In Zimbabwe, the effects of new indigenisation regulations are already being felt on the stock exchange. The stock exchange is trading at some of its lowest levels since the unity government was formed in February 2009. The main industrial index has shed 20 percent since the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment regulations were gazetted in February. Trading has now reached some of the lowest levels in the last 13 months. The law forces foreign firms to hand over a 51 percent stake to local blacks. Would-be investors in Zimbabwe, like the world’s biggest steel maker Arcelor Mittal, are expressing their concerns. But Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere remains undaunted despite Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s very obvious reservations. Kasukuwere said that the only amendments he will allow to his law are ones that actually strengthen it. The official Herald newspaper today accuses Tsvangirai of backing former Rhodesians who want to hang onto economic power.

 

Both formations of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change will ask South African President Jacob Zuma to intervene in the latest dispute troubling the Harare unity government – this time over president Robert Mugabe’s recent shuffle of ministerial portfolios removing powers from a number of MDC ministers, political sources said Tuesday. The state gazette last week reallocated responsibilities and portfolios for ministries controlled by the MDC to ministries in the hands of Mr. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. Those portfolios include Information Technology, Labor, Science and Technology, Parastatals and State Enterprises, Parliamentary Affairs and Regional Integration and International Cooperation, this last controlled by the MDC formation of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara.

 

The United Nations Development Program has pledged US$21 million to fund Zimbabwe's constitutional revision process, easing fears the project might be stalled by funding issues, a senior parliamentary manager of the exercise said Tuesday. Co-Chairman Douglas Mwondzora of the Parliamentary Select Committee for Constitutional Revision said a contract with the UN agency has been signed and a referendum is expected to be held on new draft constitution in November.

Mwonzora told VOA that the vexed question of funding police security operations during the public outreach phase of the exercise - delayed by funding issues - has been referred to the unity government principals. Mwonzora said the parliamentary committee could not  afford to pay the US$3 million demanded by top police officials to provide security during outreach.

 

It is a war. Last week United States president Barack Obama announced he was extending US sanctions on Zimbabwe for another year as his country continued with the "national emergency" against Zimbabwe that, he repeated, posed a "continuing and extraordinary threat to US foreign policy." "I am continuing for one year the national emergency with respect to the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe's democratic processes or institutions," Obama said in a statement. "The crisis constituted by the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe's democratic processes or institutions has not been resolved," he added in an apparent reference to President Mugabe, his party and perceived sympathisers and supporters.He declared: "These actions and policies continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States. "For these reasons, I have determined that it is necessary to continue this national emergency and to maintain in force the sanctions to respond to this threat."