Prayer for Zimbabwe

[Roelof]

(A settlement is very near, please continue to pray - Roelof)

Harare - The second day of negotiations on power-sharing in Zimbabwe ended on Wednesday without a deal, but President Robert Mugabe said participants will "hopefully" reach an accord on Thursday.

"So far so good," Mugabe told journalists as he emerged from the closed-door meeting at a hotel in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. "Tomorrow, we will hopefully sign [a deal],", he added.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...391531,00.html

[Roelof]

(Thank you all for your prayers - Roelof)

I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high. (Psa 7:17)


Harare - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's ruling party agreed a power-sharing deal with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC on Thursday to end the post-election crisis, both sides said.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has mediated the talks, said the ruling Zanu-PF and opposition had agreed on all issues, and will announce a national unity government on Monday.
"I am absolutely certain that the leadership of Zimbabwe is committed to implementing these agreements ... this is an outcome that comes out of decisions arrived at by the leadership of Zimbabwe," Mbeki said. Tsvangirai and Mugabe have been bitter enemies for a decade.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...392222,00.html

[Roelof]

(Please continue to pray, their currency is worth nothing. Children eat rats to survive - Roelof)


Harare - Zimbabwe's central bank introduced higher denomination banknotes on Monday in another sign of the hyperinflation that has shown no sign of abating despite this month's power-sharing deal.
The printing of 10 000 and 20 000 Zimbabwean dollar notes, worth $100 and $200 officially but 10 times less on the black market, came as government and opposition officials tried to break an impasse over cabinet posts. The agreement signed earlier this month between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has brought hope of political stability that could reverse the southern African country's deep economic slide.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...401354,00.html

[moonglow]

Wow this is just awful. I wish people could just leave there...then that dictator would have no one to rule over...

Praying for especially the children caught in this...


God bless

[Roelof]

Wow this is just awful.
Praying for especially the children caught in this...
God bless

Thanks moonglow

[Roelof]

(Please pray as the government of unity has not been formed yet - Roelof)

Harare - Zimbabwe's delicately balanced power-sharing deal can now be saved only by Thabo Mbeki, after Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced that negotiations over the allocation of ministries would resume only in the presence of the facilitator.

But the former president's spokesperson, Mukoni Rat****anga, on Thursday said no trip to Zimbabwe was being planned. "If and when Mr Mbeki goes to Zimbabwe, I will issue a statement."

President Kgalema Motlanthe's spokesperson, Themba Maseko, on Thursday told a press briefing he had sent a message to Southern African Development Community leaders that Mbeki would still be available as mediator and that the South African government continued to support the process.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...0055182C158982

[Roelof]

(Please continue to pray. The inflation rate is now 200 million percent, 5 million people are starving, kids eat rats to survive - Roelof)

In a step that could jeopardize a painstakingly negotiated power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has declared that his party will retain ministries that control the military and the police, state media reported Saturday. The crucial Finance Ministry was still in dispute.

Opposition officials condemned his decision and said their party, the Movement for Democratic Change, would not join a government in which the most important ministries were occupied by officials of ZANU-PF, the governing party.
Since the power-sharing agreement was signed more than three weeks ago, Mr. Mugabe and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who was to serve as prime minister under the deal, have been deadlocked over the division of ministries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/wo...hp&oref=slogin

[Roelof]

(The inflation is 200 million %, kids are eating rats, 5 million people have no food, but still the politicians can not share power. Please pray for them - Roelof)

Harare - Negotiations on forming a unity government in Zimbabwe are deadlocked, but could continue into a fourth day, an opposition spokesman said on Thursday. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai spent nearly eight hours in negotiations that have dragged on for three days, in a last-ditch bid to save a power-sharing deal signed a month ago.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...411302,00.html

[Roelof]

Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition leaders boycotted a regional summit Monday, arguing the session was too limited to "knock sense" into Robert Mugabe and make a proposed unity government a reality.
Soon after the opposition's chief negotiator, Tendai Biti, appeared at a news conference in South Africa, leaders from South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Congo and Mozambique gathered in Swaziland.
They were meeting as a committee of the main regional bloc, the 12-member Southern African Development Community, or SADC, to try to resolve Zimbabwe's political impasse - but Biti was dismissive. "Going to Swaziland now won't resolve anything," Biti said. "Which is why we're calling for a full SADC summit."

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...412782,00.html

[Roelof]

(Hope this is the beginning of an economic upliftment in this very poor country - Roelof)

Johannesburg - While markets across the world have been crashing, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange has being seeing record gains as citizens turn to equities to protect their money from the country's hyperinflation.
The benchmark industrial index soared 257% on Tuesday up from a previous one day record of 241% on Monday with some companies seeing share prices increase by up to 3 500%.
But before Wall Street traders start packing their bags and heading south, they should bear in mind that these figures are just another representation of Zimbabwe's collapsing economy and are almost meaningless in real terms.
Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, is staggering amid the world's worst inflation, a looming humanitarian emergency and worsening shortages of food, gasoline and most basic goods. Inflation is at 231 million percent, but some experts put it more at about 20 trillion percent.

http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/defa...8-1783_2413656

[Roelof]

Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition party said on Tuesday that only fresh elections would resolve a dispute over who controls key cabinet posts, a make-or-break issue under a power-sharing pact signed with President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, have clashed over control of ministries and weeks of face-to-face talks have failed to break the deadlock. The political impasse has raised fears that last month's power-sharing deal may collapse and plunge Zimbabwe's economy deeper into crisis.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...413490,00.html

[Roelof]

(Please continue to pray for this very poor country, who is sinking deaper and deaper in an economic mess - Roelof)


New Delhi - An international aid agency has decided against giving new health care funds to Zimbabwe to fight Aids and other diseases until the country's central bank returns $7m confiscated last year, a top agency official said on Thursday. Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank failed to meet the Thursday deadline to transfer the money to the aid agency and it has now promised to do that next week, Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund To Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told reporters.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...422300,00.html

[Roelof]

(I pray with our neighbour - Roelof)


Harare - About 300 people staged a prayer vigil in the Zimbabwean capital to urge political leaders to end their dispute on forming a unity government under a power-sharing deal signed nearly two months ago.
The group sat down to pray in a parking lot near a hotel on the edge of downtown Harare, as regional leaders met in South Africa to press Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai into a deal. "People are dying daily at hospitals because of a delivery system that is now inadequate," organiser Bishop Tudor Bismark of the New Life Covenant Church told the interdenominational gathering.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...423357,00.html

[Roelof]

Harare - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said on Monday he hoped opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would change his mind and accept a proposal by regional leaders to set up a unity government.
"I hope they will" agree, the veteran leader told reporters as he boarded his aeroplane back to Harare, following an emergency heads of state meeting on his country's crisis in neighbouring South Africa. "We will try to constitute (the new government) as quickly as possible," said Mugabe, who unilaterally appointed key ministries to his own ruling Zanu-PF last month.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...423936,00.html

[Roelof]

(If a political settlement is not reached soon, more than a million people will die of hunger - Roelof)

Geneva - A World Food Programme (WFP) appeal issued last month for $140m to help feed a growing portion of Zimbabwe's population has gone completely unfunded, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday.
"So far we have received none of the funding, zero," said WFP spokesperson Emilia Casella. The appeal was to help feed the growing number of people in the southern African nation who require handouts. The WFP said it raised its caseload in the country from two million to four million people in recent weeks.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/...424574,00.html