Robert Mugabe

Reforms meant to bring democracy haven’t worked. Will new elections be any different?

Zimbabwean Finance Minister Tendai Biti announced this week that his government had only $217 in the bank. That’s all that was left in government coffers after civil servants were paid. Biti warned that the government doesn’t have enough to fund this year’s presidential election. That leaves the government with no choice: “We will be approaching the international community,” he said. Whether donor countries pay up is an open question. President Robert Mugabe, 88, who’s led–and ruined–Zimbabwe since 1980, has announced he is running again.

Sonia Sotomayor hits Sesame Street, Robert Mugabe is the new Cecil Rhodes, plus a king-in-not-waiting

Late last week, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird seemed to announce that Canada was withdrawing from the UN World Tourism Organization because Robert Mugabe had been appointed to the position of international tourism ambassador by the organization. The UN responded that no such appointment had been made. And today Embassy reports that Canada signalled it would be leaving the organization a year ago and left it two weeks ago.

Gail Asper steps up, Steve Jobs steps down, and Beyoncé is with child

How about a cameo as a lounge singer in Hangover 3?

The government, dominated by his ZANU-PF party, has arrested several leading politicians of the Movement for Democratic Change

Robert Mugabe’s fascination with the Hermit Kingdom goes back many decades

If Mugabe were to accuse Canada of meddling in Zimbabwe’s domestic politics, he’d have a point

South Africa’s new president is proving his critics wrong

I spoke to Zimbabwean lawyer and human rights defender Beatrice Mtetwa while she was in Ottawa this week to deliver a convocation address at Carleton University. Mtetwa has bravely defended Zimbabwean and international journalists in her country who are often subject to arrest, abuse, and murder by forces loyal to President Robert Mugabe. Here is that interview.

Beatrice Mtetwa talks about Robert Mugabe, the fight for truth in Zimbabwe and the possibility for change