White farmers face jail threat
Zimbabwe’s national security minister has told the country’s last remaining white farmers that they will be jailed if they refuse to abide by a deadline that passed over the weekend for them to leave their farms, according to a newspaper report on Monday.
The official Chronicle newspaper quoted the minister Didymus Mutasa as saying police would be “unleashed” to deal with white farmers who ignored the eviction notice.
“Those farmers who do not comply with the orders to vacate the land will be dealt with severely,” said the minister, known to be close to President Robert Mugabe. There were around 4,500 white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe in 2000, when Mugabe launched the program of land seizures that has seen agricultural production plummet. Now only around 400 white farmers remain – and at least 150 of them were handed eviction letters in December giving them just 45 days to leave their land to make way for new black farmers.
SAO PAULO, Brazil
Former Miss Brazil turns up in London
The former Miss Brazil, who disappeared five months ago, has contacted Brazilian police from London to say she is well and does not want to be bothered, authorities said Monday.
Taiza Thomsen, 24, had not talked to her family since September, prompting her parents to request help from authorities last month. In her last conversation with her family, she said she was in London.
The Brazilian federal police said Thomsen called investigators on Saturday to say she was in England and nothing had happened to her.
The investigators said it did not appear she was being pressured or coerced by anybody, and that they would close the case.
WINDHOEK, Namibia
China promises aid to Namibia
Chinese President Hu Jintao announced new development aid for Namibia on Monday, promising an interest-free loan and money for schools in the sparsely populated, mineral-rich desert country.
Hu, on an eight-nation tour of Africa, offered a package of measures as he paid tribute to the “brotherly friendship” shown by a “young country full of vitality and talent.”
The Namibia-China Mineral Resources Investment and Development Corp. took out a full-page advertisement in the local newspaper welcoming Hu to the country, where many hope to benefit from an influx of Chinese investment and tourists. But the mood of celebration was not universal.
Hu’s 24-hour stopover comes amid growing criticism over rising Chinese domination in Africa, its interest-free loans and its support of regimes with poor human rights records, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe.