Monday, 28th September 2009

Howzit

Foreign currency mid-rates updated.

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We returned from Bridlington last evening. What an amazing weekend - plus the two days were nothing but glorious sunshine! It is such a neat, tidy town and we really enjoyed ourselves, although there is no place like home...

Yours truly at the water's edge...

On Sunday we saw a lifeguard helicopter and a number of small boats working over the water near Flamborough - and I took some short videos of what was going on. The locals maintain that it was not a drill and that they were looking for a lost swimmer.

I will have a go at sorting out the video (done on my Nokia handset) and maybe I will publish ithe results - but I do need to check the Bridlington press as I don't want to tread on anyone's toes...

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I see that Mugabe did choose to change his script for his address to the UN. The same ol', same ol'...

"Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe accused Western countries on Friday of "filthy antics" aimed at undermining a power-sharing government forged in February under a pact with former rival Morgan Tsvangirai.

In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Mugabe said the United States and the European Union had refused to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe, and "some of them are working strenuously to divide the parties in the inclusive government."

Anyone who has followed the events in Zimbabwe for the past few years will be aware that it is Mugabe that has been working strenuously to divide Zimbabwe... He never had any intention os living up to his side of the agreements with the MDC and now even goes so far as to claim that ZANU PF never lost last year's election!

" If they will not assist the inclusive government in rehabilitating our economy, could they please, please stop their filthy clandestine divisive antics," Mugabe said. The United States imposed sanctions in 2003 on Mugabe and other prominent Zimbabweans accused of undermining democracy. The European Union imposed measures of its own."

By couching his complaint as a polite question, Mugabe is hoping to catch the ear of sympathetic world leaders - but I doubt that it will work.

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Another article on the internet about Mugabe's speech says that the UN assembly was largely empty when Mugabe took the floor, and that his speech held nothing new for anyone.

"In an empty UN 64th General Assembly floors Robert Mugabe slammed the US and EU on Friday for what he called "filthy clandestine antics" for keeping economic sanctions clamped on his authoritarian nation.

"The Western countries, in particular the United States, and the European Union still impose illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe, to our surprise... and refused to remove those sanctions," he said in his speech to the UN General Assembly. Mugabe has sent Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader, to Europe and America to lobby for lifting of the sanctions and a restoration of foreign aid and investment.

He's had little success. But the European Union and other Western nations say the coalition, formed in February, has not done enough to restore the rule of law and begin democratic reform, blaming Mugabe and high-level loyalists for resisting change."

Sanctions are the responsibility of those that enforce the measures, not those that are the target of the sanctions. Mugabe would have the world believe that the sanction are full and economic as opposed to targeted travel sanctions - but that is typical Mugabe, skewing the truth to get his own way.

"We wonder what their motives are? And we ask what they would see us do?" "Where stand their humanitarian principles, we ask, when their illegal sanctions are ruining the lives of our children?"

When the US and the EU instituted the travel sanctions, Mugabe made a big thing of his 'look East' policy, but has repeatedly questioned sanctions, suggesting that they are hurting all Zimbabweans.

Mugabe is hurting all Zimbabweans, not sanctions...

"Zimbabwe's economic meltdown began after Mugabe ordered the seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms in 2000, disrupting the agriculture-based economy in the former regional breadbasket.

His critics point to continuing human rights violations, land seizures and laws requiring a majority local stake in foreign firms."

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Now we know why the land audit is effectively on ice - because the likes of Mugabe and his high ranking loyalists have all got their hands on multiple farms in direct contravention of Mugabe's own 'one family - one farm' policy...

"Robert Mugabe's wife, Grace, who has taken over at least six of Zimbabwe's most valuable white-owned farms since 2002, sells up to a million litres of milk a year to Nestlé, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

Mr Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, his wife and a number of other figures linked to his administration are the subject of European Union and US sanctions as a result of their controversial 29-year rule over the once-prosperous country.

Nestlé, the multinational food company which is the biggest customer of Mrs Mugabe's dairy farm, is not obliged to comply with those sanctions as its headquarters are in Switzerland, but the country has its own set of measures, including against Mrs Mugabe, among which it "is forbidden to make funds available to persons mentioned, or put them, directly or indirectly, at their disposition". Nestlé denies that it has violated Swiss law."

Regardless of what Nestlé says, a simple boycott of their product would be a good start to putting an end to their clandestine activities.

I am very disappointed that a large company like this should continue to line the pockets of Amazing (Dis)Grace and her family. Is it not apparent to just about everybody on the globe that the Mugabe family flagrantly disregard their own polcies - and then proceed to do pretty good business with those companies that put turnover above human rights...

"Mr Mugabe, The Daily Telegraph disclosed, has built a secret personal farming empire comprising at least five white-owned farms from which the owners were forced out during his regime's evictions of about 4,000 commercial farmers.

Mrs Mugabe's properties total about 12,000 acres, but her most important is Gushungo Dairy Estate, formerly known as Foyle Farm. It is in Mazowe, about 30 miles north of the capital Harare. Other dairy farmers, who have also been forced off their land, said that the previous white owner of Foyle faced a campaign of violence over several months in 2003 until he was forced to sell his property to the state's Agricultural Rural Development Authority (ARDA).

The price was set at about a quarter of independent estimates, they say, and the former owner received only 40 per cent of that amount."

Do the math... 40% of 25% means that the owner of the farm realised just 10% of the true market value -and now the Mugabe family are coining it!

"Mrs Mugabe became a regular visitor as soon as the previous owner departed. Workers at the 2,400-acre property say it is now her farm, managed by Russell Goreraza, her son from her first marriage. She married Mr Mugabe in 1996, after his first wife died.

She visits the farm several times a week, according to workers at the dairy. Under her occupation, the farm has become one of the few in the country to benefit from investment in recent years and has been lauded in The Herald, the state-controlled newspaper.

Mrs Mugabe has built a new residence on the farm, remodelled the original farmhouse and constructed an office block, workers said.

The dairy produces 6,500 litres of milk a day, The Herald has said, which is only about 35 per cent of its output under the previous owner, who produced 6.5 million litres a year, more than any other dairy in Zimbabwe."

They say that what goes around comes around, and Grace Mugabe must be heading for a fall. And when it does happen, I will have little or no sympathy for her or her family...

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"Controversial Tsholotsho North MP Jonathan Moyo stunned his critics once again on Friday by suggesting that President Robert Mugabe must be allowed to die in office just like Zimbabwe's first three vice presidents.

The former Minister of Information and Publicity who has reportedly re-applied to rejoin the party he dumped in 2005 after plotting against Mugabe said there was no need to pressure the ageing leader to step down.

"When I drafted my manifesto as an independent candidate for Tsholotsho I put President Mugabe, the late vice-presidents Joshua Nkomo, Simon Muzenda and lately Joseph Msika, Herbert Chitepo, and Josiah Tongogara as my founding fathers of our country," Moyo told journalists at the Bulawayo Press Club."

This is plain stupidity. Look at South Africa. Nelson Mandela served as President in that country and then stood down. He may not be the sitting President but he is recognised as the founding father of a new South Africa.

Why can't Mugabe be the same?

I will tell you why - if he were to stand down, then all manner of shady deals will come to the fore and Mugabe's reputation would be mud.

But understand that his reputation is mud anyway, so he should stand down - and just be allowed to die... not in office, but as a poverty stricken Zimbabwean.

"Mugabe says he would not step down as long as “imperialists” are still pushing for regime change.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday,the 85-year-old leader refused to discuss his retirement plans."

For 'regime change' read 'determined to drain the resources of Zimbabwe completely and utterly'...

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I have a lot of reading to do to catch up - and so will stop today's posting right here.

Take care.

'debvhu