National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
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Wednesday, September 9, 2015
World News It is unfair that spouses should be long oppressed by darkness of doubt over whether their marriages could be annulled.
–POPE FRANCIS
Afolabi Gambari
WITH AGENCY REPORT
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arely two weeks after Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, met President Robert Mugabe and confirmed his plan to invest in Zimbabwe’s ailing sectors, a team raised by the Nigerian billionaire has arrived in Harare to further the talks with a view to sealing deals. Reports from Harare yesterday said the six-member team, led by Dr. Abdul Mukhtar, arrived in the southern African country’s capital on Monday and held meetings with senior government officers who include Deputy Chief Secretary to the president and cabinet, Justin Mupamhanga. The team, which comprised Dangote Corporate Strategy specialist, Rumbidzai Sithole, a Zimbabwean, as well as lawyers and geologists, amongst other experts, met various state department leaders yesterday. Mukhtar told the state media that the team would depart from the country after all the business deals had been concluded. Dangote, who is Africa’s richest man with a net worth over 18$ billion with his empire spanning across nearly all sectors on the continent, had during his visit late last month expressed his interest in power generation, cement manufacturing and coal mining. Zimbabwe’s Mines Secretary,
Zimbabwe bailout: Dangote’s team in Harare ‘to seal deals’
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‘Cecil’ killer back to work The US dentist who generated an outcry after killing a lion called Cecil in Zimbabwe, Walter Palmer, yesterday returned to his dental practice after weeks in hiding. Palmer arrived at work at 0700 local time (1200 GMT) where a throng of media and a few protesters awaited him. Employees were also seen escorting him and patients into the surgery, as photographers swarmed the office. In recent interviews, he has claimed that the hunt was legal and that he was shocked to hear the animal was famous. One woman could be heard screaming “Extradite Palmer!” The killing of Cecil in July prompted a global uproar, which Palmer claimed led to some safety issues for his family.
Burundi opposition man shot dead
Dangote
Professor Francis Gundyanga, also said yesterday that the business team would meet Chief Secretary to the president and cabinet, Dr. Misheck Sibanda. “The intention is to facilitate all processes that are required and to ensure there are no de-
lays in implementing the agreed projects,” Gundyanga said. Dangote’s interest in Zimbabwe has come at a time when the government is struggling to attract FDI due to a number of issues, including unfavourable investment laws.
Interestingly a top Zimbabwean official, Simon Khaya-Moyo, had last week claimed government would not bend its tough laws for Dangote, days after the businessman told local journalists that he had held a positive meeting with Mugabe.
ICC trial: Gbagbo loses health appeal
ppeal judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague yesterday rejected a request by former Ivorian leader, Laurent Gbagbo, for temporary release on health grounds. The 70-year-old denies charges of murder, rape, attempted murder and persecution in the wake of disputed presidential polls in 2010. Records showed that some 3, 000 people were killed in unrest after he refused to accept defeat. He was arrested in April 2011 and his trial is due to start on November 10. Gbagbo, who ruled Ivory Coast from 2000 until his arrest by forces loyal to President Alassane Ouattara, backed by UN and French
WORLD BULLETIN
troops,was transferred to The Hague in November 2011. Court documents said he suffers from post-traumatic
Gbagbo
stress disorder and an unspecified physical ailment. “The appeals chamber found that it was not unrea-
sonable for the trial chamber to find the existence of Gbagbo’s support network posed a risk to abscond or obstruct investigation,” ICC ruling said. Gbagbo is the first former head of state to be detained by the ICC, although Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Liberia’s Charles Taylor were tried by special courts in The Hague. His wife, Simone, is serving a 20-year jail term in Ivory Coast for her role in the violence that followed her husband’s defeat in the presidential run-off. The ICC’s request to transfer her to The Hague to be tried for crimes against humanity has been rejected by the Ivorian government.
The spokesman for a party in Burundi opposed to President Pierre Nkurunziza’s third term, Patrice Gahungu, has been shot dead in the capital, Bujumbura. Gahungu, from the Union for Peace and Development (UPD), was targeted by unidentified gunmen as he drove home late on Monday, Police said yesterday. The leader of the same small opposition party, Zedi Feruzi, was killed in May. President Nkurunziza was sworn in for a controversial third term last month following several months of unrest. The government accuses the opposition, which says the third term is illegal, of causing the violence.
2018 election: ‘Outcast’ Mujuru to contest Zimbabwe election Former Zimbabwe vice president, Joyce Mujuru, has announced she will contest the 2018 elections. Mujuru, removed from government and the ruling party late last year, has considered coming back into mainstream politics amid reports of the coalescing of a group of disgruntled ex-ZANU PF stalwarts stampeded out of the former liberation movement as part of the succession fight. The war veteran published a Blueprint to Unlock Investment and Leverage for Development (BUILD), a two-page plan that read like an election manifesto, yesterday, signaling she was ready to challenge the 91-yearold Mugabe who has indicated he will contest the 2018 vote at the age of 94.