UK's leading retailer stops buying
The amount of produce Tesco sources from Zimbabwe - worth around £1 million per year - is insignificant in terms of global trade and influence. However, in the current circumstances, we have decided to stop sourcing any products from Zimbabwe as long as the political crisis persists in that country.
More on link: http://www.tescocorporate.com/page.a...F5855DA51575CD
davidbfpo
100 billion dollars a day
a tin of baked beans cost... at least for the next few hours - a mere 256 billion Zimbabwe dollars (worth about one USD) :eek:
an unofficial inflation rate soaring past 15m%
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The salary I was paid at the start of this month cannot even pay for my bus fare here this morning. I am struggling."
In bars, the price of beer goes up between rounds. :mad:
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Angry soldiers
But worryingly for President Robert Mugabe, the police and armed forces are not immune to the economic chaos.
Neighbour's view on events
I shall refrain from commenting on the mediation process and the reaction of critics inside Zimbabwe. Instead here are the reported views of Botswana, one of Zimbabwe's neighbours that can claim rightly to be a democracy, from an email circulated on a Zimbabwe listing I get:
Botswana´s vice president, Mompati S. Merafhe, sitting just two seats from Mr. Mugabe, said the Zimbabwean leader should be suspended from the African Union, Mr. Skelemani said. Botswana seems to have been greatly affected by its ringside view of the Zimbabwe crisis. The accounts its election observers brought back from Zimbabwe deepened Botswana´s official revulsion. Ruth Seretse, the deputy director of Botswana´s directorate on corruption and economic crime, led the 50-person observer team. She said in an interview that she had seen ZANU-PF youth militia members beating people at a rally for Mr. Tsvangirai in Harare."People ran for their lives," she said. "The riot police just stood there." Some of the most disturbing reports came from Bakwena Oitsile, a retired major general in Botswana´s army. He said in an interview that in one village in Zimbabwe´s Mashonaland West Province, he had found 14 houses, as well as grain stores, burned and reduced to ashes. Pregnant women and children there had nothing left but the clothes on their backs. In another village in the province, he arrived just hours after an attack on June 17. In one hut, he discovered the body of a man just beaten to death and his wife, still alive, with a deep cut on her head. Another woman´s index finger had been cut off. Her hand was still raw and untreated."She was in great pain when we were there," he said. "She was screaming." He said of what he witnessed in Zimbabwe: "I will never forget it. It´s all in my heart and head."
Yes, grim reading.
davidbfpo
Mugabe rejects coalition?
The UK daily Telegraph reports President Mugabe has issued an ultimatium to the opposition MDC: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-Zimbabwe.html
davidbfpo
Putting On the Fiscal Mo-Jo
I am in a time warp. It is October 1993 and just finishing 2 weeks vacation in Haiti (yes I am indeed warped in ways beyond time) I step off a plane to meet Stan and Dean Schultz in K-town. They great me with the news that the old Zaire which had inflated to a 10 Million note worth pennies on the street had been replaced with the New Zaire set at 4NZ to the dollar.
Now it has migrated: 10 Trillion for 1,000 will still only get you a loaf of bread
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ARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has introduced a $1,000 note -- $10 trillion in the old value -- as the country battles to end cash shortages in the hyper-inflationary environment.
Zimbabwe's currency is trading around Z$350 -- $35 trillion in the old value -- against U.S. dollar.
However, analysts said the new note -- which can only buy a loaf of bread -- will not ease pressure on cash shortages because of the ever-increasing prices.
"It will not make even a small impact. What we need in Zimbabwe is a clear change of policies, start production and then inflation will start easing up," said John Robertson, an economic consultant. "The zeros seem to be coming back no matter how often they slash them."