🚀 go-pugleaf

What have any of your posts have to do with astronomy?
Perhaps you have picked the wrong newsgroups?


"ayaz" <iamtheidiotwhocrossposts@s.c.zimbabwe> wrote in message 
news:20080209-003236.349.0@ayaz.news.plus.net...
> Church officials say it's unlikely Zimbabwean election will be fair
>
>
> Jan-22-2008 (450 words) xxxi
>
> By Bronwen Dachs
> Catholic News Service
>
> CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Church officials said it's unlikely
> Zimbabwe will hold a free and fair presidential election this year,
> since Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has refused demands for a new
> constitution to be implemented before the poll.
>
> "Mugabe knows he can play games and get away with it," said Bishop
> Kevin
> Dowling of Rustenburg, South Africa.
>
> The 83-year-old Zimbabwean president "has the security forces on his
> side, and his opposition has no protection under the law, so he doesn't
> need to make any concessions," Bishop Dowling told Catholic News
> Service
> Jan. 21.
> Mugabe has rejected the opposition's requests that the election,
> scheduled for March, be postponed to June to allow for a new
> constitution to be put in place.
>
> Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Great
> Britain
> in 1980, "is untrustworthy and does not intend to make significant
> changes to bring stability to the country," said the bishop, noting
> that
> until a new constitution that protects human rights is in place "there
> can be no free and fair elections."
>
> At mid-January meetings in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, Mugabe rejected
> all suggestions made by South African President Thabo Mbeki, who since
> March has been mediating between Mugabe's government and the opposition
> Movement for Democratic Change.
>
> "Mugabe has been stringing Mbeki along all this time," said Bishop
> Dowling, a member of the Solidarity Peace Trust, an ecumenical group of
> church organizations from Zimbabwe and South Africa.
>
> Alouis Chaumba, head of Zimbabwe's Catholic Commission for Justice and
> Peace, said he was "not surprised the talks (Mbeki's mediation) have
> failed as the (Zimbabwean) government doesn't negotiate in good faith."
>
> Zimbabwe "can't afford to have another election rejected by the
> international community," he told CNS Jan. 21. "But, as things stand
> now, there is no doubt that Mugabe will win elections in March."
>
> Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate and chronic shortages
> of
> food, fuel and most basic goods.
>
> "The mood in the country is very bleak and people are obsessed with
> day-to-day survival," Chaumba said. The people "cannot access cash, and
> our incomes are eroded every day," he added.
>
> "Despite a good rainy season, farmers had no fertilizer, so crops have
> failed again," Chaumba said. "Electricity and water are in short
> supply,
> and there has been an outbreak of diarrhea in the major cities."
>
> Hospitals around the country are paralyzed as doctors and nurses strike
> for more pay, and hospitals face "a chronic shortage of drugs," Chaumba
> said. Most schools "have less than half their quota of teachers, who
> can't afford the bus fare to get to work."
>
> "Nothing is in good shape," he added.
>