adminSRC endorses Zifa match-fixing probe
By Sikhumbuzo Moyo
THE country’s supreme sports body, the Sport and Recreation Commission (SRC) has endorsed the ongoing investigations by Zifa into match-fixing allegations especially in the central region that has since seen two board members, Gift Banda and Patrick Hokonya being suspended.
Dynamos in sensational scoop
By Sikhumbuzo Moyo
CASTLE Lager Premier Soccer League champions, Dynamos, had a sensational scoop late on Thursday when they snatched the signature of former Legia Warszawa in the Polish Ekstraklasa league Takesure Chinyama and registered him for the Caf champions league while Motor Action beat the 12 midnight deadline to register 19 players.
Gaddafi killing could be war crime: ICC
New York — The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor said on Thursday there are serious suspicions that the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was a war crime.
Fight ANC and face the wrath of the ancestors — Zuma
East London — ANC president Jacob Zuma warned party members in the Eastern Cape not to let themselves be influenced by money and other members, to rise against leadership or risk the wrath of the ancestors.
Zuma addressed delegates at the province’s general council at the University of Fort Hare in Alice, where members take stock of the state of the organisation.
The council, which ends today, is attended by 1 353 delegates from the province’s 715 branches.
Egypt protesters clash with police
CAIRO — Egyptian protesters set cars alight and threw stones at military police in Cairo yesterday, witnesses said, after rumours spread that an activist had been detained at a sit-in outside the cabinet office and badly beaten.
Ouattara wins parliamentary majority
Abidjan — Cote d’Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara’s party won a parliamentary majority in Sunday’s elections, the chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission said yesterday.
The party of president Laurent Gbagbo, who is awaiting trial in The Hague, boycotted the poll.
Wanted men still committing crimes in Darfur: ICC
UNITED NATIONS — A group of senior Sudanese officials indicted by the International Criminal Court, including the president, continue to commit genocide in western Sudan, the court’s prosecutor said on Thursday.
The ICC has issued arrest warrants against President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide as well as former Interior Minister Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb for war crimes in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
Mutambara loses case
By Leonard Ncube
DEPUTY Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara yesterday lost the case
Diamond firms unfazed by sanctions
From Mkhululi Sibanda in Chiadzwa and Makhosi Sibanda in Bulawayo
THE two Zimbabwean diamond mining companies, Marange Resources and Mbada Diamond Mining that have been added on the United States sanctions list, have said they are not perturbed by the development and will continue with their operations as usual.
According to the latest US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Affairs Control, the two firms have been added onto the “specially designated” updated nationals list.
Officials from the two companies told local and foreign journalists during a tour of the Marange Diamond Fields organised by the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) on Wednesday that the sanctions would not in anyway stop them from carrying out their operations.
The move has been viewed as a ruse to frustrate efforts to improve the country’s economy through diamond sales as it came shortly after the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme granted Zimbabwe the nod to unconditionally export its gemstones from the Marange fields.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Obert Mpofu is on record as saying Zimbabwe was geared to become an economic giant after the KP approval.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai insists we will sell our gems
Harare Bureau
PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday said civil servants will get a salary increase next year only if revenue from diamonds increases.
Speaking in Parliament while making an end of year address, PM Tsvangirai said even the good performance of the Government would be hinged on the diamond industry.
PM Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe would be able to sell its gems despite sanctions imposed on diamond producing companies by the United States.
This was a major shift by the PM whose MDC-T party has been siding with non-governmental organisations to prevent the country from getting an international clearance to sell diamonds from Marange.
Zimbabwe was given the green light to trade in the precious gems by the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme last month.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti budgeted $600 million, which he said was expected to come from diamonds in the 2012 fiscal year.
“We expect that with increased inflows from diamond sales revenue, we must be able to make meaningful adjustment to civil servants’ salaries and conditions of service,” said PM Tsvangirai.
“While there is no provision for an increase in the current budget, the only hope is that diamond revenues will exceed the budgeted $600 million, with surplus being put to improving conditions of service for civil servants.”