JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -At least 42 people were killed in a bus crash in a mountainous region of northern South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement on Monday.
The crash took place on the N1 highway near Makhado in the Limpopo province, the statement said. Many of the travellers were citizens of Zimbabwe and Malawi who were en route to their home countries from the city of Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape.
“This incident is a tragedy for South Africa and our sister states of Zimbabwe and Malawi alike,” Ramaphosa said.
(Reporting by Disha Mishra in Bengaluru and Anathi Madubela in Johannesburg; Editing by Alison Williams and Shri Navaratnam)
The government has embarked on an ambitious programme to rehabilitate and modernise airports across Zimbabwe in a move aimed at enhancing air transport infrastructure, boosting tourism, and attracting critical foreign investment, Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Felix Mhona has announced.
Speaking at the 2025 Built Environment Conference and Expo, Mhona said the multi-billion-dollar initiative will see Charles Prince Airport on the outskirts of Harare upgraded to full international status, alongside other major aviation projects.
“In the aviation sector, the government has embarked on an ambitious programme to rehabilitate and modernise airports to enhance air transport infrastructure, boost tourism, and attract investments,” Mhona said.
He added that the recently refurbished Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport will be re-purposed to focus primarily on domestic air traffic, streamlining operations and optimising capacity.
Among the key projects earmarked are the expansion of Charles Prince Airport, the construction of a new Mutare International Airport, and the development of Kariba International Airport.
“Charles Prince Airport is going to be an international airport. We are going to have one of our biggest airports at Charles Prince. Land has already been availed by government through the Airports Company of Zimbabwe to enable expansion,” Mhona said.
He confirmed that feasibility studies are already underway and that the upgraded Charles Prince Airport will feature three to four runways once completed.
Beyond aviation, Mhona said government’s broader transport strategy seeks to transform Zimbabwe from a landlocked nation into a land-linked regional hub, facilitating trade and economic integration across southern Africa.
“Our concerted efforts in upgrading road infrastructure are now visibly manifesting through the strategic road corridors approach, with the North-South Corridor, the Beira Development Corridor, and the Limpopo Corridor anchoring connectivity as we position Zimbabwe as a key transit nation,” Mhona said.
He explained that the ongoing road and border post upgrades aim to cut transit times, improve logistics, and create a more business-friendly environment.
Major projects in the pipeline include the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare-Chirundu Road, the 31.2km Christmas Pass bypass, the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Road, and the modernization of Chirundu and Forbes border posts, as well as the construction of four new highway interchanges.
Mhona emphasised that partnerships with the private sector would be crucial in sustaining infrastructure growth, but stressed the need for commercial viability to attract investment.
“It is vital that we adopt a business-minded approach to infrastructure service provision. Services must attract access fees that make infrastructure self-maintaining and sustainable. Without these commercial viability potentials, private capital might not be adequately attracted to the sector,” he said.
The minister reaffirmed that Zimbabwe’s strategic location gives it a pivotal role in regional trade, and the current infrastructure overhaul is designed to unlock new economic opportunities while boosting the country’s competitiveness in the global marketplace.
Zimbabwean opposition lawmaker Desire Moyo has died after the vehicle he was travelling in hit an elephant, local media report.
The accident happened in the early hours of Friday morning while Mr Moyo and four other MPs were travelling along the Bulawayo-Gweru highway, according to state-owned broadcaster ZBC.
He died instantly while his fellow lawmakers were left injured, the news outlet added.
Tributes are pouring in for the well-known poet, hailed for his contribution to the arts, who died a day before his 46th birthday.
He was a member of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), led by Nelson Chamisa, and served in the Zimbabwean parliament’s sport, recreation, arts and culture committee.
The Nkulumane Constituency in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, which he represented, confirmed the news of his death in a statement and shared its “deep sorrow and profound shock”.
Fellow CCC member and MP Discent Bajila provided more details on the horrific crash to local news site ZimLive.com. He told the publication he had spoken to the injured MPs, who relayed what had happened.
“I spoke to [Madalaboy] Ndebele, who was in the front passenger seat. His recollection is that they hit the elephant on its backside. After the impact, he remembers the elephant turning round and fighting the vehicle.
“This, he believes, is what did the most damage on the top right side of the vehicle and ultimately led to Moyo’s fatal injuries,” Bajila said.
Fellow lawmaker Caston Matewu was among those to pay tribute to Moyo, affectionately known as Moyoxide, hailing him as “one of the hardest working MPs in Parliament”.
“The people of Nkulumani [sic] have been robbed of this great [man],” Mr Matewu said.
The City of Bulawayo, led by mayor David Coltart, said Mr Moyo would be remembered as an “iconic leader … and creative” who “strove to champion the arts” in the city and beyond.
Mr Moyo was an award-winning poet, educator and arts administrator “who devoted his life to nurturing Zimbabwe’s creative sector”, according to the state-run Herald news site.
The other lawmakers involved in Friday’s crash have been taken to hospital.
More about Zimbabwe from the BBC:
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Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has collected fruit from the gigantic baobab trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet. The 50-year-old Bhitoni never saw them as a source of cash, until now.
Climate change-induced droughts have decimated her crops. Meanwhile, the world has a growing appetite for the fruit of the drought-resistant baobab as a natural health food.
Bhitoni wakes before dawn to go foraging for baobab fruit, sometimes walking barefoot though hot, thorny landscapes with the risk of wildlife attacks. She gathers sacks of the hard-shelled fruit from the ancient trees and sells them on to industrial food processors or individual buyers from the city.
The baobab trade, which took root in her area in 2018, would previously supplement things like children’s school fees and clothing for locals of the small town of Kotwa in northeastern Zimbabwe. Now, it’s a matter of survival following the latest devastating drought in southern Africa, worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon.
“We are only able to buy corn and salt,” Bhitoni said after a long day’s harvest. “Cooking oil is a luxury because the money is simply not enough. Sometimes I spend a month without buying a bar of soap. I can’t even talk of school fees or children’s clothes.”
The global market for baobab products has spiked, turning rural African areas with an abundance of the trees into source markets. The trees, known for surviving even under severe conditions like drought or fire, need more than 20 years to start producing fruit and aren’t cultivated but foraged.
Tens of thousands of rural people like Bhitoni have emerged to feed the need. The African Baobab Alliance, with members across the continent’s baobab producing countries, projects that more than 1 million rural African women could reap economic benefits from the fruit, which remains fresh for long periods because of its thick shell.
The alliance’s members train locals on food safety. They also encourage people to collect the fruit, which can grow to 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide and 21 inches (53 centimeters) long, from the ground rather than the hazardous work of climbing the enormous, thick-trunked trees. Many, especially men, still do, however.
Native to the African continent, the baobab is known as the “tree of life” for its resilience and is found from South Africa to Kenya to Sudan and Senegal. Zimbabwe has about 5 million of the trees, according to Zimtrade, a government export agency.
But the baobab’s health benefits long went unnoticed elsewhere.
Gus Le Breton, a pioneer of the industry, remembers the early days.
“Baobab did not develop into a globally traded and known superfood by accident,” said Le Breton, recalling years of regulatory, safety and toxicology testing to convince authorities in the European Union and United States to approve it.
“It was ridiculous because the baobab fruit has been consumed in Africa safely for thousands and thousands of years,” said Le Breton, an ethnobotanist specializing in African plants used for food and medicine.
Studies have shown that the baobab fruit has several health benefits as an antioxidant, and a source of vitamin C and essential minerals such as zinc, potassium and magnesium.
The U.S. legalized the import of baobab powder as a food and beverage ingredient in 2009, a year after the EU. But getting foreign taste buds to accept the sharp, tart-like taste took repeated trips to Western and Asian countries.
“No one had ever heard of it, they didn’t know how to pronounce its name. It took us a long time,” Le Breton said. The tree is pronounced BAY-uh-bab.
Together with China, the U.S. and Europe now account for baobab powder’s biggest markets. The Dutch government’s Center for the Promotion of Imports says the global market could reach $10 billion by 2027. Le Breton says his association projects a 200% growth in global demand between 2025 and 2030, and is also looking at increasing consumption among Africa’s increasingly health-conscious urbanites.
Companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi have opened product lines promoting baobab ingredients. In Europe, the powder is hyped by some as having “real star qualities” and is used to flavor beverages, cereals, yogurt, snack bars and other items.
A packet of a kilogram (2.2 pound) of baobab powder sells for around 27 euros (about $30) in Germany. In the United Kingdom, a 100-milliliter (3.38-ounce) bottle of baobab beauty oil can fetch 25 pounds (about $33).
The growing industry is on display at a processing plant in Zimbabwe, where baobab pulp is bagged separately from the seeds. Each bag has a tag tracing it to the harvester who sold it. Outside the factory, the hard shells are turned into biochar, an ash given to farmers for free to make organic compost.
Harvesters like Bhitoni say they can only dream of affording the commercial products the fruit becomes. She earns 17 cents for every kilogram of the fruit and she can spend up to eight hours a day walking through the sunbaked savanna. She has exhausted the trees nearby.
“The fruit is in demand, but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return without filling up a single sack,” Bhitoni said. “I need five sacks to get enough money to buy a 10-kilogram (22-pound) packet of cornmeal.”
Some individual buyers who feed a growing market for the powder in Zimbabwe’s urban areas prey on residents’ drought-induced hunger, offering cornmeal in exchange for seven 20-liter (around 4-gallon) buckets of cracked fruit, she said.
“People have no choice because they have nothing,” said Kingstone Shero, the local councilor. “The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger.”
Le Breton sees better prices ahead as the market expands.
“I think that the market has grown significantly, (but) I don’t think it has grown exponentially. It’s been fairly steady growth,” he said. “I believe at some point that it will increase in value as well. And at that point, then I think that the harvesters will really start to be earning some serious income from the harvesting and sale of this really truly remarkable fruit.”.
Zimtrade, the government export agency, has lamented the low prices paid to baobab pickers and says it’s looking at partnering with rural women to set up processing plants.
The difficult situation is likely to continue due to a lack of negotiating power by fruit pickers, some of them children, said Prosper Chitambara, a development economist based in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
On a recent day, Bhitoni walked from one baobab tree to the next. She carefully examined each fruit before leaving the smaller ones for wild animals such as baboons and elephants to eat — an age-old tradition.
“It is tough work, but the buyers don’t even understand this when we ask them to increase prices,” she said.
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Kwekwe, Zimbabwe – Dorothy Moyo says a prayer every time she walks, runs or drives around her neighbourhood in central Zimbabwe – afraid that the earth will give away from beneath her feet, dragging her underground.
The 36-year-old’s fear is not uncommon among the hundreds of families living in the Globe and Phoenix community, a mining compound in Kwekwe, more than 200km (125 miles) from the capital Harare.
Last year, on an afternoon in mid-May, Moyo had visited the local school – Globe and Phoenix Primary – to check on her daughter and get an appraisal from the teacher when suddenly the ground began to shake.
She vividly recalled the moment she heard the noise of the falling desks and chairs followed by the screams of children.
“I was just a few feet away from the scene, clearly indicating that I was also in the danger zone. It was scary,” Moyo told Al Jazeera. “Instead of going to rescue those who were crying, I ran to safety,” she admitted.
Fourteen children were injured when the class caved in as illegal small-scale miners burrowed beneath the pillars that had held the school up for more than a century.
Although only one classroom collapsed, findings from the Department of Civil Protection said the whole area was in danger.
In the aftermath, the school was permanently shut down and 900 of the 1,500 affected children were transferred to the neighbouring school, while others use offices at the Globe and Phoenix Mine as classrooms.
After the collapse, there have been other similar incidents caused by illegal mining in Kwekwe.
In communal areas around the city, livestock have been the main victims of the earth giving in. But in another incident near the Globe and Phoenix compound last May, a house collapsed and was swallowed by a mine tunnel, authorities said.
A classroom caved in at the Globe and Phoenix Primary School in 2023 [Calvin Manika/Al Jazeera]
Tonnes of gold
As part of Zimbabwe’s broader macroeconomic roadmap towards achieving an upper-middle-income economy by 2030, the government unveiled plans in October 2019 to revitalise the mining sector and create a $12bn economy by the end of 2023 (the latest available figures from 2022 put the value at around $5.6bn).
This plan would be driven by the mining of gold – which is Zimbabwe’s biggest export – along with platinum, diamonds, chrome, iron ore, coal, lithium and other minerals, the government said.
Kwekwe, in Zimbabwe’s Midlands province, is a key site for minerals and mining.
The city of more than 100,000 people houses the headquarters of Zimbabwe’s largest steelworks, a major power-producing plant, and the country’s largest ferrochrome producer.
It is also known for its rich gold alluvial soils and is home to one of the biggest gold mines in the country, the privately owned Globe and Phoenix Mine, which was founded in 1894 but has been operating on and off since 2002.
Exploration in the surrounding area, as well as the emergence of new mines, shows the existence of tonnes of gold. As a result, in the past three decades, thousands of small-scale miners searching for their fortunes have made their way to the city, digging pits on the surface and tunnelling underground.
After last year’s cave-in at the school, the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) issued a statement expressing concern about the ways mining was being conducted.
“The collapse of the classroom block at Globe and Phoenix Primary School is once again a reminder that irresponsible mining is retrogressive and should not be tolerated at any level,” the environmental watchdog’s statement said.
Although ZELA said it appreciates that mining is the backbone of economic recovery, and that strategies like the $12bn mining economy are important for development, it noted that a successful strategy must take cognisance of the environment, the communities, and be supported by a strong regulatory and monitoring framework.
“This incident must be a clarion call for authorities to act on the best possible ways to regulate the artisanal and small-scale mining sector to discourage illegal activity and noncompliance,” warned ZELA.
Kwekwe’s mayor, Councillor Albert Musungwa Zinhanga, told Al Jazeera the city has bylaws in place with regards to trespassing on private property, which they are enforcing. However, others need to be updated.
When it comes to environmental safety laws, for example, the city is instituting bylaws to protect the central business district from mining activities, he said. “Some of them we are going to be working on, so that we enforce the things … not covered when those bylaws were formulated.”
A general view of the Globe and Phoenix gold mine in Kwekwe [Jekesai Njikizana/AFP]
A ‘web of tunnels’
Illegal miners – many of whom travel from place to place in search of gold – often burrow on the outskirts of official mine territory, or in the now disused underground tunnels that were mined previously.
According to residents and environmental activists in Kwekwe, illegal miners do not abide by responsible mining practices, often targeting the support pillars within these underground tunnels.
Runyararo Priscilla Mashinge is the current chairperson of the Midlands chapter of the national human rights organisation ZimRights. She is also a small-scale miner herself, working in a group with other artisanal miners in Kwekwe.
She said illegal miners burrowing underground put people at risk, and she feels that the authorities must ban all mining activity near the central business district and residential areas in order to save people’s lives.
“At Globe and Phoenix, we saw a classroom sinking; many other houses have been affected,” Mashinge said. “In Gaika [another mining area] also, it’s the same issue. We are in a total mess especially with no legal action being taken. This is affecting surrounding communities.”
Mashinge said that in the now disused parts of the Globe and Phoenix Mine, the underground pillars have been left untouched for “strategic” reasons, so that the mine would not collapse. But now illegal miners are threatening those foundations.
“The whole city is on top of a web of tunnels,” she said. “But now the artisanal miners when they see gold on the pillars, they burrow through, posing danger to human lives.”
The pillars are blocks of untouched rock that are purposefully left underground to support the overlying strata, as mined material is being extracted. While big mining companies leave the pillars – and the gold they contain – untouched to protect the stability of the whole operation, illegal miners looking for any bit of gold often target the pillars in old mines without regard for the structural consequences.
“The economy has contributed to this,” Mashinge said, “but it is regrettable.”
Speaking to Al Jazeera, small-scale miner Patrick Hokoyo said miners like him do not usually dig further underground, but often follow existing tunnels in search of the yellow metal.
“In some cases, things are hard as you will be tracking gold underground, only to see it on the pillars. To us, it’s about gold. It is only when something happens that we are told it was a support pillar,” Hokoyo explained.
Despite the imminent danger, Mayor Zinhanga said artisanal mining will not hinder the future of programming in Kwekwe and its “master plan” to use resources found in the city to improve infrastructure.
“We are actually seeing the reduction of ‘makorokoza’ because most of the people that used to be roaming around the town during the day and in the night have been driven away,” the mayor said, using the local Shona term for the illegal miners. Zinhanga said most miners are now city residents or people with formal claims to a piece of land with gold deposits.
An illegal gold miner going underground in Kwekwe [Calvin Manika/Al Jazeera]
Above the law?
Kwekwe residents have been calling for illegal miners to be actively blocked from using disused underground shafts. Despite the recent cave-ins and warnings from authorities, though, these miners have resisted and continue their operations.
“We do not own the pits, in fact, we do not have permission. We get access [to the mines] from ‘mabosses’,” one miner who wanted to be identified only as Charles told Al Jazeera.
Locally, ‘mabosses’ are politically linked individuals who illegally run some mining pits yet have unchecked power. They do not go underground themselves, but are paid a cut by miners who are desperate for areas in which to search for gold.
“They [mabosses] man the entrances to the mines, and to have access means we pay in return in the form of gold,” Charles said.
Another miner, Ngonidzashe Chisvetu, said that because their operations are illegal, they need protection from people connected with government officials.
“If you look, this Globe and Phoenix is operated by a mining company. Truly, I can’t just come from home and enter then start mining without someone shielding me. [Mabosses] are the people we literally work for … We are shielded by them,” he told Al Jazeera.
Most artisanal miners fall under the Zimbabwe Miners Federation, headed by Henrietta Rushwaya, a niece of Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Early this year, Rushwaya was arrested after allegedly duping Indian investors of $1.5m in a botched mining transaction.
Last year, Rushwaya was convicted after attempting to smuggle 6kg (13 pounds) of gold to Dubai. She was fined $5,000 and handed a wholly suspended three-year jail sentence. She also featured as a central figure in Al Jazeera’s documentary series Gold Mafia, which exposed gold smuggling and money laundering by senior Zimbabwean public office bearers. Rushwaya remains free.
Commenting on the illegal mining in Kwekwe, Farai Maguwu, the director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance, said politicians are behind the illegal mining activities taking place in Kwekwe and the town of Kadoma about 70km (45 miles) north.
The head of the Zimbabwean natural resources watchdog added that artisanal miners orchestrating illegal underground digging were also being sent by the same politicians.
“The Kwekwe incident was long coming. It was a matter of time. Residents have been raising alarm on the issue for some time and it’s unfortunate that the same people and other innocent lives are the victims,” Maguwu said.
Al Jazeera contacted the provincial police spokesperson for a response to the Kwekwe allegations, but he was not available to comment.
Speaking at a recent expo organised by the Ministry of Public Works on the way forward regarding artisanal miners, Midlands Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister Owen Ncube highlighted the need to formalise and empower artisanal miners to expand their business operations.
“It is important to note that in addition to the main actors in the mining sector, there are also artisanal miners who require support to increase production, as well as environmentally friendly and sustainable mining,” said Ncube.
Meanwhile, Minister of Mines and Mining Development Winston Chitando said in a presentation last year that small-scale mining makes a significant contribution to the country, but that “every mining activity should follow the law”.
Small-scale miners search for gold in Kwekwe [Thapelo Morebudi/Al Jazeera]
Frightening new findings
In Kwekwe, a network of illegal mining tunnels extending as deep as 1.5km (0.9 miles) beneath the central business district and residential areas is posing a significant risk to residents, according to a 2024 study conducted by the Zimbabwe National Geospatial and Space Agency (ZINGSA).
There are growing concerns that these areas might cave in due to the widespread underground pits.
ZINGSA’s study, which employed advanced geospatial mapping techniques, revealed an extensive network of tunnels. The results were alarming – exposing a sprawling maze of tunnels that are undermining pillars essential for structural support.
“The mapping has shown us the severity of the situation. We are literally sitting on a ticking time bomb,” said a ZINGSA official, who requested anonymity due to the nature of the issue. “These could lead to disastrous collapses of buildings.”
The report further details the numerous hazards these illegal mining tunnels pose to the city’s infrastructure and environment. Sinkholes, resulting from the collapse of underground voids, have emerged as a significant concern. Ground vibrations from blasting activities within the tunnels also contribute to structural damage and further instability.
On having mining activities near the central business district and residential areas, Mayor Zinhanga emphasised the need to re-look at the bylaws and realign them with current priorities. But he also said the city faced challenges from illegal miners who burrow underground at night, a practice common in Kwekwe.
Meanwhile, back at the Globe and Phoenix compound, since the cave-in over a year ago, residents have been living in increased fear.
Moyo – who remains cautious – said although the collapse at the school was shocking, it was not surprising, as the issue of illegal mining has been raised several times – but with no action taken.
“People used to jokingly say, the city has been left with nothing underneath as artisanal miners have harrowed it in search of gold,” Moyo said. “[Now] it is becoming evident.
“We are living in a city where any time, you can fall underneath. This is a death sentence role. Any time, you can fall and die.”
Harare, Zimbabwe – Dzivarasekwa, a nondescript township on the southwestern rims of Zimbabwe’s capital, copies the 1907 template of the first ghetto, Harari (now Mbare): grim, monotonous, matchbox houses laid out on grids.
Driving on its streets, one often sees skeletal silhouettes of young men – sometimes women – in a drug-induced haze who look at you with a tortured grin as they trudge along in a slow, vaguely meditative gait as if their next step is the last. Sometimes it is.
Their circumstances are the result of the drug plague that has haunted Harare for more than a decade.
Easily available on the township’s streets are cheap moonshine and the dregs of narcotics that find their way into Zimbabwe. Even diazepam, known in local slang as Blue, a drug prescribed for anxiety and seizures, is consumed.
Yet it is also in Dzivarasekwa where one finds the Tsoro Arts and Social Centre, an initiative run by the Zimbabwean musician Jacob Mafuleni, 46, from the front yard of his house.
Jacob Mafuleni plays a mbira [Percy Zvomuya/Al Jazeera]
Every Saturday afternoon, about two dozen young people from the ages of 6 to 23 – including Mafuleni’s son Abel, 23, who is following in his musician father’s footsteps – gather around half a dozen marimbas.
The marimba is a percussive instrument whose origin is sometimes traced to present-day Mozambique, where it was a court instrument before the arrival of the Portuguese, the country’s former colonial ruler.
The traditional marimba is made of wooden slats placed over resonant calabash gourds that produce a buzzing, polyrhythmic sound when hit with a mallet. Today, resonator pipes of different lengths are a substitute for the gourds.
In Mozambique, the instrument is known as the timbila and is closely associated with the master musician Venancio Mbande, who died in 2015. Iterations of the original instrument can be found all over the Americas, where it was brought by enslaved Africans.
The Tsoro Arts and Social Centre is not only about the marimba but also the mbira.
The mbira is an instrument in the lamellophone family in which long and narrow metal keys are attached to a wooden sound board and played in a calabash gourd. The instrument comes in a variety of forms, sizes and number of keys, including the nyunga nyunga, njari, mbira dzevadzimu and matepe.
Marimba to mbira
Although the terms “marimba” and “mbira” may, to ears not used to Southern African languages, sound similar, the two instruments are very different.
Mafuleni is skilled at both – with expertise in playing and making the two instruments. He also plays the African drum.
Until September, Mafuleni’s front yard was also a workshop for both the marimba and the mbira, where he worked with a team of assistants into the night. Now, due to the demands of an expanding operation, he has moved his workshop to the Tynwald Industrial area, less than 15 minutes away.
Although Mafuleni is as likely to get a commission to make a marimba as a mbira, he told Al Jazeera about his longer history with the former.
Jacob Mafuleni, 46, works in his front yard [Percy Zvomuya/Al Jazeera]
Mafuleni was first exposed to the marimba in 1990 when he joined the Boterekwa Dance Troupe, a group founded and led by the late bandleader and musician David Tafaneyi Gweshe. In the dance troupe, he initially became acquainted with Zimbabwe’s various dance styles before he mastered the marimba.
When he joined Boterekwa, the band was already a fixture on the world music festival circuit, so he had to be content to be in group C, the third tier of the band. Being in group C meant you were an afterthought, a hapless extra caught up in the matrix of ambitions of senior protagonists in the ensemble.
“If you were in C and you handled the marimba, you could even be barred from attending sessions for two weeks,” he recalled. Then one day he found himself moved from the back of the class right to the front row – the holy of holies. The promotion happened by a confluence of luck and his keen ears – and hands – for music.
Gweshe had been trying to teach a melody on the marimba, but no one quite knew how to do it. Because the marimba was off limits for people in group C, Mafuleni could only watch Gweshe’s tirade, his heart throbbing, thinking, “But I know how to play that tune.” Eventually, he summoned his courage and stepped up: “And then I took the sticks and then went and played what he was telling us to play.
“Riidza tinzwe, Jacob,” Gweshe said in Shona, the majority language in Zimbabwe. “Play, Jacob, so that we can hear you.”
“He was ecstatic at my playing and started to play together with me,” Mafuleni recalled.
A mbira crafted by Jacob Mafuleni [Percy Zvomuya/Al Jazeera]
This moment is what democratised the instrument for the rest of the band, the reasoning being, “all this while we didn’t know we had this genius”.
Sometimes when the instrument didn’t sound the way he wanted, the temperamental Gweshe would demolish it in a huff and then make a brand new one. When the new instrument was being made, Mafuleni would help out. “I wanted to learn and was watching all that was going on.”
He wanted to know the measurements of the slats, how to make the grooves, how to place the resonators. Once, while Gweshe was away on tour, one slat broke and he managed to repair it. On his return, Gweshe was none the wiser that the marimba had been repaired. “This means I had done it well,” Mafuleni deduced.
Musician to craftsman
But Mafuleni’s real break with the marimba came much later in the United States, where Southern African instruments have been studied with religious devotion for more than half a century. He was visiting the US on tour as part of Mawungira eNharira, a Zimbabwean drum and mbira group.
At some of these festivals, they shared stages with bands with Shona names but whose members were all white Americans who knew how to play all the marimba standards. “I was happy about this, but what came to my mind was, ‘Do the people at home know that marimba is being played like this?’”
Musicians play a marimba in Guatemala [File: Jose Cabezas/Reuters]
He then told himself that when he got back home, he wanted to assemble a marimba band.
During a break in the tour, he hooked up with an American master marimba maker, Rob Moeller, who for a token fee (only $300) gave him an expedited curriculum on the intricacies of the craft: selecting the timber, measuring and cutting up the slats, how to affix them to the stand and how to tune the instrument. On the last day of the course, the teacher not only gave him the marimba he had made but also a Seiko tuner. And so his journey as a marimba maker had begun.
Similarly, his transformation from being a mbira player to also being its craftsman happened through happenstance, his adventurous spirit and an unhappy encounter with a tardy but expert producer of the instrument.
In 2003, when he was in a band called Sweet Calabash, a drum and mbira ensemble, the group found a promoter who wanted to get them mbira instruments and costumes. Mafuleni placed an order with a well-known mbira maker in Harare, paid the fee but the instruments wouldn’t come.
A child plays a marimba [Percy Zvomuya/Al Jazeera]
Every day for two months, he went to sit with the mbira craftspeople. But they kept on coming up with excuses why their instruments were not ready. Yet he was watching what they were doing.
“And then I started asking the makers what to do if I want the instrument to sound in a certain way, and they would tell me. I was always asking them questions.”
And then he took a hiatus from going to pester the mbira smiths.
He got a board, some metallic metal keys and put them together. Just like that – he had made his first mbira.
When he took it back to the master mbira makers to show them and to resume his vigil, they didn’t believe it was him who had put it together. “The way they didn’t believe I had made it was proof that I had done it properly.”
Because of his experience with playing in Western-style band formats, he already knew the language of music: G sharp, octaves, etc. It is this knowledge that he has brought to his practice, giving him a distinct advantage over the traditional mbira maker.
On the Saturday Al Jazeera visited, amid the sound of the marimba and the animated hubbub of the children, Mafuleni expanded on the social role Tsoro plays in the community.
“At the centre, we don’t only teach music but a lot of other life skills. When we were still here after practising, I would urge the boys and girls to come help with the making of instruments. Even where we are now [in Tynwald], some still come to help out and learn.”
During the April school holidays, he took nine children on a day’s retreat to Mukuvisi Woodlands, a lush forest on the eastern outskirts of the city, to teach them marimba, mbira and life lessons.
In Dzivarasekwa, it may be music that will play a key role in breaking the cycle of drugs, teenage pregnancy and associated ills – especially among the township’s youth.
Rhinos are especially vulnerable to intense heat, as they don’t sweat, instead cooling off by sheltering in the shade or bathing in water. The paper marks the first analysis of how climate change may affect these endangered species.
A file photo of a white rhino and her calf. Climate change may make it too hot for rhinos in southern Africa. ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
“Generally speaking, most, if not all, species will, in one way or another, be negatively affected by the changing climate,” lead author Hlelowenkhosi S. Mamba, a research student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said in a statement. “It is therefore important for conservationists to conduct macroecological assessments over large areas to catch trends and model futures for some of the world’s most vulnerable species to prepare to mitigate climate change’s effects, hence minimizing global biodiversity losses.”
Both species of African rhino have seen rapid population decreases, mainly due to poaching. White rhinos once comprised two species, the northern white rhino and southern white rhino, but the northern white rhino is now considered extinct in the wild. The southern white rhino is listed as “near threatened” on the IUCN Red List, with only around 10,000 individuals left in the wild. Black rhinos are listed as “critically endangered”, with about 3,100 remaining.
The researchers investigated how increasing temperatures in large national parks across South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania and Eswatini could impact the future of the rhino species living there. They modeled two scenarios in the parks, one based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, and the other being a more mild emissions future, and predicted the amount of rain and temperature that each park would see in 2055 and 2085.
They found that in each park it was expected to rise by 2.2 degrees Celsius by 2055 and 2.5 degrees by 2085 in the moderate emissions future, while in the IPCC emissions scenario, each park increased by 2.8 degrees Celsius by 2055 and 4.6 degrees by 2085. All but one park was expected to become increasingly dry in these scenarios.
They then calculated the probability that each park would remain suitable for the rhinos, and found that the increase in temperatures would be more than the rhinos can handle, exacerbated by the decreased precipitation.
“The temperature conditions in all study parks will become increasingly unsuitable for both species, but it is predicted that white rhinos will be affected earlier than black rhinos,” the authors wrote in the paper. “All the parks are showing drastic changes in the occurrence probability of rhinos.”
In the high-emissions scenarios, the likelihood of both species still existing will shrink to zero by 2085.
Two rhinos at a waterhole in a South African national park. Higher temperatures and decreased rainfall may make these regions inhospitable to rhinos. ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
“All study parks will have zero probability of occurrence for the species throughout their ranges should conditions reach those represented by the [IPCC high emissions 2085] scenario late in the century,” they wrote.
“This paper highlights the importance of using climate predictions for both park and rhino management,” co-author Timothy Randhir, a professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst, said in the statement. “We propose that park managers think now about increasing water supplies, tree cover, watching for stress and planning to allow rhino migration as the world warms.”
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Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
In some African cultures, the combination of rain and sunshine means that a leopard and a lioness have given birth to a cub.
I was hoping that this was the case as we traversed Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve in a four-wheel drive jeep in the midst of a sunny downpour.
In the seven years that I’ve been a travel journalist in Africa, the game drive experience has always been one of my favorites. Wildlife is Africa’s treasure, and tourists revel in watching the animals — particularly the cats — in their natural habitats.
Travel journalist Harriet Akinyi watches a herd of elephants in a game drive at Mugie Conservancy, Kenya.
Source: Harriet Akinyi
There are 10 countries in Africa that have a strong wildlife focus: Kenya (my motherland), Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia and Rwanda.
For more than 25 years, professional safari guide Geoff Mayes has taken tourists to the best parks in Africa. He believes that many choose Kenya — and in particular, Maasai Mara — for their first trip to Africa because it’s safe and fairly accessible.
Known as one of the eight wonders of the world because of the wildebeest migration, Masaai Mara is one of Africa’s most renowned parks, said travel journalist Harriet Akinyi.
Wldavies | E+ | Getty Images
“It’s easier to catch flights to Kenya, making it high on peoples’ bucket list,” he said. “Also a game drive experience in Kenya will be able to meet the travelers’ expectations in terms of catching ‘the Big Five.’”
Less than an hour flight from the capital city of Nairobi is Nairobi National Park, where there’s a good chance of seeing lions and rhinos, he said.
And “if you come to the Maasai Mara, you’ll see the elephants and leopards and lions,” he explained as we drove through it.
In total, Kenya has 25 national parks and 16 national game reserves with countless private conservancies, which are smaller, private-owned wildlife reserves.
Amboseli National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is known for its massive elephant population and spectacular views of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Harriet Akinyi having a bush breakfast with a view of the rhinos after a game drive in Solio Conservancy in Kenya.
Source: Harriet Akinyi
Tsavo National Park, Kenya’s biggest park, is one of the world’s largest game sanctuaries. It was highlighted by President Barack Obama in the five-part Netflix docuseries “Our Great National Parks.”
Kenya is not the only country where I’ve gone on game drives.
South Africa is another and is home to some of the oldest and most iconic national parks in Africa. It’s a year-round safari destination, but the best game-viewing conditions are in the cooler winter months from May to September.
A game drive at Kruger National Park, South Africa.
Luis Davilla | Photodisc | Getty Images
There are 20 national parks, including the world–famous Kruger National Park — which has Africa’s “Big Five” game animals: lions, leopards, elephants, rhino and buffaloes.
There’s also Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, near the border of Botswana, and Pilanesberg National Park. The latter is about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Johannesburg. It’s smaller than Kruger, but rich in wildlife — and, fascinatingly, it’s inside the crater of an ancient volcano believed to be some 1.2 billion years old.
Another highlight, Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park,has the “Big Five” as well as a thriving population of African wild dogs.
I’ve also been to Addo — the biggest park in the Eastern Cape and third-largest in South Africa — which is famous for its elephants. According to Ncediso Headman Nogaya, a game guard at Addo, October to April is the best time to visit.
“We are more likely to receive rains from May to September and while the season is great because it gives food to the wildlife … it might be a slippery drive and muddy,” he noted.
Uganda is known for its diverse wildlife and stunning landscapes in its 10 national parks and 12 game reserves. Of the national parks, seven are located on savannahs and three in forests. In those three, one can track mountain gorillas in Mgahinga National Park and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
Around 1,000 mountain gorillas exist today, more than half which live in Uganda, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority.
Jason Edwards | Photodisc | Getty Images
My favorite memories at Queen Elizabeth National Park are of tracking chimpanzees in Kyambura Gorge, watching tree-climbing lions and a herd of elephants walking majestically on the plains, and observing buffaloes, warthogs, hippos and Nile crocodiles while cruising the Kazinga Channel.
Another park to consider is the Kidepo Valley National Park, with its sweeping plains and valleys overshadowed by the brooding Mount Morungole. The mountain is sacred to the Ik tribe, one of the smallest tribes in Uganda. The park ranks among the best birding safari destinations in the country too.
I loved my game drive experience at Lake Mburo National Park, even though it’s one of the smallest national parks in the country.
It’s the only park where travelers can enjoy boat cruises, walking safaris and horseback riding, tour operator Dennis Kahungu told CNBC Travel.
A group of big horn Ankole Cattle in Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda.
Christopher Kidd | Photodisc | Getty Images
Plus “it’s the only national park in Uganda with the impalas,” he said. “It’s also where you will find the big horned Ankole cows.”
Located in eastern Rwanda, Akagera National Park is a protected wetland and the last remaining refuge for savannah-adapted species in Rwanda. Park visitors can take boat safaris along Lake Ilhema, the second largest lake in Rwanda, for wildlife and birdwatching.
Weaver birds and nests over Lake Ihema, Rwanda.
Inti St. Clair | Photodisc | Getty Images
Travelers in search of mountain gorillas usually go to Volcanoes National Park in the northern part of the country. It’s also home to golden monkeys, and well regarded for hiking and mountain climbing.
Recently inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, Nyungwe National Park is another part to explore and is situated in southwest Rwanda and is known for its chimpanzees and colobus monkeys. It’s also popular for canopy walks on a suspended bridge some 70 meters (230 feet) above the forest floor.
While the parks can be visited all year round, it’s best to avoid April, as that’s when Rwanda typically receives heavy rains.
Botswana is a fast-emerging ecotourism destination — visitors are drawn to the vast elephant herds of Chobe National Park and the canoe-based wildlife safaris in the Okavango Delta.
A herd of elephants at Chobe National Park, Botswana.
Williececogo | Moment | Getty Images
One can also see the “Big Five” at Moremi Nature Reserve, Nxai Pan National Park, Makgadikgadi Pans National Park as well as Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Apart from the renowned Hwange National Park, I have also visited Matobo National Park, which has a wide diversity of fauna and plenty of white rhinos. The area around Matobo Hills is home to the remains of early settlements and the graves of historical figures like Cecil Rhodes.
The rock formation in Matobo National Park in Zimbabwe, Africa, which is home to the grave of Cecil Rhodes.
Westend61 | Getty Images
The best time to visit the parks is during the dry season, from June to October. That’s when the bush is thinner — making wildlife easier to spot.
Mayes said the best time for safaris in Kenya and Tanzania is, of course, during the migration season. But he recommends visiting Zimbabwe and Zambia from July to October.
In other parts of the continent, months like February, June and September can be very rewarding too.
“The wildlife is fantastic and there are fewer vehicles around,” he said. “And you can often benefit from a low season price structure which of course is always nice.”
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Six people have died in the collapse of a gold mine in Zimbabwe, and 15 others are still trapped underground, according to state media reports.
State-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation quoted deputy mines minister Polite Kambamura as saying 34 miners had been caught in Friday’s collapse. Thirteen managed to escape.
The broadcaster on Saturday said rescue operations were underway at Beyhose mine in the gold rich town of Chegutu, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the capital, Harare.
The police and the mines ministry could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Incidents of mine collapses, often involving artisanal miners, are rampant in the southern African country that is rich in gold, coal and diamonds. The country of 15 million people also has Africa’s largest reserves of lithium, a mineral in global demand due to its use in electric car batteries.
Zimbabwe’s mineral-rich national parks, abandoned mines, rivers and even towns are often swarmed with people, including young children, seeking to find valuable deposits — it is one of the few economic activities still going on in a country that has suffered industry closures, a currency crisis and rampant unemployment over the past two decades.
Critics blame economic mismanagement and corruption for the collapse of a once-thriving economy and one of Africa’s bright spots. The government points to two decades of sanctions imposed by the United States over allegations of human rights violations.
Zimbabwe’s incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared the winner in the country’s presidential elections on Saturday after securing an absolute majority in a tense presidential contest that was marred by delays.
“The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has announced the 2023 presidential election results. His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared the winner with 2,350,711 votes, consisting 52.6% of the vote, followed by Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party who scored 1,906,734, which is 44% of the vote,” Zimbabwe’s Information Ministry tweeted on Saturday.
The 80-year-old’s victory extends the Zanu-PF’s decades-long stranglehold on Zimbabwe’s politics, having been the dominant party in the country since it gained independence from Britain in 1980.
Chamisa, 45, had been upbeat about victory, and has now rejected the results announced by the electoral body. It’s not immediately known if he will mount a legal challenge.
His party earlier decried the late deployment of voting materials that triggered widespread voting delays and also cited some alleged irregularities in the voting process.
In a statement on Wednesday, the CCC said some of its candidates were omitted from the ballot papers, which in some cases, it added, were printed with the photos of the ruling party’s candidates on CCC’s rolls.
The electoral commission did not respond to those allegations.
Voting continued for a second day in parts of Zimbabwe where polling started behind schedule on Wednesday. A presidential decree extended voting until Thursday in three provinces, including the capital Harare where Chamisa’s party enjoys popular support.
Observers commended the peaceful conduct of the polls but said the election process fell short of many regional and international standards.
The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) said in a preliminary report released on Friday that “fundamental freedoms were increasingly curtailed” during the elections, adding that “acts of violence and intimidation” resulting in a “climate of fear” were also witnessed during the polls.
Around 40 election monitors were arrested by Zimbabwe’s police Thursday for allegedly co-ordinating the release of results ahead of the final tally of the ballots.
Human rights group Amnesty International said the arrests occurred “after the Zimbabwe NGO Forum released a report detailing irregularities that they had observed on election day.”
This was the second election in Zimbabwe since authoritarian leader Robert Mugabe was deposed by the military in 2017.
Mnangagwa, nicknamed “The Crocodile,” succeeded Mugabe after helping to orchestrate the coup that ousted him. He retained his grip on power the following year when he beat Chamisa in a hotly contested presidential vote.
In that election, in 2018, Mnangagwa won 51% of the total ballots, while Chamisa took 44%. The results were disputed by Chamisa, who described the election as “fraudulent and illegal” and mounted a legal challenge. However, Mnangagwa was sworn in after Zimbabwe’s constitutional court upheld his victory.
Analysts said the outcome of the latest election was easier to predict. “I’m not sure that it will be a game-changing election,” said Eldred Masunungure, an expert in politics and governance at the University of Zimbabwe. “I don’t see any signals or any indications that it is a watershed election,” he told CNN ahead of the Wednesday polls.
Mnangagwa’s Zanu-PF party also told CNN it expected to win by a landslide. “We are going to wallop the opposition,” its national spokesperson Chris Mutsvangwa said in the buildup to the election.
“It will be a landslide against the opposition,” he added.
The recently appointed Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Normalisation Committee (NC) has got its tenure off the wrong foot, barely a month into office.
The Committee was appointed last month by FIFA, tasked to temporarily run football affairs in Zimbabwe after the country’s readmission from the FIFA family.
Zimbabwe was in the football wilderness after they were banned by FIFA owing to third-party interference emanating from the government’s suspension of the ZIFA board.
The Lincoln Mutasa-led team composed of Sikhumbuzo Ndebele, Rosemary Mugadza and Nyasha Sanyamandwe, is taking ‘dire decisions’ in its effort to normalise the country’s football situation after a turbulent period.
Since its appointment in mid-July, the committee has snubbed ZIFA offices, working from an isolated place in the central business district while the ZIFA secretariat is still based at the association’s offices at 53 Livingstone Avenue in Harare without water, wifi & operational funds.
According to information gleaned by NewZimbabwe.com the committee has moved into offices located in Harare’s CBD.
Furthermore, the offices are gobbling up exorbitant rental fees a month. The premise is reportedly owned by businessman Shingi Mutasa, believed to be Mutasa’s relative.
The Normalisation Committee was tasked to oversee the running of football in the country until next year when substantive elections are expected to be held.
If elected, Joe Biden would be 82 on inauguration day in 2025, and 86 on leaving the White House in January 2029.
POLITICO took a look around the globe and back through history to meet some other elected world leaders who continued well into their octogenarian years, at a time when most people have settled for their dressing gown and slippers, some light gardening, and complaining about young people.
Here are seven of the oldest — and yes, they’re all men.
Paul Biya
President of Cameroon Paul Biya | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The world’s oldest serving leader, Cameroon’s president has been in power since 1982, winning his (latest) reelection at the age of 85 with a North Korea-esque 71.28 percent of the vote.
Spanning more than four decades and seven consecutive terms — in 2008, a constitutional reform lifted term limits — Biya’s largely undisputed reign has not come without controversy.
His opponents have regularlyaccused him of election fraud, claiming he successfully built a state apparatus designed to keep him in power.
Notorious for his lavish trips to a plush palace on the banks of Lake Geneva, which he’s visited more than 50 times, Biya keeps stretching the limits of retirement. Although he has not formally announced a bid for the next presidential elections in 2025, his party has called on him to run again in spite of his declining health.
Last February, celebrations were organized throughout the country for the president’s 90th birthday. According to the government, young people spontaneously came out on the streets to show their love for Biya.
Konrad Adenauer
Former Chancellor of West Germany Konrad Adenauer | Keystone/Getty Images
West Germany’s iconic first chancellor was elected for his inaugural term at the tender age of 73, but competed and won a third and final term at the age of 85.
In his 14-year chancellorship (1949-1963), Adenauer shaped Germany’s postwar years with a strong focus on integrating the young democracy into the West. Big milestones such as the integration of Germany into the European Economic Community and joining the NATO alliance just a few years after World War II happened under his leadership.
If his nickname “der Alte” (“the old man”) is one day bestowed upon Biden, the U.S. president would share it with a true friend of America.
Ali Khamenei
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei | AFP via Getty Images
84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the last word on all strategic issues in Iran, and his rule has been marked by murderous brutality against opponents.
That violence has only escalated in recent years, with mass arrests and the imposition of the death penalty against those protesting his dictatorial rule. A mere middle-ranking cleric in the 1980s, few expected Khamenei to succeed Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, and he took the top job in hurried, constitutionally dubious circumstances in 1989.
A pipe-smoker and player of the tar, a traditional stringed instrument, he was president during the attritional Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and survived a bomb attack against him in 1981 that crippled his arm.
Thankfully for Khamenei, he doesn’t have the stress of facing elections to wear him down.
Robert Mugabe
President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe | Michael Nagle/Getty Images
You’ve heard the saying “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” — well, here’s a classic case study.
Robert Mugabe’s political career reached soaring heights before crashing to depressing lows, during his nearly four decades ruling over Zimbabwe. He came to power as a champion of the anti-colonial struggle, but his rule descended into authoritarianism — while he oversaw the collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy and society.
Though Mugabe’s final election win was marred by allegations of vote-rigging and intimidation, the longtime leader chalked up a thumping, landslide victory in 2013, aged 89.
He was finally, permanently, removed as leader well into his nineties, during a coup d’etat in 2017. He died two years later.
Giorgio Napolitano
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano | Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images
The former Italian president took his largely symbolic role to new heights when, aged 86, he successfully steered the country through a perilous transition of power in 2011 — closing that particular chapter of Silvio Berlusconi’s story.
Operating mostly behind the scenes, Napolitano saw five PMs come and go during his eight-and-a-half years in office, at a time when Italian politics were rife with instability (but hey, what’s new?).
Reelected against his will in 2013 at 87 — he had wanted to step down, but gave in after a visit from party leaders desperate to put Italy’s political landscape back on an even keel — Napolitano won the nickname “Re Giorgio” (King George) for his statesmanship.
When he resigned two years later, he said: “Here [in the presidential palace], it’s all very beautiful, but it’s a bit like jail. At home, I’ll be ok, I can go out for a walk.”
Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“It has been a very good day,” Javier Solana, the then European Union foreign policy chief, exclaimed when Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005.
As a tireless advocate of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Abbas has enjoyed strong backing from the international community.
But three EU policy chiefs later and with lasting peace no closer, Abbas is still in power, despite most polls showing that Palestinians want him to step aside.
His solution for political survival: No presidential elections have been held in the Palestinian Territories since that historic ballot in 2005, with the Palestinian leadership blaming either Israel or the prospect of rising Hamas influence for the postponement of elections.
While Abbas seems to have found a solution for political survival, the physical survival of the 87-year-old chain smoker is now being called into question.
William Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone | Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Queen Victoria reportedly described Gladstone as a “half-mad firebrand” — and you’d have to be to chase a fourth term as prime minister aged 82.
At that point Gladstone had already outlived Britain’s life expectancy at the time by decades.
During his career, Gladstone expanded the vote for men — but failed to pass a system of home rule in Ireland, and he was slammed for alleged inaction to help British soldiers who were slaughtered in the Siege of Khartoum.
Gladstone was Britain’s oldest-ever prime minister when he eventually stepped down at 84 — and no one has beaten that record since. Similarly, no one has served more than his four (nonconsecutive) terms.
But should the Tories remain addicted to chaos, who’d bet against Boris Johnson starting his fifth stint as PM in 2049?
Ali Walker and Christian Oliver contributed reporting.
The death of football legend Pelé has saddened millions of football fans. Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, the Brazilian star has touched hearts and captivated minds across the world. In Africa, he has been celebrated not only for his football mastery but also as a symbol of Black excellence and representation.
For me, Pelé has been a source of indescribable joy and inspiration.
I was born into a world cruelly short of memorable Black stories and universally acclaimed Black heroes, a planet decimated by the violent political and economic power of white supremacy.
Whether it was politics, science, business or sport, whiteness had permeated every conceivable aspect of society and systematically shunted Black people to the fringes of human existence.
White people – we were told – were the best scientists, the best business managers, the best athletes. They were the models to emulate and look up to.
But we knew this was wrong. And we admired Black superstars like Pelé and Muhammad Ali and Black revolutionaries leading the African and Black liberation movements that were sweeping through the African continent and North America.
Growing up in what then was known as Salisbury, Rhodesia (today’s Harare), a bastion of settler colonialism, I was keenly aware of the “racial segregation” of heroes.
My heroes – freedom fighters – were described as “terrorists”. African nationalists like Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe were imprisoned by the white settler regime, after agitating for democracy, civil rights and equality for all races.
My own uncle, Moses, had joined the liberation movement as a teenager and underwent military training in Mozambique and Yugoslavia. After he left, for years, we didn’t even know if he was alive. He only came back after we were finally liberated and Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980.
Black people in sports who I looked up to were also disparaged and insulted. Pelé had a string of derogatory nicknames that he was called, while Muhammad Ali was once referred to as a “disgrace to his country” and a “fool”.
So my heroes weren’t celebrated in the spacious and well-developed areas of Salisbury that were occupied by largely wealthy and privileged white people, or for that matter, in mostly densely populated and impoverished Black communities.
For fear of deadly reprisals from government soldiers, sympathisers and spies, people only ever spoke about their unsung heroes at home and mostly in hushed tones. Rhodesian security forces regularly murdered Black people for supposedly collaborating with freedom fighters or breaching nighttime curfews.
Elsewhere, the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa and the violent crackdown on the 1967 uprising in the US city of Detroit also demonstrated how the white world brutally resisted Black struggles for socioeconomic parity and political independence.
Amid this violence and fear, Black superstars like Pelé were giving us a flicker of hope. They defied the condescending stereotypes and stifling challenges that white supremacists foisted on us – on Black people everywhere.
Granted, Pelé wasn’t the first Black athlete to achieve tremendous success in a global sport or competition, he was the first Black man to make it to the pinnacle of football, a sport that the mostly poor people in Africa and the African diaspora loved to bits.
My hometown, a sprawling high-density suburb named Kambuzuma, remained far removed from the exploits of outstanding Black athletes like American basketball star Bill Russell, the 11-time NBA champion.
When I was young, I didn’t know about baseball legend Jackie Robinson or tennis star Althea Gibson, the first African American woman to compete in a professional tennis tour and win a Grand Slam title.
I adored Pelé, partly because football, unlike tennis, basketball and baseball, was an incredibly accessible sport.
Equipped with a “chikweshe”, a homemade plastic ball, my friends and I would often play football on bumpy makeshift pitches demarcated by sticks and stones.
Still, my admiration for Pelé wasn’t just about football.
Long before I was old enough to appreciate his countless achievements and confidently place him atop the pantheon of all-time football greats, the Brazilian football star was firmly embedded in Africa’s socio-political and cultural awakening. Alongside Muhammad Ali, he existed as a towering and indelible symbol of Black pride.
Pelé’s story helped to inspire devotion to Black identity at a critical time in African and my country’s history. For a people severely traumatised by oppression and economic dispossession, his unequalled success lent us the freedom to take delight in endless possibilities for our future.
Later, pundits and fans alike would intermittently debate whether he was the greatest footballer in history, ahead of Argentinian maestros Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi – or Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
Others would question whether he really scored over 1000 goals, making it into the Guinness World Records.
Johan Cruyff, the Dutch star who won the prestigious Ballon d’Or football award three times, would disagree with such superfluous arguments about my hero.
“Pelé was the only footballer who surpassed the boundaries of logic,” he said.
One day, I believe, somebody may well top Pelé’s accomplishments. But no footballer can ever claim to have exemplified the hopes and dreams of Africans in colonial times – the long, difficult and bloody years when we desperately wanted to see and appreciate a supreme manifestation of Black identity.
Today, first and foremost, Pelé must be remembered as an extraordinary human being, a Black man who exceeded all expectations in a world shaped and devastated by the legacies of slavery and white supremacy.
He may be gone, but the spirit of Black excellence he embodied will persevere forever.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Highlights of the World Cup and other sports events are on widescreen televisions in Ruwa on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. But all eyes are on the pool table … and the money.
Among them is 18-year-old Levite Chisakarire.
“I have to take the cash home … there is big money today,” he said, holding a pool stick and awaiting his next opponent.
At stake is a $150 first prize, a princely sum in a country where the majority earn slightly over $100 a month, according to official government figures, and about half of the 15 million population live in extreme poverty, according to the World Food Program.
“It can go a long way to pay the bills,” said the boyish Chisakarire, the youngest player vying for the day’s prize.
Previously a minority sport played in Zimbabwe’s wealthier neighborhoods, pool has increased in popularity over the years, first as a pastime and now as a survival mode for many in a country where full-time jobs are very hard to come by.
Unable to further his education after finishing high school with low grades in 2019, Chisakarire struggled to find a job in Zimbabwe’s stressed industries. The outbreak of COVID-19 meant his father, a truck driver, lost regular work. So Chisakarire began hanging around an illegal tavern where patrons dodged or bribed police to overlook pandemic restrictions so they could drink beer and play pool.
His hobby became a skill and he showed a talent for shooting the round balls into the pockets. Soon it helped solve his financial problems as he began betting on his games and winning. These days he earns about $300 on a good month by playing pool, he says.
He’s not the only one. The majority of Zimbabweans earn a living from informal activities, which include selling tomatoes at roadside stands and also by playing pool, according to an October labor survey by the country’s statistics agency. About half of young people aged between 15 and 34 are unemployed and not engaged in education or training.
Some, such as Chisakarire, are finding a livelihood at pool tables.
“Pool became popular as a form of entertainment in bars, but it is now proving to be more popular than soccer in many places,” said Michael Kariati, a veteran Zimbabwean sports journalist for over 30 years. “It has evolved into a fiercely competitive sport with people placing bets and surviving off it.”
In Harare alone, the number of professional players has quadrupled to about 800 in the past five years, according to Keith Goto, spokesman of the Harare Professional Pool Association.
“Then there are the money games that have grown exponentially. You find pool tables everywhere you go in the townships,” he said. “It is offering a form of employment and it is paying through betting.”
Others warn that betting is a dangerous habit that can have disastrous impacts on families. But with so many people out of work and Zimbabwe’s economic outlook so dire, many people are desperately scrambling to make money through a cue stick.
Makeshift pool arcades flourish in bars, verandas in front of shops, and just about any open space. Some enterprising residents have pool tables at their homes where they charge people 50 cents to play and place bets in violation of city laws that require such enterprises to be properly licensed. The tables are often worn and wobbly, but people don’t seem to care.
In Warren Park, a Harare township, people ignored the country’s biggest local soccer derby at the country’s biggest stadium nearby to congregate around pool tables where money changed hands fast.
For quick money, betting takes ingenious means. Instead of playing the entire 8-ball game, some bet on the position of the black eight-ball after the first shot of the game, also called the break. Others punt on the best of three balls. One expert player offered to play using only one hand because people were too hesitant to bet against him.
Authorities sometimes carry out so-called clean-up operations to confiscate pool tables scattered all over. Often enforcers of city by-laws are simply paid off with as little as a $2 bribe to look the other way. Most punters in low-income townships place dollar bets on games in which they can win $3 or $4.
In Ruwa, competition is more organized and stakes are higher. Each club member paid $10 as a participation fee, which went toward the prize money. On a recent day, 31 players paid to participate. Dozens more were spectators, cheering and betting on their favorite players.
“Imagine taking home $150! That’s more than what many gainfully employed people get per month,” said Goto, the spokesman. “Pool should now move from bars to schools and community halls like other sports, it has become mainstream after all.”
For Chisakarire, the 18-year-old, pool has become more than a game. From playing and betting in backyard taverns, he is dreaming bigger.
“It has changed my life,” he said, before sinking his next ball to win the tournament and pocket $150. “I can see myself playing in Europe one day.”
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Electricity shortages that have been plaguing Zimbabwe are set to worsen after an authority that manages the country’s biggest dam said water levels are now too low to continue power generation activities.
The Zambezi River Authority, which runs the Kariba Dam jointly owned by Zimbabwe and neighboring Zambia, said in a letter dated Nov. 25 that water levels are at a record low and electricity generation must stop.
The Kariba South Hydro Power Station provides Zimbabwe with about 70% of its electricity and has been producing significantly less than its capacity of 1,050 megawatts in recent years due to receding water levels caused by droughts. The Kariba plant has been generating 572 megawatts of the 782 megawatts of electricity produced in the country, according to the website of the state-run power firm, Zimbabwe Power Company.
The dam “no longer has any usable water to continue undertaking power generation operations,” said the authority’s chief executive officer, Munyaradzi Munodawafa, in a letter to the Zimbabwe Power Company. The authority “is left with no choice” except to “wholly suspend” power generation activities pending a review in January when water levels are expected to have improved, said Munodawafa in the letter seen by The Associated Press and widely reported in local media.
The authority has been reporting low levels of water at Kariba Dam during this period preceding the rainy season in recent years, but not enough to shut down power generation activities.
Coal fired power stations that also provide some electricity are unreliable due to aging infrastructure that constantly breaks down, while the country’s solar potential is yet to be fully developed to meaningfully augment supply. Households and industries have been going for hours, and at times days, without electricity due to shortages in recent months.
The State-run Herald newspaper reported on Monday that an ongoing expansion of a major coal-fired power station, Hwange, could help plug the shortages exacerbated by the Kariba plant shutdown if it goes live by year-end as scheduled.
This is an opinion editorial by Alexandria, a citizen of Zimbabwe and a second year business administration student at Liaoning Shuhua University in China.
Have The Majority Of Africans Ever Had Access To Wealth Like Bitcoin?
If the question were to be posed, “Do many people in Africa have shares in Google, Amazon or Microsoft?” or “Have many people, from Africa, built wealth from any of the above listed public companies?” The answer, for the majority of individuals in Africa, would be a resounding “No.”
The main reason why a lot of Africans are not able to participate in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is that one has to have banking interoperable with American systems. Within this American system, individuals operate and deal with either American brokers or American banks that are all part of an exclusive and impenetrable closed monetary network. These financial institutions and organs almost always require sizable amounts of money from foreigners for the minimum account opening deposits or balances.
In recent years another crippling stipulation posed to non-American applicants is that their country of citizenry must presently have good bilateral relations with the United States of America. If, like myself, you were born in a sanctioned country, you will suffer from unilateral illegal sanctions imposed by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) which will block any access to the NYSE and many other Financial markets and services.
“I was born in 1930 the odds were probably 40/1 against me being born in the United States. I did win the ovarian lottery on that first day and on top of that I was male and if I’d been female my life would have been far different. So put that down as 50/50 shot and the out of the odds are 80/1 against being born a male in the United States and it was enormously important in my whole life.” — Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett states that it was enormously important that he was born in the USA. This is true because if you were to Google search Warren Buffett’s annual report you would see that his returns, over the last 57 years, averaged 20% returns on compound interest alone. This resulted in Warren Buffett achieving a compounded 3,641,613% return on his investments.
Warren Buffet demonstrates the numerical importance of accessibility and the importance of participation in financial markets, especially markets as liquid as the NYSE. This, for the most part, excludes Africans.
Accessibility To Wealth Through Credit For Africans And African Americans
The Great Depression may have started because of a stock market crash, but what hit the general economy was a disruption of credit — every citizen was unable to borrow money, rendering them incapable of doing anything. Credit has the ability to build a modern economy, but lack of credit has the ability to destroy them, swiftly and absolutely.
Let’s start off with the subject of discrimination that has lead to part of the impoverishment of my people.
African American Access To Credit:
Redlining: The term came about when the government created color-coded maps that told banks where they could give out housing loans. Green sections were a go ahead and red sections populated by black people were deemed too risky. Redlining blocked off entire black neighborhoods from access to public and private investment. Banks and insurance companies used these maps for decades to deny black people access to loans and other services based purely on race. Home ownership is the primary driver of wealth but African Americans in their neighborhoods paid higher insurance premiums, higher interest rates and were denied mortgages more often.
“You can’t get a loan, you can’t own a home, you can’t start a business. Which means you can’t build wealth. You’re excluded from the American dream. Why is it so important to you to exclude an entire race of people from the American dream?” — Anthony Mackie in, “The Banker”
African Access To Credit:
In 1930 the land apportionment in Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe) made it illegal for native Africans to purchase land outside of the established native lands. The native African population was above 1 million while that of the Europeans was less than 50,000. That put the European population at only 5% of the population yet they had more than 51% of the land while 95% of the population only got 28% of the dry rocky lands which were called “reserves.”
In 1980 Zimbabwe became independent, after a long war. They then began negotiations for a settlement at the end of the war which led to an agreement termed The Lancaster House Agreement. The Lancaster House Agreement stated that the new government could not draft legislation to compulsorily take land for the next 10 years. The only way landless black people could be resettled is if they were to buy from whites that wanted to sell. Only a few white farmers did sell. Up until the 1990s less than one million hectares of land was given up for resettlement only.
“Only 19% of the almost 3.5 million hectares of resettled land was considered prime or farmable. 75% of the best land was still about 4500 white farmers.” — Human Rights Watch
In 2000 land reform programs began, white farmers were forcefully displaced from farms and were replaced by new black farmers. This was a massive deal internationally and historically. It had never been attempted before. Zimbabwe also challenged imperialistic powers by joining the fight for an apartheid-free in South Africa. Zimbabwe also joined the fight against imperialism in The Congo. So in 2001 the United States of America reacted by enacting two types of sanctions.
The first were Congestional Sanctions: ZIDERA , Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act Stops Zimbabweans from getting loans from multilateral lending institutions. Especially restructure and development loans.
The second are Executive Order sanctions. America has tried to call it targeted sanctions but when you look at the list of targeted sanctions you see a prohibition for any company in the world to do business with Zimbabwe. Otherwise those companies will be penalized or face jail sentences according to the International Economic Emergency Powers Act.
These were unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States of America. These unilateral sanctions were only possible because the United States currency dominates the world’s payment systems and a major portion of the world’s global business is done in America. So anybody that wants to do business often has to do it with America and has to cooperate with America. They need to have a bilateral agreement and relationship with America. Yet these bilateral relationships are the ones that America uses to enforce its sanctions or what we call the executive order Sanctions and these ensure that other countries across the world implement those sanctions or suffer secondary sanctions.
Executive order sanctions actually state that if a country or company assists the government of Zimbabwe with software, finance, logistics, machinery, equipment in trade that company can also face sanctions because the Americas are trying to make the sanctions effective. However, those who place international sanctions argue that our sanctions are actually self imposed sanctions due to the fact that even before the ZIDERA sanctions of 2001 — in 1999 Zimbabwe failed to pay its debts to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank which meant that Zimbabwe was banned from access to credit from these two multilateral institutions. Then again there is a misconception that sanctions in Zimbabwe did not start in 2001 but rather actually started in 1980 when we got independence. At independence Zimbabwe was left with Rhodesia’s debt. Additionally Zimbabweans were not given reparations for the destruction made by the Rhodesians that cost the nation over a trillion dollars.
Another Case Of Self-Imposed Sanctions
In Zimbabwe the interest rate is 30% per month. In only four months the interest paid on the loan would be more than the principal. This is because Zimbabwe’s interest rates have to continuously be re-adjusted in order to compensate for the hyperinflation which peaked at a whopping 600%. In addition — Zimbabwe does not have a sovereign credit rating from the three international credit rating agencies. The government has not yet solicited a rating from the big three rating agencies. It is among the African countries that are yet to request an international sovereign rating. A favorable rating enables governments and companies to raise capital in the international financial market. Institutional investors in both the developed and developing world rely heavily on rating agencies in making investment decisions.
Being unrated makes it harder for the government to get funds for big debt projects or to get debt relief. It makes it harder for entrepreneurs who are struggling to grow their businesses due to lack of funding. Individuals who lack funding cannot get a mortgage and hence cannot own a home of their own. The end result is that under these circumstances one cannot build wealth.
Can Bitcoin Finally Grant Africans Fair And Free Access To Wealth?
For centuries, Africans and African Americans have suffered from severe discriminatory policies in regards to access to credit through redlining and sanctions which both prohibited credit or increased the cost of credit. The innovation of Bitcoin was imperative for Africa and African Americans as it allowed anyone on earth access to it, and this time it includes Africans. It is not a surprise at all that Sub-Saharan Africa is leading in Bitcoin adoption.
This time Africans and African-Americans don’t have to worry about discrimination. Thanks largely to the innovation of DeFi on bitcoin, this is the long awaited-for innovation and crucial step in Bitcoin scalability and utility in Africa.
T20 World Cup: India will face Zimbabwe in the last game of Super 12 today at Australia’s Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). If India wins, they will take the lead in Group 2. Team India has already qualified for the semifinals as South Africa, which was at the second spot with 5 points, has been knocked out of the T20 World Cup.
South Africa lost to the Netherlands by 13 runs on Sunday.
So even if India loses against Zimbabwe, the Men in Blue will still play in the semifinal.
India have won three of their four games to date, and currently leading Group 2 of the Super 12 standings. With a victory today, the Men in Blue will advance to the semifinals. The temperature is predicted to be around 23°C, and the pitch for today’s match should provide a good balance between bat and ball.
The Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology predicts a 50% chance of rain in Melbourne’s northern and northeastern suburbs, which are close to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), where the game will be played.
Star Sports will be the official broadcaster of the T20 World Cup in India in 2022. It will show live coverage of the IND-ZIM game. Fans with Disney+ Hotstar subscriptions will be able to watch the matches live. The toss will take place at 1 PM, and the match will begin at 1:30 PM.
Indian team includes KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma(c), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant.
Zimbabwe’s squad includes Wesley Madhevere, Craig Ervine(c), Regis Chakabva(w), Sean Williams, Sikandar Raza, Milton Shumba, Ryan Burl, Luke Jongwe, Richard Ngarava, Tendai Chatara, Blessing Muzarabani, Wellington Masakadza, Tony Munyonga, Brad Evans, Clive Madande.
Pakistani actor Sehar Shinwari has said that if Zimbabwe beats India in the upcoming T20 match, she will marry a Zimbabwean guy. The actor took to Twitter and talked about the two teams which will come face-to-face on Sunday, November 6.
Shinwari was constantly wishing that India loses the match against Bangladesh. Twitter users have been trolling her for the latest post where she claims to marry a Zimbabwean guy.
Her tweet stating, “I’ll marry a Zimbabwean guy, if their team miraculously beats India in next match,” has more than 3,320 likes and has been retweeted 202 times.
I’ll marry a Zimbabwean guy, if their team miraculously beats India in next match 🙂
In last week’s Pakistan-Zimbabwe match, the Pakistan team had lost by one run. The defeat has put Pakistan team in danger of getting out from the Twenty20 World Cup.
India hasn’t yet qualified for the semi-finals and hence all eyes are now on its match against Zimbabwe at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. India is currently at top of the table with 6 points from its four matches.
For Pakistan to maintain its spot in the tournament, it has to win Thursday’s match against South Africa followed by a win against Bangladesh on November 6. For things to go in Pakistan’s favour, South Africa must also lose their match against the Netherlands. Without this, Pakistan won’t be able to qualify for the T20 World Cup semis.
Hwange, Zimbabwe – Ten-year-old Simba Mulezu was driving cattle home from his mother’s corn fields when the ground gave way under his feet, plunging him into burning coal underground.
The incident left him with permanently deformed limbs.
“I spent several months in hospital and Hwange Colliery Company did not assist me with hospital bills and other necessities,” Mulezu, now 22, told Al Jazeera. “[Only] my parents and relatives have stood by me.”
Coal fires have become a major issue over the past five years in Hwange, occurring regularly in various areas of the mining town. One blaze has been burning underground for 15 years.
In late 2021, an eight-year old girl who was relieving herself in a nearby bush area was swallowed by the ground and fell into a coal seam fire. She later died from her wounds at a hospital.
Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) is based in Hwange in southwestern Zimbabwe. Residents of the town, with a population of about 40,000, are living in fear as the company has failed to fence off coal sites and take measures to put out the blazes.
Greater Whange Residents Trust (GWRT) Coordinator Fidelis Chima said underground and surface fires killed two children in recent years and injured more than a dozen people. He accused the company of not taking the threat seriously.
“Hwange Colliery Company appears incapacitated to decisively deal with underground fires. It’s sad that Hwange Colliery makes it difficult to be accountable for residents who reside in the concession area, as it has a tendency of evicting people who seek to make it accountable,” Chima said.
Across the globe, hundreds of fires burn low and slow on dirty fuel beneath the earth, some smouldering for decades, according to Global Forest Watch, an open-source monitor.
“These fires are known as coal seam fires. They occur underground when a layer of coal in the Earth’s crust is ignited. Due to the out-of-sight nature of the fires, they are often hard to detect at first, and even harder to extinguish,” Global Forest Watch said.
Hwange residents complain that Hwange Colliery Company has neglected their safety for years and they now live in fear, especially for their children who cannot read warning signs.
With a lack of proper security measures at coal dumping sites, children have been the majority of the victims, sustaining life-threatening injuries or deformities.
“The company engaged tribal elders of Madumabisa to do awareness campaigns on coal fires. But for more than 15 years since the fire started threatening people from underground, I don’t know whether our community is safe or not,” said Cosmas Nyoni, a local councillor.
Another Hwange official, Lovemore Ncube, said the company has added signage around areas with underground fires to warn people but children are still dying or being maimed.
“Late last year we had an eight-year-old girl who was burnt and later on died due to the burns. I am told HCCL hired a German company that will try to quench the fire. It has barricaded the area through signage,” Ncube said.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Hwange Colliery Company Corporate Affairs Manager Beauty Mutombe defended the company, describing the victims as trespassers.
“People are trespassing to those areas which have clear signs. People steal the fence and enter the company’s private property,” Mutombe said, adding HCCL has engaged the services of German company DMT Group to attend to the coal fires.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando visited a site where a road was ripped apart by the coal fires and promised that Hwange Colliery Company was putting in place measures to deal with the problem.
“Having these international experts shows the extent of the commitment. They have said they will need up until the end of March to finish their work. Government takes this issue seriously and decisive work will be taken to address the problem once and for all,” said Chitando.
DMT said in a January statement that a report on the “extinguishing strategy” would be presented to HCCL’s management and the government in March. However, that report has not been received, according to Mutombe.
“DMT was not to submit the report by the end of March but make its conclusions and then submit the report thereafter. The report is not yet available. It will be made public when out,” said Mutombe.
