Zimbabwe

Some of sub-Saharan Africa's most hopeful news in a long while occurred this week. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe came close to winning a parliamentary majority despite a campaign of murder and intimidation by the ruling ZANU-PF party, led by President Robert Mugabe. Public frustration with the wreckage of a once-prosperous economy, and Mr. Mugabe's dispatch of a costly force of 11,000 soldiers to fight in Congo's civil war, led ordinary people to defy ZANU-PF thugs.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's education ministry said Friday it was investigating how school textbooks donated by the United Nations children's agency have been winding up in the hands of bookstores and street vendors. The United Nations Children's Fund has supplied 22 million books since late 2010 after a decade of economic meltdown that left many schools without teaching materials. In some schools, scores of pupils had shared a single book. Education Minister David Coltart said Friday that culprits behind the theft and sale of books - officially the property of government schools - would be prosecuted.

Andre Agassi, helped by some questionable line calls, won the opener of the Davis Cup round between the United States and Zimbabwe yesterday by overpowering Wayne Black, 7-5, 6-3, 7-5. Black's brother, Byron Black, then defeated Chris Woodruff, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3, 6-2, to even the best-of-five first-round series in Harare, Zimbabwe. Today's doubles will be critical. The winner will have a 2-1 lead entering tomorrow's reverse singles, which are expected to be split. In doubles, the Americans will send Alex O'Brien and Rick Leach against Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett.

West Chester United Methodist Church will hold a silent auction and dinner on Saturday to raise money for three church members to visit Zimbabwe. The Rev. John Schol, pastor of the church, and parishioners Jerry Worrell and Scott Fridgen-Veitch are scheduled to leave for Zimbabwe on June 17. Mr. Schol plans to meet with local pastors and leaders to help develop strategies that will perpetuate the growth of businesses in Zimbabwe. Worrell and Fridgen-Veitch plan to work in a United Methodist orphanage in Mutare that which serves about 500 orphans.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Mainstream Anglican Christians in Zimbabwe took back their cathedral on Sunday after a lockout of more than five years staged by an excommunicated, breakaway bishop who claimed loyalty to the president's party and used loyalist police to keep people out. Worshipers from across the country and regional church leaders thronged the central Harare square for a service to "cleanse and re-dedicate" the historic colonial-era cathedral towering...

Until recently, southern Africa was the great hope of Africa. It seemed to have moved beyond the civil conflicts that are still ravaging Sierra Leone and other parts of the continent. Traveling through the region, you see impressive progress in building civil society and establishing the rule of law. Diamond-rich, sparsely populated Botswana impresses visitors with its sober, responsible government. The impoverished former Portuguese colony of Mozambique, with its shabby, charming capital and gorgeous coastline, moved from Marxism to democracy and showed promising growth rates before floods dealt it a setback.

Paul Stidolph thought his farm would be peaceful by now, more than a month after Zimbabwe's tumultuous parliamentary elections. But on Wednesday, after Stidolph shut his tobacco and livestock farm to heed a one-day national strike to protest continuing farm violence, the 56-year-old farmer found himself face-to-face with a mob of angry supporters of President Robert Mugabe. Armed with clubs, crossbows and sharpened bicycle spokes, the 50 militants led by veterans of Zimbabwe's black liberation war demanded Stidolph get back to work or turn over the half of the farm they did not already occupy.

One day in January of last year, park rangers in the Zambezi Valley stumbled across a sight they had seldom seen before: rhino carcasses. Three of the huge, lumbering beasts had been shot with high-powered rifles. All but about 12 pounds of the 4,000 pound animals had been left to rot. Only their horns had been taken, to be sold for dagger handles in Yemen or for folk medicine in East Asia. The rangers' discovery marked a historic breakthrough. For the first time, organized rhino-poaching gangs had breached a final barrier and penetrated the world's largest surviving population of the African black rhino.

The invaders came suddenly, without warning. More than a hundred men with axes and spears arrived at the 2,500-acre farm of Ian and Blair Henderson on Tuesday night. They camped outside the nine-foot fence that surrounds the Hendersons' house, pounding on drums and chanting. While Blair huddled with their two young children, Ian got on the two-way radio and called other white farmers in the area. His friends told him he was on his own; they were having their own problems with similar sieges.

Getrude Makurumidze has a soft laugh that kicks in whenever the college freshman, 18, marvels at all the things she has done and seen in the few weeks since she walked off a plane from her native Zimbabwe - her first taste of Thai food, her first swimming lesson, her first Downward Facing Dog in yoga class. The laugh and broad smile are part of her sunny nature that breaks through, jarringly at times, when she talks about everything she has had to overcome to get from the African mining town of Zwekwe to the campus of Bryn Mawr College: losing her mother, a newborn sister, and her father within the span of a few months when she was 8 years old, all, she eventually learned, from AIDS; losing money for her education in an economic downturn that devastated Zimbabwe; frequent moves around the poverty-stricken nation, and the slow drip of revelations about how she became an AIDS orphan.

Deputy premier wins in Kenya NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya's election commission posted complete results early Saturday showing that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta prevailed in the country's presidential elections by the slimmest of margins, winning 50.03 percent of the vote. That result is likely to bring controversy in Kenya and an almost certain legal challenge from Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Kenyatta needed to break the 50 percent barrier to avoid a runoff with Odinga, but he did so by only 4,099 votes out of more than 12.3 million cast.

THE DAY David Taundi disappeared, it was clear something had gone horribly wrong. His car had run off the road on Henry Avenue near Philadelphia University in East Falls early Dec. 15, hitting a tree before bursting into flames. A witness told police that a man climbed out of the driver's side, walked away from the wreckage and disappeared into the predawn darkness. Taundi's father, Josiya Taundi, mounted a massive search, publicizing missing-person fliers on social media and asking police to mobilize helicopters and search dogs.

The day David Taundi disappeared, it was clear something had gone horribly wrong. His car had run off the road on Henry Avenue near Philadelphia University in East Falls early Dec. 15, hitting a tree before bursting into flames. A witness told police a man climbed out of the driver's side, walked away from the wreckage and disappeared into the predawn darkness. Taundi's father, Josiya Taundi, mounted a massive search, publicizing missing-person fliers on social media and asking police to mobilize helicopters and search dogs.

John Nkomo, 79, vice president of Zimbabwe, died early Thursday after a long illness state radio said, citing President Robert Mugabe. The second of two vice presidents, Mr. Nkomo had not appeared at Mugabe party meetings or state functions for several months. Mr. Nkomo, a former Mugabe opponent, joined a unity government formed in 1987 at the end of an armed rebellion in the Matabeleland province by fighters loyal to his party who opposed Mugabe's domination of the first black government after independence from Britain in 1980.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Mainstream Anglican Christians in Zimbabwe took back their cathedral on Sunday after a lockout of more than five years staged by an excommunicated, breakaway bishop who claimed loyalty to the president's party and used loyalist police to keep people out. Worshipers from across the country and regional church leaders thronged the central Harare square for a service to "cleanse and re-dedicate" the historic colonial-era cathedral towering...

Getrude Makurumidze has a soft laugh that kicks in whenever the college freshman, 18, marvels at all the things she has done and seen in the few weeks since she walked off a plane from her native Zimbabwe - her first taste of Thai food, her first swimming lesson, her first Downward Facing Dog in yoga class. The laugh and broad smile are part of her sunny nature that breaks through, jarringly at times, when she talks about everything she has had to overcome to get from the African mining town of Zwekwe to the campus of Bryn Mawr College: losing her mother, a newborn sister, and her father within the span of a few months when she was 8 years old, all, she eventually learned, from AIDS; losing money for her education in an economic downturn that devastated Zimbabwe; frequent moves around the poverty-stricken nation, and the slow drip of revelations about how she became an AIDS orphan.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's education ministry said Friday it was investigating how school textbooks donated by the United Nations children's agency have been winding up in the hands of bookstores and street vendors. The United Nations Children's Fund has supplied 22 million books since late 2010 after a decade of economic meltdown that left many schools without teaching materials. In some schools, scores of pupils had shared a single book. Education Minister David Coltart said Friday that culprits behind the theft and sale of books - officially the property of government schools - would be prosecuted.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's 87-year-old president said Saturday he would not retire before proposed elections next year and would stay on to lead the country against what he called a Western campaign for regime change. President Robert Mugabe, addressing 6,000 delegates at the end of his party's annual convention in the second city of Bulawayo, said it would be "an act of cowardice" for him to step down. "Luckily, God has given me this longer life than others to be with you and I will not let you down," he said.