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Polls not free in Uzumba

5 August 2018 HARARE - “We were told that if the MDC wins we are going to teach you a lesson,” an elderly man who owns a bottle store deep in Uzumba said between sips of opaque beer. He furtively looks around, afraid his tormentors maybe nearby. After some time he continues with his story. A story of pai...

Healthcare as an election agenda issue

29 July 2018 HARARE - Healthcare delivery is a top election agenda issue. This piece aims to evaluate the various party manifestos on their healthcare promises. There is a general lack of statistical and financial data to support these promises. In 1985, the World Health Organisation declared that our h...

Political violence survivors 'will make sure there's peace' in polls

23 July 2018 HARARE - On April 21, 2008, Florence Machinga lost everything. A mob of hundreds of people showed up at her house, demanded to see her — and, when she didn't materialise, burned it down. “They destroyed everything,” she says. “Cattle were slaughtered, the chickens were slaughtered.” She was...

Of Zim's crafty, sophisticated scammers

1 July 2018 HARARE - It all started with responding to a message that Maukbul Ahmed Mukadam thought he had received from a local satellite television service provider. Just 15 minutes later, Mukadam realised he had lost money. His bank card had been cloned, allegedly by late businessman James Chiyangwa...

Satanism, witchcraft real or perceived

1 July 2018 HARARE - Modern folk considers witchcraft to be a perception and satanism to be the “dark side of Christianity”, but for many Zimbabweans, both witchcraft and satanism are equally evil and satanic. For the majority of Zimbabweans of Christian descent, witchcraft and satanism both oppose God's ...

Sex workers' tough job to survive

1 July 2018 HARARE - Being a sex worker is not a stroll in the park — it is very tough. For one to put food on the table and pay the bills, it's not just about the coitus, various tricks are employed in order to get the elusive dollar. For Priscilla Jack (not real name), it means using even criminal me...

'Public service is my calling'

19 June 2018 HARARE - Tendai Ndoro is contesting for the Hatfield Constituency seat as an independent candidate in the forthcoming elections. The Daily News on Sunday staff writer Tarisai Machakaire caught up with her to discuss her electoral road map and aspirations as a woman in Zimbabwean politics. Q...

How the mighty have fallen

10 June 2018 HARARE - During his reign, former president Robert Mugabe and his allies were untouchable to the point where not even the long arm of the law could catch up with them. But tables turned immediately after Mugabe's ouster as they began to face the music for alleged corrupt activities that were s...

From school teacher to entrepreneur

14 May 2018 HARARE - She was a school teacher who loved teaching and the children she taught, but the desire to empower others financially saw Maglin Chiwuta dumping the noble profession for a tile manufacturing venture. Raised amidst grinding poverty in a family teeming with siblings, step brothers and s...

High food prices drive poor Zimbos to malnutrition

7 May 2018 HARARE - A mother contemplates how she does her food shopping amid high costs in Zimbabwe. Whatever is cheapest in the season, is what her children eat, substituting one thing for another, in much smaller portions than before. “What I have at home is enough to give them a simple plate of sa...

Food biotech answer to Zim's food, nutrition woes

29 April 2018 HARARE - When single mother Pamela Chiromo was allocated a small plot to grow maize in the fertile Beatrice area last year, she thought she had finally found the solution to the nagging problem of fending for her young family. She would roam around the plot like a proud successful farmer, beho...

Invaders dare Grace Mugabe

22 April 2018 HARARE - Clad in a dirty white T-Shirt emblazoned with the face of a glum Emmerson Mnangagwa, an illegal gold miner sifts through brownish wet sands and points out to a group of journalists, “this is gold”. It is a gold rush of some sort which cannot be stopped by once dreaded former president...

When technology takes over jobs

15 April 2018 HARARE - The old photographer, with an incredible little mop of fringe, grey-white hair around his balding, mottled scalp sits solo on a bench in the vast Harare Gardens Park. He has the resigned look of one who knows that at his age life has stopped giving and only takes away. But the rate...

Zim's old, rich guys & their trendy pretty wives

1 April 2018 HARARE - When it comes to love, they say age is just but a number. What was once frowned upon as a bad social practice, is now widely accepted as okay especially among Zimbabwe's powerful and influential men. Infact, it has now become some sort of a trend: Zimbabwean older men, usually rich o...

Agro-forestry: Missing link in nutritional, food security discourse

18 March 2018 HARARE - At a glimpse, Zimbabwe's eastern highlands region seems lush and verdant. But a closer check depicts a land degraded by overgrazing, unsustainable cropping practices, deforestation and wild bush fires. Still, some plots teem with biodiversity; crops grow under the shades of banana;...

The case of a toothless Legislature

5 March 2018 HARARE - Many people might have been left outraged and appalled by the contemptuous behaviour of Home Affairs minister Obert Mpofu in Parliament last week. But to any keen follower of local politics, the bulky minister was just striding in very familiar territory. While appearing before the...

He milks snake venom to save lives

11 February 2018 HARARE - In the laboratory at his Marlborough home in Harare Ben Vermulen was trying to milk a huge Cape cobra by manoeuvring its razor sharp fangs through a rubber sheath on a plastic vial — the way he had done it thousands of times before. This time the snake wriggled loose, sinking its fang...

Meet the woman behind Zim Rocks

5 February 2018 HARARE - Celia Rukato, 27, was born in Zimbabwe but raised in South Africa. Her first career path was in finance and economics but her passion for fashion saw her relocating back to her country of birth in 2016 to start her brand Chjaa Enterprises. From uniquely printed fabrics to custom cloth...

'Zacc selectively arresting politicians'

4 February 2018 HARARE - Citizens have raised concerns over the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc)'s “selective” arrests of politicians, amid indications that they are leaving out the big fish that contributed to the downfall of the country's economy. Since November last year when the army took over g...

MPs behaviour under spotlight

4 February 2018 HARARE - Absenteeism and unruly behaviour often characterised most sessions in the National Assembly, reducing the respectable House to a circus. In most cases, the legislative assembly will be full during the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC)'s live coverage of the question and answer s...

An orphan who defied the odds

25 January 2018 HARARE - AT 16, Sicelo Dube's dream of mixing it with the big boys in what has been generally an exclusive club of scientists appeared dead in the water when she lost her parents. Her aunt who briefly took over the herculean task of funding her education staggered and eventually gave up — f...

Dokora: When the heavens stop smiling

27 December 2017 HARARE - When you eat your way through eastern Asia, as so many food lovers want to do, you end up spoilt by dishes that burst with flavour. There is a depth that seems almost supernatural — the sweet is somehow sweeter, the sour sharper, and the savoury — flavours are far more intense. Th...

Civil society calls for full democratisation

26 November 2017 HARARE - As Zimbabweans and foreign dignitaries thronged the National Sports Stadium for the inauguration of new State President Emmerson Mnangagwa, civil society gathered for what they called a “national envisioning platform.” The meeting which comes in the euphoria of former president Robert...

Opposition urges ED to lead by example

26 November 2017 HARARE - Opposition political parties have hailed President Emmerson Mnangagwa's inaugural speech this week although they urged him to release all those detained so that they have their day in court. MDC Alliance spokesperson Welshman Ncube said the treatment being given to former president Ro...

Should Mugabe account for past crimes?

20 November 2017 HARARE - Anaysts are divided on whether President Robert Mugabe should be prosecuted for past crimes, committed during his 37 years in power, in the event that he resigns or is pushed out. During his time as president, Mugabe master-minded the Gukurahundi massacres and the infamous 2005 Operat...

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