Untreated sewage polluting Harare water supply

Zimbabwe's biggest sewage plant has broken down, sending
tonnes of raw effluent into a major river and polluting the water supply of
the capital Harare, city authorities said on Monday.

Harare's Firle sewage plant has been down since last week and requires at
least 20 billion Zimbabwean dollars (U.S.$80 million) to fix, a huge burden
for a country already in the grip of its worst economic crisis in decades.

Officials from the national water authority said half of the raw sewage from
Harare -- a city of some 1.5 million -- was now discharged into a river that
flows into the capital's main water reservoir, the state-owned Herald
newspaper reported.

The Zimbabwe National Water Authority declined to comment further on the
issue on Monday. But the Herald said the discharge of the untreated sewage
was "posing a serious health hazard downstream."

Harare's sewage crisis is the latest symptom of an economic crisis which has
left the country close to collapse and many key infrastructure facilities
from roads to power plants badly in need of upgrade or repair.

Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate of 1,281 percent and
unemployment has surged to about 80 percent under an economic crisis many
critics blame on President Robert Mugabe's government.

The Herald said the Firle plant was completely inoperable.

"Biological nutrient removal plants, inlet works, primary settling tanks,
biofilters and effluent pumps as well as clarifiers, digesters and boilers
at the plant are all down," the newspaper said.

Mugabe, 82, and the southern African country's sole ruler since independence
from Britain in 1980, denies he has ruined one the continent's most
promising economies, saying it is a victim of sabotage by opponents of his
black nationalist policies.

Farmers' union says only few whites offered land

Tuesday 09 January 2007

HARARE - The Zimbabwe government has again promised to return land to former
white farmers but the dispossessed farmers on Monday told ZimOnline that
only a handful of them had been offered new farms out of hundreds that had
applied.

State Security and also Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa earlier on Sunday said
his department would offer farms to "former (white) farm owners who are
genuine farmers who desire to continue farming in this country" and help
resuscitate the mainstay agricultural sector that has collapsed since farm
seizures began in 2000.

The government, which had vowed never to return land it seized from whites,
first backtracked on that position last November when it gave 99-year leases
to about half a dozen whites who were part of a group of about 100 black
farmers to receive the life-long leases.

But the white-representative Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) said in total
only a handful of former white farmers have been given land out of 700 that
had applied to Mutasa's department following earlier pronouncements by the
government that it would also allocate farms to whites.

CFU spokeswoman Emily Crooks said: "The situation is that a larger number of
farmers applied for land but the minister (Mutasa) has not responded. Only a
couple of farmers were recently issued with offer leases."

Mutasa was not immediately available to explain delays in allocating land to
former white farmers many with vast experience to produce food in short
supply in the country.

Zimbabwe has relied on food imports since 2001 mainly due to failure by new
black farmers to maintain production on former white farms.

Poor performance in the mainstay agricultural sector has also had far
reaching consequences as hundreds of thousands have lost jobs while the
manufacturing sector, starved of inputs from the sector, is operating below
30 percent capacity. - ZimOnline

Petrol attack on home of Zimbabwean rights activist

The raw story

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Sunday December 31, 2006

Harare- Unknown attackers poured petrol round the Harare
home of a prominent Zimbabwean rights activist and set the fuel
alight, Lovemore Madhuku claimed on Sunday.
Madhuku, the chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly
(NCA) said he and the other nine occupants of his home in the medium-
density suburb of Waterfalls woke shortly after midnight on Saturday
to find flames surrounding the house.

We were woken up by the sound of screaming, Madhuku told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa in a telephone interview.

After ten minutes those inside the house broke windows, poured out
water and managed to douse the flames, he said.

"We discovered a five-litre bottle of petrol hidden next to the
wall," Madhuku said.

There was no independent confirmation of the attack.

Madhuku said he suspected state agents were behind the incident.
The NCA has mounted sustained anti-government campaigns since its
formation in 1999, and Madhuku and other members have been arrested
on several occasions.

But there have been reports of discontent within NCA this year,
mainly because of Madhuku's decision to continue as chairman. Other
NCA members were seriously opposed to prolonging his leadership.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency