Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Mugabe's price cuts bring cheap TVs today, new crisis tomorrow

Why Zimbabwe news in a climate blog? Because Zimbabwe is the Chair of the U.N.'s Commission on Sustainable Development. About as despicable as Libya as the Chair of the Human Rights Commission.

Here's the story from the Guardian:

Police and Zanu-PF lead bargain hunt after officials order shops to act

...Parliament is expected to pass legislation in the coming weeks that will effectively give a controlling stake in all publicly traded companies to ruling party loyalists and others chosen by the government.

...Food is still available, although bread, sugar, cornmeal and other staples are hard to find, and meat has all but disappeared because livestock owners say it is now uneconomic to slaughter their animals. Much of the meat that is available is goat slaughtered in backyards and sold in informal markets.

The rest of the food supply - already severely undermined by drought and lack of production on land seized from white farmers - is also under threat after Mr Mugabe threatened to take over manufacturers if they shut down their plants on the grounds that they were uneconomic. "Factories must produce. If they don't, we will take you over ... We will seize the factories," he said.