Beyond Tears

Here via normblog, on a day when Robert Mugabe has been accepted an invitation to address the UN on hunger are some more bulletins on Zimababwe.

Cathy Buckle's latest letter from Zimbabwe came out on Saturday.

Dear Family and Friends,

I am writing this letter from a very tense Zimbabwe where the situation is changing rapidly. Here are just a few things that have happened in the last couple of weeks.

The inflation rate jumped 94 percent in a month, going from 265 percent in August to 359.8% in September 2005.

In the last sixteen days the price of a standard loaf of white bread in Marondera has almost tripled in price from eight to twenty thousand dollars.

The four pack of toilet paper that I wrote about last week, the one that cost fifty two thousand dollars - this week that same pack costs ninety one thousand dollars.

In a country where at least 2 million people face hunger this Christmas and where the government has to import 37 000 tons of maize a week, productive farms continue to be invaded. In the last few days 2 farmers were evicted in Manicaland, another was shot in the shoulder and the CFU said 25 other farmers had been ordered to be off their properties by the end of the month. The Governor of the Reserve Bank said that these invasions were fuelling inflation and just had to stop. He said all productive farms should be regarded as sacred but again his words fell on deaf ears as they are not backed up with political intent or action.

Zimbabwe's only tyre manufacturer, Dunlop announced that they have been forced to stop production and sent over 800 workers home as they have no foreign currency for critical imports.

National Foods, the country's biggest miller has said that the closure of its mills in Harare and Bulawayo is now in sight as they have nothing to grind, mill or refine - no wheat and no maize. ..... read on .....

Sokwanele has also reported today that "the potential for mass starvation in Zimbabwe is now so real and close that Cardinal Wilfred Napier, President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, and Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo have both, separately, called on the United Nations' Security Council to take responsibility for the crisis and act immediately".

Life expectancy in Zimbabwe has plummeted to just 33 years. Here is a link to my earlier post with the contact details for the Food and Agriculture Organisation.