Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

Source: Tsvangirai’s bulletproof car gathers dust in police custody –Newsday Zimbabwe

POLICE in Lupane, Matabeleland North are still holding the late former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangiri’s car, which they seized 15 years ago.

NewsDay visited a police compound in Lupane and observed that the bulletproof car is still parked on the premises but is in a sorry state after being exposed to inclement weather since it was seized from the late opposition leader.

Police spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Nyathi refused to comment, saying he was busy.

“I’ m in a meeting, call me tomorrow,” he said.

Police impounded the South African registered BMW X5 that the late former MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was using to tour rural Matabeleland North province in 2008 which formed part of Tsvangirai’s security motorcade, on June 6, 2008, in Lupane.

Citizen Coalition for Change CCC Matabeleland North provincial secretary Dalumuzi Khumalo said police arrested Tsvangirai, his former deputy Thokozani Khupe and former national chairperson Lovemore Moyo as they visited Lupane district to mobilise supporters ahead of the 2008 second-round presidential election.

“The police claimed the car was not authorised to be in Zimbabwe in terms of the Customs and Excise Act. They demanded that the owner either come to Lupane or he sends a written affidavit explaining how the vehicle was temporarily imported into Zimbabwe,” Khumalo said.

The vehicle was donated to Tsvangirai by his South African friend Adrian Espag for use as he toured the country to drum up support ahead of the 2008 presidential poll.

Source: Drama in Karoi as garbage truck catches fire –Newsday Zimbabwe

There was drama in Karoi town’s central business district when a Karoi Town Council (KTC) refuse truck was forced to dump garbage in the middle of the road after catching fire.

The garbage was offloaded near a business complex on the highway and vehicles were forced to divert routes.

The NewsDay witnessed the drama as the workers rushed to offload the garbage in the middle of the road.

They later called a fire tender to put out the fire.

KTC employees blamed mushrooming canteens using firewood to prepare food in the high-density suburb of Chikangwe and the town area.

‘‘Our challenge is that we have more canteens that have mushroomed due to high business activity during the tobacco selling seasons. Most of these canteens are operating illegally and located in the backyards of businesses and houses.

“They don’t put out the fire when they get rid of their garbage. We just collect and we are not sure where the fire started. We were forced to stop and offload the garbage so that a fire tender could attend to the scene,’’ said one of the council employees who preferred to be anonymous.

KTC chairperson Abel Matsika could not be reached for comment.

Source: Juvenile (17) arrested for killing drinking mate –Newsday Zimbabwe

A 17-YEAR-OLD juvenile from Fort Rixon has been arrested for murdering a drinking mate while police have launched a manhunt for three suspects who are on the run.

Matabeleland South police spokesperson Inspector Loveness Mangena confirmed the murder and identified the deceased as Readman Ndlovu (46) from Combo village, Fort Rixon.

 The suspects who are on the run were named as Bethod Mthembu, Nkosi Mafu and Arnold Sibanda.

“On May 27 at 10:30pm, the four along with other villagers were drinking beer at a shop in Combo, when Ndlovu advised the juvenile not to drink beer considering his age.

“A misunderstanding ensued and one of the suspects stabbed Ndlovu on the stomach before some of the suspects disappeared from the scene,” Mangena said.

She said a report was made to the police leading to the arrest of the juvenile.

“A manhunt has since been launched for the three suspects still on the run. Police also warn beer outlets to desist from serving beer to juveniles,’’ Mangena said.

Source: Zim presses miners to produce battery-grade lithium locally –Newsday Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe wants lithium miners operating in the country to work towards producing battery-grade lithium locally and could impose a tax on exports of lithium concentrate in future, Mines minister Winston Chitando said last Wednesday.

The southern African country holds significant reserves of lithium, a battery mineral which is vital to the global drive towards cleaner energy technologies, which Zimbabwe hopes will help revive its ailing economy.

Chinese firms including Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group, Chengxin Lithium Group and Canmax Technologies have spent more than US$1 billion over the past two years to acquire and develop lithium projects in Zimbabwe.

Some of these companies’ projects have started production and are expected to build up to a combined annual output of nearly 1,5 million tonnes of lithium concentrates over the next year.

Last year, Zimbabwe banned the export of unprocessed lithium ore to stop rampant digging and smuggling of the mineral by artisanal miners, ordering that only lithium concentrates could be exported.

It now wants miners to go beyond the production of concentrates, which are shipped for further processing outside the country, mostly to China.

“Obviously, what the government wants is to move up the value chain, but it won’t happen overnight,” Chitando said in an address at the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines annual general meeting.

He added that some lithium miners had plans to eventually produce battery-grade lithium locally.

“As government, once we have an entity which can value-add beyond lithium concentrates and go a stage higher, two things will happen; the extreme case will be to ban the export of lithium concentrates, which won’t happen, or we will impose a levy,” he said.

Huayou, which invested about US$700 million to acquire and develop Zimbabwe’s Arcadia lithium mine in 2022, said in June last year it could not commit to producing battery-grade lithium in the near term.

The company, China’s top cobalt refiner, said Zimbabwe, like most African countries, lacked renewable power and key materials needed to produce battery-grade lithium, such as natural gas and chemicals, whose importation would be unaffordable.