken seriously by Zimbabwean politicians considering that the MSU fundraising committee has representatives from the country’s two major political parties.

“He will say that a nation will either go for war or development. If you want war and political instability, then forget about development because the two will never take place at the same time,” said a source.

The Mirror understands that funds raised from public lecture will be channelled towards the construction of more buildings at MSU. The lecture is now almost fully subscribed with delegates from the corporate world, academics and politicians.

Chissano is credited with bringing full peace to Mozambique after years of civil war in the country. He undoubtedly is the man who also turned around Mozambique from a crumbled economy to one that has been enjoying immense economic growth of more than 6 percent per anum. This has been the biggest growth in the region.

Yes I do: Germany city keeping oath after 20 years

In 1990, the Municipality of Zimbabwe’s oldest city - Masvingo entered into a relationship with Kernen city in the Federal Republic of Germany. Like in any marriage set-up, though without a marriage officer and the bible, the two cities entered in to a covenant.
They agreed to help each other in thunder, lighting or in rain.
In fact, Masvingo and Kernen officially became twin cities in 1990. This was a sign of a new relationship between the two cities from different continents. They however, agreed to make sure that they support each other whenever need arises. They also agreed to engage into a number of exchange or cultural programmes if resources and time permits.
However, because of its geographical positioning, being a European city, Kernen automatically became financially better positioned than Masvingo, making the relationship one way. In the long run, Masvingo ended up depending on Kernen rather than having a 50-50 relationship.
That did not sway Kernen or force the people in Germany to think otherwise, they continued to honour their oath. From 1990 up to today, Kernen has done a number of projects for Masvingo.
The people of Kernen have helped in the construction of Alpha Cottages, Holy Cross at Bondolfi, Zimcare Trust, donated funds to Copota, construction of Runyararo Clinic, donating money for developmental projects among others.
As if to say that was not enough, there are over 30 orphans in Masvingo whose social welfare is currently taken care of by individuals in Germany. Pioneers of the association in Kernen such as Dieter Kaiser have influenced a number of people across Germany to help Masvingo orphans.
“I helped several orphans in Masvingo and I currently sponsor several orphans there (Masvingo). Heiko and Elke Mewes, a couple in Berlin approached us before going to Masvingo where they are helping two orphans at Bondolfi.
“We are helping Masvingo and we still have the zeal to continue helping them,” said Kaiser.
In these twenty years, a lot of things between Zimbabwe and Europe happened. The relationship between Zimbabwe and western countries including Germany were spoiled by bad blood which developed between the two, mainly due to different political ideologies especially under President Mugabe’s leadership in Zimbabwe.
Though President Mugabe, Minister Stan Mudenge and several top government officials went to Kernen at some point in the 1990s, the relationship between Zimbabwe and Europe continued to get sour. However, the people in Kernen chose to be blind and they continued to give Masvingo necessary support.
When Masvingo was hard hit by economic crises and cholera epidemic in 2008, the people of Kernen organised themselves and wrote a letter to Masvingo offering to help.

‘We want to support you’

“We know from there that the people in our partner city have hard times to go through, politically and economically. We have heard about the drought in the country and the bad harvest of crops as maize and others.
We all feel very concerned with the starvation in your area. Therefore the partnership association has organized a donation campaign among our population and have found many citizens of Kernen feeling compassion with the citizens of Masvingo.
Since December 2007 we have financed repeated food supplies for the orphanage alpha cottages and for Bondolfi primary school up to a total of 45.000 €uro. In 2009 we will continue with this action.
We also heard about your problems with the cholera epidemic. That is why we decided to finance in January the chemicals for water treatment of the city to be supplied from RSA,” reads part of the letter written to Masvingo by the people of Kernen in 2008.

Celebrating sweetness of unity

It’s a great day in Germany Friday October 1 2010, as both cities are celebrating 20th anniversary of the relationship. Masvingo Mayor Alderman Femias Chakabuda, Deputy Mayor Selina Maridza and Housing Director Levison Nzvura are in Kernen representing the people of Masvingo.
The Mayor of Kernen Stefan Altenberger said the people in his city are still committed to assist Masvingo. He said they still honour the oath which was made two decades ago.
“Yes we still honour the oath, we wish to work with our friends in Masvingo giving them assistance wherever they want us to help them,” Altenberger said.
Kernen- Masvingo Association chairman Christian Fleischer said he is wishing to see the relationship growing to a stage where both cities will be financially and economically equal.
“We promise to support Masvingo but my dream is to see both cities attaining equal financial positions. We are financially stable and we wish Masvingo to be the same,” Fleischer said.
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Villagers beat up police boss, DA

CHIREDZI-There was drama when more than 100 villagers who are refusing to be displaced from Nuanetsi Ranch in Chiredzi North constituency teamed up last week and severely assaulted Chiredzi District Administrator (DA) Clara Muzenda and district police boss Superintendent Partson Nyabadza before forcing them to sing “Povo yaramba” song.

The car which they were driving was damaged by a marauding crowd.

According to eye witnesses, Muzenda who was in the company of a councillor only identified as Nyathi and Nyabadza were last week informing settlers in the ranch near Lundi that they should be prepared to leave the area by 30 September this year.
However, sources say the message did not go well with villagers who teamed up and blocked the road with tree branches, poles and stones. According to impeccable sources, hell broke loose when the trio got off the car so that they would explain the matter to villagers. They were not awarded any chance to explain as villagers started to beat them.

Supt Nyabadza described villagers as ignorant saying he was not the right person to comment to the press. Though Nyabadza could not neither deny nor accept that they got a through beating from villagers, he was clear that they encountered a ‘problem’ with villagers in Lundi Section.

“There is nothing much. You should talk to the DA for all the details but in brief, it was a small problem with ignorant villagers there. We are actually planning another meeting with them,” said Nyabadza.

Nyabadza acknowledged that villagers in the area had their own fears
“They have fears and they should be educated,” he added.
The DA could not be reached for comment by the time of going to press as her official landline phone went unanswered.

However, Chiredzi North legislator Ronald Ndava said he was aware that the DA and police boss had encountered a problem with villagers but had no finer details of what happened.
“I talked to Nyabadza over the phone and he indicated to me that they encountered a problem with villagers in Lundi Section. I am yet to get the actual details of what exactly happened but there is greater need to inform the villagers that the programme is not hostile,” said Ndava.

There are at least 5021 families settled in the area. However, their future in the area is not certain as there are reports that they should be relocated to another area as the ranch is supposed to be taken over by a private company.
“The team which went to the area are on enumeration exercise. They want to find out an exact number of people settled there. The programme might finally benefit the villagers,” Ndava added.

Member of Parliament (MP) for Chivi South (which shares the boundary with Lundi area) Irvene Dzingirai could not be drawn in to commenting saying he was busy with other business in Harare.

“The issue is complicated; I cannot comment anything for now. I a busy doing other business in Harare,” said Dzingirai.
The Mirror was informed that by Monday, at least eight villagers including a councillor were arrested.
“They are arresting people in our area following last week’s incident. I can confirm that eight people have been arrested by police from Chiredzi so far,” said a source who refused to be named.

Masvingo Mirror

1000 men circumcised

At least 1000 men were circumcised under the on-going clinical male circumcision facilitated by the National Aids Council (NAC) and the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare in Chiredzi district recently.

The programme is aiming at circumcising a total number of 3000 people in Masvingo.

According to NAC Masvingo provincial boss Evios Makoni, the on- going exercise is going to spread to other districts in Masvingo soon.

“This is the starting point in Masvingo province and we are targeting men between 16-29 years of age to be circumcised,” said Makoni.

Circumcision is a traditional and compulsory practice to Shangani boys. However, this year’s programme is not compulsory and any man regardless of tribal background is free to participate.

Traditionally, the practice was carried without anesthetics and other surgical tools until NAC came to the rescue.

“Our main objective is to meet their traditional practice in the prevention of HIV and we are saying lets do it hygienically and in a more humane manner,” Makoni said.

Currently there are 26 medical personnel in Chiredzi who are conducting the operations in three areas, Chidonga, Chambuta and Chimbwedziva camps.

Circumcision at a medical institution costs around $75, but the on going exercise in Chiredzi is done free of charge.

NAC is going to host a graduation ceremony on Tuesday this week..

Masvingo says Zimbabwe must have five provinces

People from all the seven districts of Masvingo who are contributing in the national constitution making process are unanimously demanding for the merging of the country’s current ten administrative provinces to become five.

The provinces must be simply named North, South, East, West and Central.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) provincial director of elections and Masvingo Central legislator Jeffryson Chitando confirmed that in all of the meetings he has attended so far, the issue of having five provinces has remained on top of the agenda.

“In all meetings people are lobbying for merging of the current ten provinces. They are saying Zanu PF came up with many provinces especially in Mashonaland to build politics of patronage in such provinces.

“It seems the issue of merging provinces is topping the list of what the people want to be done in the new constitution,” Chitando said.

Villagers who spoke to The Mirror said the government is wasting a lot of money and resources through paying governors and workers in the current set up.

“We can reduce government expenditure by having five provinces. It would mean that we will only have five governors and that way, we can serve resources and money,” said a villager.

Besides having a guarantee that the provinces will be reduced to five, Masvingo is making it clear that the country’s president should be between 40 to 70 years old.

If Masvingo’s presidential age range proposal gets the nod from other provinces, Zanu PF will be forced to drop its traditional candidate President Robert Mugabe in the next elections since he will be 17 years older than the preferred maximum age by next year.

According to what the people want, a president should be allowed to be in office for only two terms.

The current constitution is silent on the president’s age and the number of terms that one can be in office.

-Masvingo Mirror

Social Media Situation in Africa and Asia

WAZ explains how online and print work together

Westedeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) - Germany’s third largest
newspaper and magazine is one of the media groups which are separately
but successfully running print and online editions.
WAZ has regional bureaus in various towns and cities which keep in
touch with the headquarters in Essen on daily basis.
Katrin Scheib the Managing Editor of Der Westen (The West) – WAZ’s
portal explained that her organization is able to run both print and
online editions without problems.
As much as people want to move with technology in disseminating news
through various social media networks and multimedia, there are some
people who will always want the printed version.
According to Ms.Scheib, WAZ’s effective use of both print and online
editions has remained the organization’s cutting edge over its
competitors.
“We have print and online editions which run separately. We however,
have one editorial policy and at times the online editors would use
some stories or pictures from print but often each entity is
independent of the other,” she explained.
Their Online edition has its own staff which has a totally different
work schedule from the print journalists. For WAZ online journalists,
the day begins at 0600 hours but has no fixed knocking-off time. If
there are major events of breaking news, online journalists often find
themselves in the office publishing stories. By 0945 hours every day,
they engage in their daily meeting for latest updates and often
bureaus from various regions or cities are involved in these meetings
through video conferences. Topics of Der Westen range from
international news to local information from 140 towns in Europe. In
addition to that, Der Westen offers videos and weblogs as the
important feature to enhance its brand.
The regional bureaus have a task to extensively report about different
areas better than anyone else to make sure that they outpace bloggers
and other publications in delivering news to people.
“Though bloggers are out there to compete with us, our secret to our
success is on our effective way of reporting. Our strength also lies
on our capability to manage synergies,” she added.
Despite the organization’s determination in utilizing print media,
Ms.Scheib explained that they use social media such as facebook,
twitter and even build a community section for Der Westen readership
to make sure that as many people as possible are reached. People can
create their profiles, blogs and find relevant local news using a map
tool.
She also said that the organization holds a number of trainings in
order to equip its staff members with current journalistic skills,
thereby remaining the dominating force in the media industry in both
West German and Europe at large.
While many regional publisher are publishing away from regional
portals, WAZ turns to the other way and they prove us they’re right.
WAZ’s story concerning printed and online newspaper assures readership
and journalists that both kinds of journalism can live together in
peace.
Our visit to WAZ head office demystified the concept that the days for
the existence of print media are numbered.