You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Africa Subsaharan
Hopes for change in Mugabe's Zimbabwe
2008-01-16
Everyone is a millionaire in Zimbabwe. You have to be, since a loaf of bread at present costs 1,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars (Mugabe dollars, as they are known disparagingly) and a newspaper costs twice that. And the price of many necessities doubles every few days. Yet Zimbabweans have found ways to survive. Because it is still basically a rich country, and - because the aid agencies do an excellent job - there is little malnutrition.

There are even traffic jams, even though you almost invariably need dollars - American ones, not Mugabe ones - to buy petrol. But so many Zimbabweans have left the country and send money back to help their families, that even this is possible.

Splits
BBC News is banned in Zimbabwe - I spent a clandestine week in Harare with two colleagues. We had a great deal of help from local people, who often saw it as their patriotic duty to show the outside world how bad things have become in Zimbabwe. The greatest threat to us, curiously, was the BBC's popularity there. So many people watch BBC World that there was a real danger that someone like me might be recognised.
Posted by:Fred

00:00