"Improbable" research looks at the trillion dollar basket

From the UKGuardian

The journal of improbable research usually reports on absurd things in science (for example, last week, a bra that turns into a gas mask won one of their prizes).

So this week's Improbable research column is about Zim's dollar:

Gideon Gono, author of the new book Zimbabwe's Casino Economy – Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges, displays a rare, perhaps unique, kind of scholarly reserve. He is a scholar with a PhD from Atlantic International University. The US-based institution, which has mostly distance-learning courses, proclaims on its website: "Atlantic international university is not accredited by an accrediting agency recognised by the United States secretary of education." And he has reserve, or rather Reserve, with a capital "R". Since December 2003, Gono has been the governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank.

Two weeks ago, Gono was awarded the 2009 Ig Nobel prize in mathematics. The Ig Nobel citation lauds him for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers – from very small to very big – by having his bank print banknotes with denominations ranging from one cent to 100 trillion dollars.

During 2007 and 2008, Zimbabwe's inflation rate rose past Olympian heights: topping 231m%, by Gono's reckoning; and reaching 89,700,000,000tr%, according to a study done by Dr Steve H Hanke of Johns Hopkins University and the Cato Institute...

Gono modestly shares the credit, writing on the very first page: "I am especially indebted to my principal, President Robert Mugabe."...".

The book is, at heart, a 232-page literary fleshing-out of an 18-word statement issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on 21 January 2008: "Blaming the government, the Reserve Bank or the governor all the time is unacceptable and will be met with serious consequences."

Mugabe's final throes

A Boston Globe editorial...
full of wishful thinking and naivite

AFTER STRIKING a power-sharing agreement with the opposition earlier this year, Zimbabwe's 85-year-old President Robert Mugabe and his thuggish cronies made a clumsy attempt this week to get around it. Mugabe's intent became obvious on Tuesday, when a judge revoked bail and ordered the re-arrest of 18 human rights and opposition activists who are facing trial on patently bogus charges of seeking to overthrow Mugabe and his kleptocratic colleagues.,,,

as an article cited below shows, the judge had no choice...the government reinstated the charge which did not allow the judge to go against the charges and the bail came because Mugabe intervened.

Human-rights groups such as Amnesty International acted as conscience of the international community when the revocation of bail was first announced....

Right. Big white brother was listened to, as if they had clout in all the previous human rights violations.

Equally forthright was the South African Municipal Workers Union, which implored the South African government to "condemn this chronic abuse of state power."

Ah, snobbish Boston Globe finally sees that good Africans are trying to get rid of Mugabe. Of course, the trade unions have been on the forefront of this, but it's nice to see someone recognizing it.

South Africa as well as other democracies should be no less forceful in demanding that Mugabe relinquish power peacefully.

Yes, if you guys all stand up and send him a nice letter saying pretty please with sugar on it, I'm sure Mugabe will resign.

Internet abuse by the diaspora

from the Zimbabwe Mail:

OPINION - There are some Zimbabweans in the Diaspora who are abusing the privilege of having easy and unlimited access to the internet.

The abuse is taking varying forms which include among others; the groundless slander through malicious postings on Zimbabwean news websites/articles, the launching and trading of scathing insults on undeserving Zimbabwean characters, the reproduction of unfounded rumors and also the making of false claims, such as even purporting to be or have been in love with certain personalities, such as female writers, protest singers, politicians, poets....



Attributes that are befitting to describe the perpetrators are; they are not only very shallow minded, but silly and stupid too. Would one be wrong to read through them, some kind of desperation and frustration too? Desperation to thwart the gradual flowing in of freedom in Zimbabwe? Freedom, which knows no gender, race, political affiliation.

When the perpetrators feature as men, to attack a female in her works, one can conclude that they are male chauvinists who are sadly so, still living by the old mentality and thinking that the woman's place is nowhere other than the kitchen, and also in the bathroom corner where she changes the diaper

Global court: The problem with trying to convict

From the CSMonitor:

Global court starts with a fumble. Warlord grins.

Witness recants testimony during start of Congo militialeader Thomas Lubanga's trial.

The Hague - The script was set for the first trial of the world's first permanent war crimes court this week:

Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo went after warlord Thomas Lubanga, charged with recruiting 30,000 child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, saying Mr. Lubanga's acts would "haunt a generation."

But 48 hours later, the prosecution's first witness, a child soldier, caused the entire court to gasp.

At first, the young soldier said he was snatched by Lubanga's militia on his way home from fifth-grade classes. The witness, now a teen, then threw the landmark case briefly into limbo when he recanted his testimony, denying that he'd ever been a child soldier taken to a military training camp, and that his testimony was prompted by an unnamed nongovernmental organization.

In the court, Lubanga, sitting behind the defense team in dark suit and tie, and in clear view of his alleged former child recruit, smiled....

The Lubanga case is the first for the ICC since it was formed in 2002. The idea for the court emerged after the relative success of war crimes tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, with experts hoping that stronger concepts of justice would serve as a soft-power deterrent against heinous acts and genocide....

Yes, and if I remember correctly, the guy behind the Yugoslavian massacres died of old age before his trial ended.

What should AFrican journalists do?

from the African Executive:

....

Whiles reason is adequately found in justifying the war on Zimbabwe by Western media, the thinking by some African journalists in this regard is very appalling. They lack understanding; they have no perspective and obviously no direction. They have joined the west in demonizing Mugabe and Zimbabwe. In fact, they even lack history. But this is just what happens when a purpose driven journalism is absent. At the inauguration of the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's maiden President, could not have struck much sense in his cautioning statement to journalists across the continent when he said:

“We are in a revolutionary period and we must have a revolutionary morality in journalism and all other walks of life. We cannot be neutral between the oppressor and the oppressed; the corrupter and the victim of corruption; between the exploiter and the exploited; between the betrayer and the betrayed. We do not believe that there are necessarily two sides to every question; we see right and wrong; just and unjust; progressive and reactionary; positive and negative; friend and foe. We are partisan!”...

translation: any S.O.B. who goes around shouting "revolution" can do anything but claim he is moral.

So just ignore those fleeing Zimbabwe, starving in Zimbabwe, terrorized in Zimbabwe, or dying of cholera in Zimbabwe.

After all, the NYTimes reporter Duranty managed to overlook 10 million starving Ukraininans because he supported Stalin's revolution, so why can't African reporters do the same?

ZRA says Thank you Mugabe

via Newsnet:


The President of Zimbabwe Religious Authority, Reverend Godwin Mwanza, says religious groups in the country extend their gratitude to the government for having offered land to many landless people.

Names and numbers not mentioned.

The President of Zimbabwe Religious Authority, Reverend Godwin Mwanza, says religious groups in the country extend their gratitude to the government for having offered land to many landless people.

Names please.

In a statement, Reverend Mwanza of Africa Blessed Church said a number of churches will gather in Epworth today to pray for the continued peace in the country, and hope that rains will encourage farmers to produce adequate food for the nation.

If they haven't died of cholera that is.

Reverend Mwanza also said he hopes that many Zimbabweans turn to God to avoid criminal activities as they destabilise the economy.

Yes, please don't commit any crimes, Mr. Mugabe, while you are busy destablizing the economy...

Zim Embassador speaks

Caution: open barf bag before viewing

Mugabe starts them young

the first post has an article about politicizing the young...the very young...

A recent meeting of Zanu-PF's governing body agreed to militarise and politicise the 21st February Movement, starting with pre-school toddlers. The programme, which will be compulsory for all children, is titled, with surprising frankness, 'Operation Catch Them Young'....

Plans include dressing even the smallest children in green uniforms and teaching them to march and chant Zanu-PF slogans. The aim is to have fanatical kids as young as four screaming their loyalty to Mugabe in unison....

This planned brainwashing of all our young people clearly has many purposes, but one purpose in particular the Politburo was happy to set down and spell out in the official minutes. "The President," it recorded, "should be President for Life."

Mugabe goes ape over bull

Go to link....reporter gets arrested for using foreign currancy...and met a man who stole from the beloved president of Zimbabwe...because he "borrowed" a prize bull donated by China to Mugabe and took it to his own farm to mate with his cows.

He ended up with four years in jail for cattle rustling, but when time came to be released, he stayed in jail...

The bull, however, is back home and happy.

Mugabe's role to liberate continent from self doubt

Mugabe is doing the right thing by giving back land to the owners. The argument that the people of Zimbabwe do not have the skills to run ranches and commercial farms is a non-starter.

In 20 or 30 years, Zimbabwe will have a generation of black Africans who will benefit from land ownership and will have acquired the necessary knowledge to manage the properties.

Africa needs more Mugabes so that the citizens can chart their own destiny without foreign interference. A free Zimbabwe, where the population charts its future without foreign domination, is all Mugabe wants.

He is a remnant of the struggle to emancipate the black man from self-doubt. Mugabe is a hero to all Africans who know that independence will never be complete without ownership of land.

Zimbabweans have an example to emulate — the Great Zimbabwe civilisation whose grandeur and architecture stunned Europeans. That was the work of African engineers. It is the same Zimbabwe, only that the people have lost their identity, courage and willpower to conquer socio-economic problems.

UK tries to stop Zim from chairing UN committee

Britain is engaged in a last-ditch effort to prevent Zimbabwe, whose development has been reversed by the policies of Robert Mugabe, from taking over as chairman of the UN Sustainable Development Commission.

Zimbabwe's environment minister, Francis Nhema, is set to be elected commission chairman next week after the African group of countries at the UN agreed to nominate him...
"Zimbabwe is not exactly a paragon of development," said one diplomat. Under President Mugabe, Zimbabwe, once the bread-basket of Africa, can no longer feed itself. Annual inflation is running at 2,200 per cent, millions have been made poor and tens of thousands have died from malnutrition and lack of medical care.

The UN diplomats recognised that it was unlikely the African group would have a change of heart at this stage. Zimbabwe's nomination as chairman was agreed last month under a geographical rotation system. The outgoing chairman is from Qatar.

The commission has a broad mandate, including climate change, and sees itself as an "authoritative source of expertise" on sustainable development...

Mbeki might help Zim....so he can hold the world cup

President Thabo Mbeki is under pressure from South Africa’s 2010 World Cup organising committee to find a lasting solution to the Zimbabwe crisis, or risk seeing his country lose the right to host the biggest football tournament.

Already a number of European countries have raised their concerns at sending their teams to a country whose neighbour is involved in gross human rights abuses. Amid the spiralling brutality, violence, rapes and destruction of property belonging to the opposition, there are reports that the Southern African Development Community are also pushing Mbeki to force Robert Mugabe to stop his ‘dirty war’ on innocent Zimbabweans. Sources on Thursday said Mbeki is expected to travel soon to Harare for talks with Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara.

Reports from Johannesburg said there have been a flurry of discussions over the phone between other SADC leaders and Mbeki, urging him to act fast on Zimbabwe to ensure the whole region benefits from South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup. This follows a statement Thursday by the chief executive of the 2010 organising committee that South Africa is seeking a change in World Cup rules to allow visiting teams to be based in neighbouring countries during the finals in three years’ time.....