• Zimbabwe eyes more solar water heaters as power grid struggles
• Zimbabwe's too-productive mango growers look to the sun to boost incomes
• Zimbabwe: Solar usage becoming the 'in-thing'

• Zimbabwe: Transcendental Meditation programme for at-risk women

• US sanctions Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa over human rights abuses
• Families trek to unsafe wells as taps run dry in drought-hit Zimbabwe
• Mugabe leaves legacy of economic ruin, upheaval in Zimbabwe

---

Positive Trends
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Zimbabwe eyes more solar water heaters as power grid struggles
2 August 2022 - As Zimbabwe's grid struggles with increased electricity demand, including as new housing projects are added, the government is emphasising the need for renewable energy and for thermal solar water heaters in homes and buildings. 'Already, most new housing developments have adopted solar water heaters, which is very positive,' Zimbabwe's Secretary for Energy Gloria Magombo said in an interview. (more)

Zimbabwe's too-productive mango growers look to the sun to boost incomes
15 February 2021 - With heavy rain bringing a bumper mango harvest, and coronavirus lockdown making selling it difficult, a new dried fruit processing center is preventing waste and protecting incomes by turning them into a product that can be shipped to buyers around the country and abroad. (more)

Zimbabwe: Solar usage becoming the 'in-thing'
26 January 2021 - Zimbabwe has witnessed a sharp increase in the number of households resorting to using solar energy ... Since the outbreak of Covid-19 last year which has forced many people to work from home as part of measures to decongest the workplace, these workers now need uninterrupted power supply hence many have turned to solar. (more)

Zimbabwe's solar power company Centragrid to scale up solar output
23 June 2020 - Zimbabwean solar power company Centragrid plans to increase generation capacity to 25 megawatts (MW) by October 2021, helping the country chip away at a huge electricity deficit ... The southern African country currently produces about 1,000 MW of electricity, half of peak demand, resulting in rolling power cuts after a devastating drought reduced dam levels at its hydropower plant while ageing thermal stations break down regularly. (more)

Zimbabwe: 'Friendship Bench' proves effective at alleviating mental illness symptoms
29 December 2016 - Their offices are simple wooden seats, called Friendship Benches, located in the grounds of health clinics around Harare and other major cities in Zimbabwe. The practitioners are lay health workers known as community 'Grandmothers,' trained to listen to and support patients living with anxiety, depression, and other common mental disorders. But the impact, measured in a ground-breaking study, shows that this innovative approach holds the potential to significantly improve the lives of millions of people with moderate and severe mental health problems in countries where access to treatment is limited or nonexistent. (more)

Zimbabwe plans to use drones to fight elephant poaching
15 August 2016 - Zimbabwe plans to deploy aerial drones in its biggest wildlife sanctuary in the west to combat poaching of elephants, a parks official said on Monday, as the country aims to protect one of its top tourist attractions. Tourism contributes 11 percent to Zimbabwe's $14 billion economy, according to Ministry of Tourism data, with the country's wildlife parks popular with overseas visitors. (more)

'Sweet business' of beekeeping helps protect Zimbabwe's forests
27 June 2016 - Every district in Zimbabwe now has flourishing beekeeping projects, sustaining thousands of households. The number of beekeepers is growing steadily, and has topped 50,000, according to the Beekeepers Association of Zimbabwe. Beekeeping is fast becoming a profitable activity thanks to high domestic demand for honey as a food and other products such as beeswax which is used to make candles, the association says. Beekeeping is also proving an innovative way to protect forests. (more)

Zimbabwe's 2015 gold output seen at highest in 11 years
14 October 2015 - Gold output in Zimbabwe is expected to rise this year to 18.4 tonnes, the highest level in 11 years, thanks to higher production from small-scale miners, the mining chamber said on Wednesday, 14 October. (more)

Zimbabwe capital turns to solar streetlights to cut costs, crime: TRFN
27 March 2015 - Harare City Council is installing solar-powered street lights that will illuminate the central business district at night, with plans to extend the project to other parts of Zimbabwe's capital city. The country is increasingly turning to the sun for its energy requirements, with the government hoping to build billion-dollar solar plants countrywide if it can find needed investment. (more)

Zimbabwean writer up for Baobab Prize
24 September 2014 - South Africa-based Zimbabwean writer Myke Mwale has been long-listed for a 2014 Golden Baobab Prize for African children's literature. Mwale is among six other writers from different African countries long-listed for the Picture Book Prize which is awarded to 'the most captivating unpublished African manuscript for a picture book targeting readers aged 6-8 years'. The Picture Book Prize is one of the six Golden Baobab Prizes for African literature. (more)

---

Success of Maharishi's Programmes
Short Summaries of Top Stories

Zimbabwe: Transcendental Meditation programme for at-risk women
7 June 2021 - A new scholarship programme is providing training in skills and instruction in the Transcendental Meditation technique for women at risk in the impoverished town of Zvishavane, Zimbabwe. When mining in Zvishavane ceased in 2013, it left the local community without livelihoods. A scholarship has been created in honour of Peta Axelsson to provide sewing and design skills, coupled with instruction in Transcendental Meditation, to give women and girls in the community a chance to become self-sufficient with creative work they love and that will benefit the community. (more)

---

Flops
Short Summaries of Top Stories

US sanctions Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa over human rights abuses
4 March 2024 - The United States on Monday sanctioned Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa, its first lady and other government officials for their alleged involvement in corruption and human rights abuses. ...Mnangagwa is accused of protecting gold and diamond smugglers who operate in Zimbabwe, directing government officials to facilitate the sale of gold and diamonds in illicit markets, and taking bribes in exchange for his services, among other offenses. (more)

Families trek to unsafe wells as taps run dry in drought-hit Zimbabwe
28 January 2020 - In Zimbabwe's second city Bulawayo, Abraham Kavalanjila and his two sons give up waiting for the water to come back on and trek out into the maize fields to draw on an open well. They know it is risky drinking untreated water from a borehole used by so many other people. 'We have no option. This water is dangerous as you can see, just check,' says Kavalanjila ... City authorities say they have had to shut down water supplies for 96 hours a week ... to cope with a sharp fall in reservoir levels caused by the country's worst drought in years. (more)

Mugabe leaves legacy of economic ruin, upheaval in Zimbabwe
21 November 2017 - From widely acclaimed liberator of his nation to despotic dictator, Robert Mugabe's 37-year rule of Zimbabwe has been one of Africa's most controversial and influential. Wily and ruthless, the 93-year-old Mugabe outmaneuvered his opponents for decades but was undone by his own miscalculation in his final weeks in power. He blundered when he sidelined his right-hand man in order to position his wife, Grace, as his successor. He didn't anticipate that the fired vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, would swiftly and skillfully depose him. For years Mugabe inspired other leaders across the continent to emulate his tactics and extend their rule by manipulating the constitution and suppressing opposition through violence and intimidation. (more)

Millions need aid as Zimbabwe battles drought
26 July 2016 - Mafios Ganyari tills a dry, patch of land, coaxing a few thin cassava tubers from the soil. This year's harvest has been poor. Mafios has barely enough to feed his family. Southern Africa has been hard hit over the past year by drought exacerbated by El Nino, a warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has said up to 4.5 million people, half of Zimbabwe's drought-stricken rural population, will need aid by next March. The impact of the drought is particularly serious for Zimbabwe, where the economy has been struggling for five years to recover from a catastrophic recession that was marked by billion percent hyperinflation and widespread food shortages. (more)

Drought-stricken Zimbabwe declares state of disaster
5 February 2016 - Underscoring the severity of the drought linked to the El Nino weather pattern hitting much of southern Africa, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe declared a state of disaster Thursday, with the hope of speeding up the flow of aid to needy communities. The drought has devastated crops. The situation is especially acute in Zimbabwe, where a declining economy and rising unemployment have made life hard for many people in a country once known as a regional breadbasket. (more)

Tobacco-curing eats up Zimbabwe's forests
31 July 2014 - Smoking tobacco is extremely harmful for human beings, but growing it was considered helpful to Zimbabwe's economy and its farmers. Now, however, both the government and farmers have become increasingly aware that tobacco farming also comes at a great cost to the environment. Income from tobacco in 2013, accounted for at least 10.7 per cent of the Zimbabwe's GDP and 21.8 per cent of all exports, compared to 9.2 per cent for other agricultural commodities. However, Zimbabwe's Forestry Commission says 20 per cent of the 330,000 hectares of natural forest lost annually (the Commission's 2005 figures) was cut for firewood to cure tobacco. The deforestation rate was particularly high during the height of the land reform programme, which began in 2000. Under the programme the government intended to acquire 11 million hectares of white-owned farmland and redistribute it on a massive scale. A majority of the new farmers use wood to cure their tobacco. (more)

A desperate moonlight economy in Zimbabwe's 'Sunshine City'
3 April 2014 - On Harare's hardscrabble streets, college graduates compete with peasants scratching out a living selling anything from mobile phone cards to herbal tonics, a measure of the decline of Zimbabwe's 'Sunshine City' under President Robert Mugabe. Those among Harare's 1.5 million residents who remember independence in 1980 will have known a city that was swept regularly at dawn, public buildings gleaming with fresh paint, and shop windows so spotless that pedestrians would walk into them, according to urban legend. Now the streets are dirty and dusty, the roads littered with pot-holes, and water gushes from leaking pipes. Less than 20 per cent of Zimbabwe's people are in formal employment, according to independent economists, and economic growth is flatlining due to shortages of electricity and capital. For many, the only options for survival are petty trading or chancing it as an illegal worker in neighbouring South Africa, the continent's biggest economy. Zimbabwe's economy shrank 45 per cent in the decade to 2009 due to plummeting farming output and hyperinflation. It bounced back for three years after Zimbabwe dropped its own currency and adopted the dollar, but it has since stagnated as companies have failed to find the cash to grow. (more)

Tobacco farmers fuel Zimbabwe deforestation
28 March 2014 - A drive through Mashonaland Central province will shock any remotely environmentally-conscious person as vast stretches of forests have been left barren, risking denudation due to the massive cutting down of trees by small-scale tobacco farmers who use firewood to cure their tobacco. The number of small-scale tobacco growers has grown exponentially since the country's controversial land reform programme which saw thousands of subsistence farmers resettled on prime agrarian land formerly owned by white commercial farmers. The tobacco farmers find themselves in what could be a vicious cycle. While tobacco farming affords them the opportunity to increase household income in the short-term and rescue themselves from poverty, it is inextricably linked to serious degradation of the ecosystem, raising questions about the sustainability of their operations. Tobacco industry sources estimate there are now 47 000 small-scale (holders of A2 farms) tobacco farmers making up about 83 per cent of Zimbabwe's total tobacco farmers, most of whom joined the industry in the past two years. In 2004, there were only about 4 000 small-scale black farmers. The decline in the prices of cotton and other cash crops has drawn a large number of the farmers to tobacco farming which offers better returns. (more)

Zimbabweans face gloomy holidays
25 December 2013 - Thousands of city-dwelling Zimbabweans travel back to their rural homes during the holiday season, taking gifts and foods for feasts to share with their families. But this year, the holiday spirit has been dimmed by Zimbabwe's worsening economic situation marked by company closures and job losses. Banks have experienced shortages of cash. Zimbabweans waited in long, winding lines at banks to withdraw money but many depositors came out with a just a fraction of the money in their accounts that they had hoped to spend during the holiday period. The bleak festive season caps a year marked by a disputed election in July, mired by allegations of vote-rigging, that long-time President Robert Mugabe won with a 61 per cent majority against his major opponent and former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. (more)

Zimbabwe: Poachers poison 91 elephants
1 October 2013 - Wildlife officials in western Zimbabwe, say at least 91 elephants were poisoned with cyanide by poachers who hack off the tusks for the lucrative illegal ivory market. Officials say cyanide used in gold mining was spread by poachers over flat 'salt pans,' also known as natural, mineral-rich salt licks. They say lions, hyenas, and vultures have died from feeding on contaminated carcasses or drinking nearby. 'The magnitude of what we are witnessing today is much higher than what has occurred previously,' environment minister Saviour Kasukuwere told reporters on a trip to the park Monday. Cyanide attacks the bloodstream and kills almost instantly. Most of the poisoned elephants died in the past month. The chemical is commonly used by illegal gold panners to separate the metal from surrounding ore and is easily available. Nine suspected poachers have been arrested this month after the biggest, most brutal poaching spree on record. (more)