Zimbabwe’s economy has all but collapsed, leaving it’s currency worth far less than the paper it’s printed on. The hyperinflation is now estimated at over a quintillion percent, although no one really knows.
Most Zimbabweans are switching to barter and the Zim dollar is virtually useless. The South African rand and the US dollar are now the most common forms of currency. For the many who are unable to access forex, this means they will be unable to survive. Purses and wallets have become redundant; people are now using shopping bags, suitcases, sacks and other large containers to carry cash.
Bank tellers are hidden from view by huge piles of the increasingly worthless currency. Nearly all businesses have stopped accepting cheques for payment – creating an absolute nightmare for everyone, because of the absurd cash withdrawal limits at the banks.
All these because one 80-year-old one greedy dictator and his parasite cronies what to loot the country a few more years. Meles Zenawi & Co. are doing the same thing to Ethiopia.
By Sylvia Manika, Carole Gombakomba & Irwin Chifera – VOA
HARARE – Cholera is spreading in Harare and outlying areas, independent health sources said on Wednesday, with the death toll from the epidemic rising to at least 100 with the country’s virtually collapsed health care system hard put to cope with the outbreaks.
Experts warned that until the causes of the cholera outbreak are addressed, in particular the lack of safe drinking water and deterioration of sanitation systems, the epidemic will continue, claiming more lives.
A nurse at a Harare hospital speaking on condition of anonymity said her institution was without rehydration fluids for two days until a consignment of about 100 drips from the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, arrived on Wednesday.
Correspondent Sylvia Manika reported from Harare.
Dr. Douglas Gwatidzo, chairman of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that with the disease on the rise the Harare region and drugs in short supply, the death toll could mount.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s justice system has become the latest victim of the water shortages that have beset the capital for months: the Harare High Court suspended sittings due to a lack of water at its offices in Samora Machel Avenue, a main thoroughfare.
Members of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights were turned away as they tried to file an urgent chamber application for the release of opposition activists.
Communications Officer Kumbirai Mafunda of the legal defense group expressed the concern that the closure was tantamount to denying justice
(Correspondent Irwin Chifera of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe reported.)
By Megan Baker | Cardinal Courier
St. John Fisher College
Rochester, New York
NEW YORK – Day of Celebration (DOC) is an annual Fisher event in which students get the opportunity to immerse themselves in a foreign culture.
This year, it is co-chaired by Iaen Nylund and Franz Wright, who were the recipients of the 2008 Excellus Diversity Scholarship, which recognizes student leaders who show initiatives that pertain to diversity.
DOC was founded by Arlette Miller Smith, the former dean of Multicultural Affairs and Diversity, and has focused on cultures ranging from Jamaican to Irish. This year it will be held on Saturday, Dec. 6 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Cleary Auditorium. The focal culture this year is Ethiopian.
“We will be celebrating Ethiopian culture by having various performers from the Ethiopian community like the Ethiopian Children’s Choir from the Rochester Ethiopian Orthodox Church,” Wright said. “With our focus on the Ethiopian culture, we will also celebrate other diverse cultures like the African American/Caribbean culture, Asian culture and Hispanic culture.”
Wright and Nylund have booked performers from both the Fisher community and the Rochester area.
“We have been making connections with many of the performers that we have had in the past as well as finding new ones,” Nylund said. “At first it was very challenging finding performers that would pertain to our cultural theme, but now things are starting to come through.”
Wright went on to say that he feels the performances planned for this year “will be the most exciting, extravagant, and diverse ever.”
Campus clubs Arts in Motion and Measure 13 will be among the performers.
Nylund urges students to come, as there will be a lot of free food, crafts and entertainment. Most importantly, it is a chance to experience a new culture.
“This year we have a culture that seems even more foreign for many people. I think it is special because people seem truly unaware of the Ethiopian culture and because of that it is all the more interesting,” Nylund said. “My goal is that people leave day of celebration with a little more knowledge about the world and it will help them stay open-minded.”
If anyone is interested in volunteering to help with DOC, meetings are held on Tuesdays during free period in Council of Presidents (COP) conference room three.
LONDON (AFP) — Two suspected Somali pirates were killed in an exchange of fire with the British navy, the defence ministry said on Wednesday.
The HMS Cumberland was conducting a routine NATO-led patrol in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday when it spotted a dhow which had been identified in an attempt to hijack a Danish vessel, the MV Powerful, earlier in the day.
The defence ministry said in a statement that the British ship had used “non-forcible methods” in an attempt to stop the dhow, and boats were then launched to circle and intercept the vessel.
“These boats were fired at from the dhow and the crews returned fire in self defence,” the statement said.
“Two foreign nationals, believed to be Somali pirates, were shot and killed in self defence.”
A Yemeni man was also found injured and later died, although the defence ministry said it was unclear whether he had sustained his injuries in the firefight “or in a previous incident involving the pirates”.
Piracy is rife in the region where Somalia’s northeastern tip juts into the Indian Ocean, on a key maritime route leading to the Suez Canal.
The pirates are equipped with speedboats and armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.
A Turkish-flagged tanker with a 14-man crew became the latest victim of the pirates when it was hijacked off Yemen on Wednesday, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Last month, a maritime watchdog said Somali pirates were responsible for nearly a third of all reported attacks on ships.
HMS Cumberland is the current British contribution to the NATO mission in the Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA), which provides security to shipping crossing the Gulf of Aden.
Metre-wide cracks in the ground suddenly split open, as red-hot rock and ash are thrown violently into the air amid searing temperatures. It’s like a vision of how the Earth behaved in prehistoric times. Except these events have happened within the last three years in Ethiopia’s Afar region. What’s more, a matter of days ago there was more extreme volcanic activity there, with reports of the country’s biggest eruption to date – and the largest recorded lava flow in scientific history.
Satellite images show that this latest volcanic explosion spewed out lava across a huge area of 300 sq km, a record of its kind according to researchers. The eruption of molten rock also prompted a minor earthquake – though there were no reported casualties or major damage in the remote area, many of whose inhabitants are nomadic people. The same couldn’t be said in 2005, when thousands were displaced by a catastrophic eruption that darkened the skies for days, while lava flows in 2007 forced further evacuations.
The Afar region is one of the hottest and harshest environments in the world. It’s renowned for Erta Ale, the name describing both the chain of volcanoes responsible for these geological disturbances and its most active individual peak. One of only four volcanoes on the planet with a lava lake bubbling at its summit, Mount Erta Ale’s crater is the popular image of a volcano – a bottomless cauldron of lava extending down into the Earth’s mantle.
Erta Ale crater close-up
Image: Herve Sthioul
Scientists are busy studying these ruptures in the Earth’s crust at Afar, which sits along the 3000 km-long East African Rift marked by mountain ranges dropping precipitously into deep-lying basins. The magma forcing its way up from thousands of kilometres beneath the surface here is gradually splitting the African continent in two. Be prepared to see more of this part of the world’s explosive nature.
A group of promising Kenyan athletes, Britain’s Mo Farah and Sweden’s Mustafa Mohammed will lead the foreign charge at next month’s Toyota Great Ethiopian Race.
Gilbert Yegon, who finished third in the half marathon race at the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon with 1:02:43, will team up with Raymond Tanui in the men’s race. Tanui won the Bath Half Marathon in 1:05:21 in March.
In the women’s race, Kenyans’ hopes rest on Valentine Kipketer and Joyce Kandia.
Kipketer finished fifth (17:50) over 5.35km in the Diekirch Eurocross, IAAF Cross Country Permit meeting in Luxemborg in February. She won the 15km women’s race during the Chepkoilel Cross-Country meeting a fortnight ago with 53:47.83 reading on the clock.
Kandia won the 2006 Belfast Marathon (2:43:11) and last month, she breezed to the tape in 34:30 to take the Baxters River Ness 10km in Scotland.
The Kenyan quartet will try to go one better than their compatriots Nathan Naibei and Lineth Chepkirui who recorded second-place finishes in the race in 2005 and 2006.
European Cup 5,000m champion, Farah, is training in Addis Ababa in preparation for the European Cross-Country Championships in Brussels.
Farah arrived in Addis at the end of October and plans to return to Britain at the end of November.
With Deriba Merga (fourth at the Beijing Olympics) and Tsegaye Kebede (Olympic Marathon bronze) as winners of the race in 2006 and last year, the event has become an important development race for upcoming Ethiopian athletes.
Medallist
More than 400 top club runners are expected to confirm their entry in the next 10 days, alongside the 32,000 entered.
Meanwhile, a busy season awaits athletes in the North Rift region as Athletics Kenya released a calendar of events for the branch, adds Joseph Ngure.
The branch meeting was chaired by national assistant secretary, Ibrahim Hussein. The season kicks off this weekend with the Tegla Loroupe 10km road race at Makutano Stadium, Kapenguria.
The Tuskys Wareng Cross-country will be held at Huruma open ground in Eldoret on November 30 and the Baringo Half-Marathon, sponsored by Safaricom, on December 6 in Kabarnet.
Shoe For Africa, a women’s exclusive event, will be held on December 20 in Iten with Eldoret hosting the sixth Kenya Commercial Bank/AK cross-country on January 10 at Kazi Mingi.
Other events: Discovery Kenya Cross-country on January 25 (Eldoret Sports Club), Discovery Kenya Half-marathon February 1 (Eldoret Town) and District Cross-country championships February 7.
