Desperate schoolgirls and children in rural Zimbabwe are selling sex – up to five “clients” a night – for as little as an empty Coca Cola bottle, redeemable at a local store for 10 US cents or so. According to the Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children (ZNCWC), 10 percent of sexual predators…

So Mr Mugabe was accused in some sections of society of looking “scruffy” the other day when he appeared at a regional economic summit in Mauritius wearing an open-neck white shirt. His office obliged by saying it was his Cuban shirt and he sometimes wore it to identify with the ideology of the Cuban revolution.…

An old friend gave me sound advice 40 years ago. When you get home to Zimbabwe, you must buy bricks and mortar, dear boy. John Worrall was a legendary Africa correspondent for the Financial Times newspaper in London who had wandered the length and breadth of the continent. But he never bought a property, living…

It is peculiarly southern African to have traffic lights we call ‘robots.’  But don’t get nostalgic for robots  here in Harare. Half of them don’t work and the police are too busy scamming money out of innocent drivers at roadblocks to actually do their job of controlling the traffic at intersections where the  ‘bots’ are…

Mr Mugabe went to pay his condolences to the family of Primrose Kurasha, the vice chancellor of the Zimbabwe Open University, at her home in the northern suburbs of Harare. Neighbours reported gaping potholes in the near vicinity were miraculously patched up a couple of hours before Mr Mugabe arrived at the house. Moreover, when…

First,  an outbreak of scurvy at the Ingutsheni psychiatric hospital in Bulawayo. Scurvy is caused by vitamin and dietary deficiencies and can make teeth fall out, along with fatigue, skin sores and much other unpleasantness. Way back in the 17th Century scurvy occurred among sailors on the galleons of the early explorers who later discovered…

People on the social networks are finding all sorts of symbolism – and satire – in the latest Time magazine Person of the Year cover I mentioned last time for its ‘M’ horns on his head. The chair resembles an antique Louis XV chair that reflects the ostentatious, cruel and selfish reigns of the French…

Well, well, well, what a sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in. Here we have US$100 issued by a bank in single, grimy one dollar notes – the only hard cash per customer available in these two bundles of 50×1.  We are once again in the record books for all the wrong reasons. The…