Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

US journalist and blogger with over a million followers Candace Owens told the media that she has found evidence that Brigitte, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, is a man.

“The investigation is over: there is no doubt that Brigitte Macron is a man. It’s not going to look good for me if I’m just making a stupid conspiracy. I’ve looked into this, and I say it was Emmanuel’s teacher,” Owens assured.

“Here’s what’s crazy. The lawsuit, Brigitte is not suing me for saying she’s a man. She’s suing me for saying that she stole her sister’s or her brother’s ID. It’s like, I guess she’s saying she’s a thief, not a man. It’s completely madness,” she added.

Owens is a prominent figure in conservative circles in the US and host of a popular podcast; her YouTube channel has over 6 million subscribers. Since March 2024, she has repeatedly stated that Brigitte Macron was actually born a man. Earlier, the French president and his wife had planned to present evidence in court to refute Owens’ claims.

The post Journalist assures she found evidence that Brigitte Macron is male appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

US journalist and blogger with over a million followers Candace Owens told the media that she has found evidence that Brigitte, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, is a man.

“The investigation is over: there is no doubt that Brigitte Macron is a man. It’s not going to look good for me if I’m just making a stupid conspiracy. I’ve looked into this, and I say it was Emmanuel’s teacher,” Owens assured.

“Here’s what’s crazy. The lawsuit, Brigitte is not suing me for saying she’s a man. She’s suing me for saying that she stole her sister’s or her brother’s ID. It’s like, I guess she’s saying she’s a thief, not a man. It’s completely madness,” she added.

Owens is a prominent figure in conservative circles in the US and host of a popular podcast; her YouTube channel has over 6 million subscribers. Since March 2024, she has repeatedly stated that Brigitte Macron was actually born a man. Earlier, the French president and his wife had planned to present evidence in court to refute Owens’ claims.

The post Journalist assures she found evidence that Brigitte Macron is male appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

Zimbabwe’s economy operates in a perpetual environment of cost volatility. Unlike more stable markets where inflationary shocks are episodic, Zimbabwe’s pricing landscape is shaped by continuous and overlapping disruptions, currency fluctuations, fuel price adjustments, import dependency, shifting monetary policy signals, supply chain instability, and periodic shortages of key commodities. For businesses, this means pricing is not a quarterly or annual exercise; it is a daily survival mechanism.

By Brighton Musonza

The impact of this volatility is felt most acutely in retail, manufacturing, transport, and wholesale distribution. Input costs rarely move in predictable cycles. A single change in exchange rate expectations can immediately alter the landed cost of imported goods. Fuel adjustments cascade through logistics, raising distribution costs across the entire economy. Even locally produced goods are affected because packaging, machinery parts, and raw materials are often imported.

In such an environment, many firms respond reactively rather than strategically. Prices are adjusted abruptly, often without supporting analysis or coordination across departments. While this may protect short-term cash flow, it often erodes customer trust, weakens competitiveness, and creates long-term margin instability.

Yet within this volatility lies an overlooked opportunity. If properly structured, pricing becomes not just a defensive reaction to inflation but a strategic capability that can stabilise margins, improve decision-making discipline, and strengthen customer relationships.

Cost Volatility as a Structural Feature of the Economy

In more stable economies, cost increases are treated as external shocks that can be absorbed, delayed, or selectively passed on. In Zimbabwe, volatility is structural rather than exceptional. Businesses operate in an environment where input costs rarely stabilise long enough to establish long-term pricing models.

This structural volatility has created a dual economy. On one side are formal businesses attempting to maintain accounting consistency, contractual pricing, and margin planning. On the other hand, informal traders adjust prices in real time, often multiple times per day, based on exchange rate expectations, stock availability, or transport costs.

The informal sector, though often dismissed in formal economic analysis, has developed its own form of pricing intelligence. Prices are highly responsive, locally negotiated, and dynamically adjusted. However, this responsiveness is not guided by structured data or long-term strategy. It is instinctive, fragmented, and often opaque.

Formal businesses, by contrast, tend to be slower to adjust prices, often due to reputational concerns, contractual obligations, or fear of customer backlash. This delay creates a lag between cost changes and price recovery, which gradually erodes margins.

The core challenge is therefore not whether prices should change, but how they should change in a way that preserves both profitability and market stability.

The Hidden Cost of Reactive Pricing in Zimbabwe

One of the most damaging responses to cost volatility is reactive pricing. When businesses delay price adjustments until costs become unbearable, they are forced into abrupt, broad-based increases that are difficult for customers to absorb.

In Zimbabwe, this pattern is particularly visible during currency adjustments or fuel price spikes. Businesses often wait until pressures accumulate before implementing price revisions. When adjustments finally occur, they tend to be uniform rather than targeted, affecting both high-margin and low-margin products equally.

This approach creates several structural problems. Customers experience sudden price shocks rather than gradual adjustments, which weakens trust and encourages substitution toward informal alternatives. Sales teams are often unprepared to justify increases, which reduces pricing credibility. Internally, businesses lose visibility into which products are driving margin erosion and which could absorb cost increases more efficiently.

Over time, this reactive cycle leads to what can be described as “margin leakage”—a gradual erosion of profitability that is not immediately visible but becomes significant over time. Businesses may continue to grow revenue while quietly losing financial resilience.

Building a Structured Analytical Foundation for Pricing

A more resilient approach begins with the construction of a proper analytical foundation for pricing decisions. In many Zimbabwean firms, pricing is still determined by adding a fixed margin to estimated costs without fully capturing variability in input prices, logistics expenses, or currency-related adjustments.

A structured approach requires firms to develop a detailed understanding of their cost base at a transactional level. This includes tracking how input costs evolve over time, how different suppliers contribute to price volatility, and how exchange rate movements affect landed costs. It also requires understanding the actual profitability of individual products rather than relying on aggregated category-level margins.

In practice, this means shifting from assumption-based pricing to data-informed pricing. Even where advanced analytics infrastructure is limited, firms can still build internal transparency using existing accounting systems, sales records, and procurement data. The objective is not technological sophistication but decision clarity.

In Zimbabwe’s context, this step is particularly important because cost distortions often accumulate silently. Products that appear profitable at a category level may, in fact, be margin-negative once logistics, currency conversion, and informal supply chain costs are fully accounted for.

Moving Toward Value-Based and Adaptive Pricing

Once a clear analytical foundation exists, firms can begin to transition toward more adaptive pricing models. In volatile environments, rigid pricing structures quickly become outdated. Prices must reflect not only cost changes but also perceived customer value and competitive positioning.

In Zimbabwe, value perception is highly context-dependent. Customers are often willing to pay premium prices for reliability, availability, and trustworthiness, especially in markets where stock-outs and quality inconsistency are common. This creates an opportunity for businesses to differentiate not only through price but through consistency and dependability.

Adaptive pricing does not necessarily mean constant price increases. It can also include selective absorption of cost increases in high-competition categories, while recovering margins in less price-sensitive segments. It can involve adjusting pack sizes, reconfiguring product bundles, or modifying payment terms to smooth affordability constraints.

Importantly, adaptive pricing must be grounded in an understanding of consumer behaviour. Zimbabwean consumers are highly price-aware due to economic instability, but they are also highly pragmatic. They prioritise availability and certainty when those attributes are lacking in alternative channels.

This creates space for structured pricing strategies that balance affordability with sustainability.

The Role of Sales Teams in Pricing Discipline

Pricing decisions do not succeed at the strategy level alone. They must be executed through frontline commercial teams who interact directly with customers. In Zimbabwe, this is particularly important because pricing conversations are often negotiated rather than imposed.

Sales teams frequently find themselves at the centre of customer resistance, especially during periods of inflation or currency instability. Without clear internal guidance, they may resort to ad hoc discounting, inconsistent messaging, or delayed implementation of price adjustments.

A structured pricing strategy therefore requires internal alignment. Sales teams must understand not only what prices are changing, but why they are changing and how to communicate this effectively. This involves building internal confidence in pricing logic and equipping teams with consistent narratives that link price changes to observable economic realities such as fuel costs, import prices, or exchange rate movements.

When sales teams are properly aligned, pricing shifts become more defensible and less disruptive. Instead of being viewed as arbitrary increases, they are understood as necessary adjustments within a broader economic context.

Governance, Transparency and Pricing Discipline

One of the most underdeveloped aspects of pricing in Zimbabwean firms is governance. In many organisations, pricing decisions are decentralised, informal, or reactive. This creates inconsistencies across products, regions, and customer segments.

A disciplined pricing system requires clear governance structures that define who approves price changes, how often prices are reviewed, and how exceptions are managed. It also requires consistent monitoring of pricing outcomes to understand whether adjustments are achieving intended margin recovery.

Transparency is particularly important in volatile environments. Customers are more likely to accept price changes when they understand the underlying logic. Internally, transparency helps firms identify where pricing discipline is breaking down and where margin erosion is occurring.

Without governance, even well-designed pricing strategies fail in execution. With governance, firms can maintain consistency even under conditions of extreme volatility.

Informality, Competition and the Pricing Paradox

Zimbabwe’s informal sector introduces a unique complexity into pricing strategy. Informal traders often adjust prices more rapidly than formal businesses, reflecting real-time market conditions. However, this flexibility is not based on structured cost analysis but on immediate supply and demand pressures.

This creates a paradox for formal firms. On one hand, they must maintain structured pricing systems to ensure financial sustainability. On the other hand, they must remain competitive against informal players who can adjust prices instantly.

The long-term solution is not to mimic informal pricing behaviour but to build superior systems of predictability, availability, and trust. Customers often tolerate higher prices from formal businesses if those businesses provide consistency, quality assurance, and reliability.

In this sense, pricing strategy becomes inseparable from broader operational performance.

Conclusion: From Survival Pricing to Strategic Pricing

In Zimbabwe’s volatile economic environment, pricing has historically been treated as a reactive tool for survival. Businesses adjust prices when costs become unbearable, rather than as part of a structured strategy.

However, sustained competitiveness in this environment requires a shift in mindset. Pricing must evolve from a reactive function into a disciplined capability that integrates data analysis, customer understanding, sales alignment, and governance.

Cost volatility is unlikely to disappear. If anything, it may intensify as global supply chain pressures, currency fluctuations, and domestic economic reforms continue to shape business conditions.

The firms that succeed will not be those that avoid volatility, but those that learn to manage it strategically. Pricing, when properly structured, becomes not just a mechanism for recovering costs, but a tool for building resilience, protecting margins, and strengthening long-term customer relationships.

In an economy defined by uncertainty, pricing discipline becomes one of the most important forms of competitive advantage.

The post Defying Cost Volatility: A Strategic Pricing Response in Zimbabwe’s Fragmented Economy. The Reality of Constant Price Instability in Zimbabwe appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

For most of the twentieth century, shopping was a physical activity. Consumers left home, visited stores, compared products, sought information and completed purchases in person. Retailers competed primarily through location, assortment and pricing.

By Brighton Musonza

Artificial intelligence is changing this model fundamentally.

Across advanced economies, consumers increasingly conduct product searches, compare prices, read reviews, evaluate alternatives and even automate routine purchases before ever entering a physical store. Shopping is gradually becoming an activity that occurs before a consumer reaches a shop rather than inside it.

The implication is profound. The physical shopping trip is no longer automatic.

Consumers are increasingly asking themselves a series of questions before deciding whether a store visit is worthwhile. Will the product be available? Will the journey be convenient? Will prices be competitive? Can the purchase be completed quickly? If travelling requires additional effort, will the experience provide something that cannot be replicated digitally?

This shift represents one of the most significant changes in retail economics in decades.

For Zimbabwe, however, the implications extend beyond retail. They expose deeper structural weaknesses in the country’s economy, including the collapse of formal retail networks, the dominance of informal markets, weak data systems, fragmented supply chains and inadequate digital infrastructure.

The challenge facing Zimbabwe is not simply whether businesses can adopt artificial intelligence. It is whether the country possesses the underlying economic structures that allow AI-driven commerce to function at all.

Zimbabwe’s Informal Economy and the Missing Consumer Journey

One of the central findings emerging from global retail research is that consumers increasingly begin their shopping journeys online. Before entering a store, they verify product availability, compare prices, assess alternatives and determine whether a trip is worthwhile.

This behaviour depends upon structured information.

Consumers can only verify inventory if inventory systems exist. They can only compare prices if prices are digitally visible. They can only trust availability if retailers maintain reliable databases.

Zimbabwe presents a fundamentally different reality.

Much of the country’s retail activity takes place within informal markets that operate outside structured information systems. Millions of transactions occur daily in Mbare, Sakubva, Kudzanai, Chikwanha, Renkini and countless growth points, trading centres and township markets. Yet most of these transactions generate no usable digital data.

Consumers often begin shopping trips with uncertainty rather than information. They may not know whether products will be available, whether prices have changed overnight or whether stock has arrived.

This uncertainty creates inefficiencies throughout the economy.

In advanced retail systems, data reduces uncertainty. In Zimbabwe’s informal economy, uncertainty remains a defining feature of commerce.

Ironically, the informal sector has become both Zimbabwe’s greatest source of economic resilience and one of its biggest barriers to participation in the emerging AI economy.

Convenience Has Become an Economic Asset

One of the most striking conclusions from global retail research is that convenience increasingly determines where consumers shop.

Retail is no longer competing merely on price. It is competing on time.

Consumers increasingly value certainty over variety. They want to know that products are available, queues are manageable, payment systems function properly, and purchases can be completed quickly.

In developed economies, retailers now measure market reach not by geographical distance but by travel time. Shopping centres are designed around commuter routes, work patterns and daily routines.

Zimbabwe’s retail landscape remains largely organised around older assumptions.

Urban planning often separates residential areas from retail zones. Public transport systems remain fragmented. Traffic congestion has increased significantly in major cities. Consumers frequently spend substantial time searching for products that may or may not be available.

The result is a hidden economic cost.

A consumer who spends three hours searching for basic household goods is not simply shopping. They are absorbing inefficiencies created by weak retail systems.

Artificial intelligence is making these inefficiencies more visible.

As global consumers become accustomed to certainty, speed and predictability, economies characterised by uncertainty risk becoming less competitive.

The Collapse of Trust in Formal Retail

Zimbabwe’s retail transformation is often discussed in terms of formalisation versus informality. Yet the deeper issue may be trust.

Modern retail systems depend upon predictable relationships between consumers and businesses.

Consumers trust that advertised prices will remain stable. They trust that inventory systems reflect actual stock levels. They trust that products will be available when needed.

Repeated episodes of inflation, currency instability and supply disruptions have weakened these assumptions in Zimbabwe.

Consumers have adapted by diversifying purchasing channels. They buy from supermarkets, informal traders, social media merchants, cross-border suppliers and WhatsApp groups simultaneously.

While this strategy improves resilience at the household level, it fragments retail ecosystems.

Instead of a unified market generating structured data, Zimbabwe increasingly operates through thousands of parallel micro-markets.

This fragmentation makes it difficult for businesses to forecast demand, optimise inventories or develop sophisticated customer intelligence systems.

The consequence is a retail environment that becomes increasingly difficult to integrate with AI-powered commerce.

The New Divide: Convenience Shopping versus Discovery Shopping

Perhaps the most important insight emerging from the AI era is that physical shopping is not disappearing. Instead, it is splitting into two distinct categories.

The first category is convenience shopping.

These are mission-oriented trips where consumers already know what they want. The objective is speed, certainty and efficiency. Grocery purchases, household essentials and routine products increasingly fall into this category.

The second category is discovery shopping.

These trips are driven by exploration, social interaction, entertainment and experience. Consumers are not merely buying products. They are seeking inspiration, connection and engagement.

Zimbabwe’s retail sector is poorly positioned for either model.

Formal retailers often struggle to provide the certainty required for convenience-driven shopping. Inventory shortages, pricing inconsistencies and supply disruptions undermine consumer confidence.

At the same time, many shopping centres have failed to evolve into destinations capable of supporting discovery-driven shopping.

The result is an uncomfortable middle ground.

Many retail spaces are neither exceptionally convenient nor particularly experiential.

As AI increasingly handles routine purchasing decisions, this middle ground becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.

Why AI Exposes Zimbabwe’s Data Deficit

Artificial intelligence depends on structured information.

AI agents can compare retailers only if product information is standardised. They can recommend alternatives only if inventory data is available. They can automate purchases only if supply chains are visible.

Zimbabwe’s economy suffers from a severe shortage of machine-readable datasets.

Much of the country’s economic activity remains undocumented or poorly documented. Product catalogues are often incomplete. Inventory systems are fragmented. Pricing data is inconsistent.

As a result, Zimbabwe faces a growing risk of exclusion from AI-mediated commerce.

Future consumers may increasingly rely on digital assistants to decide where purchases should occur. Businesses that cannot provide structured information may become invisible to these systems.

The challenge is therefore not merely technological. It is institutional.

The future winners in retail may not be those with the largest stores or the lowest prices. They may be those capable of producing the most reliable data.

Shopping Centres Must Become Social Infrastructure

Artificial intelligence is changing the economic purpose of physical retail space.

If consumers no longer need to visit stores to compare products, then shopping centres must provide alternative reasons for visitation.

Around the world, successful retail developments are increasingly becoming social ecosystems rather than collections of shops.

Restaurants, entertainment venues, fitness facilities, health services, co-working spaces and community activities are becoming central components of modern retail destinations.

This concept may prove particularly important for Zimbabwe.

The country faces growing urbanisation, changing work patterns and declining public social spaces. Shopping centres could evolve into important community hubs that serve social functions beyond commerce.

Yet achieving this transformation requires investment, planning and data.

Developers must understand who their customers are, how they spend time, what services they value and how different businesses interact within a retail ecosystem.

These capabilities remain underdeveloped across much of Zimbabwe’s property sector.

The Invisible Economy Cannot Power Artificial Intelligence

At its core, artificial intelligence is an information technology.

It cannot optimise systems it cannot observe.

Zimbabwe’s economy contains extraordinary levels of entrepreneurial activity, but much of this activity remains statistically invisible. Millions of consumers and businesses operate outside structured digital networks. Transactions occur daily without generating data. Supply chains move products without producing information.

The consequence is an economy that functions but struggles to learn.

Modern AI systems continuously improve because they process feedback generated by transactions. Every purchase improves future predictions. Every customer interaction refines algorithms. Every inventory movement strengthens forecasting systems.

Zimbabwe’s informal economy generates commerce but often not feedback.

This creates a growing divergence between economies that learn from every transaction and economies that merely conduct transactions.

Conclusion: The Future of Retail Is About Information, Not Stores

The most important lesson from the global AI retail revolution is that the future is not primarily about technology.

It is about information.

Consumers increasingly decide whether a physical shopping trip is worthwhile before leaving home. Artificial intelligence is accelerating this trend by reducing the need for physical product discovery and routine purchasing.

Physical stores will survive, but their role is changing. They must either deliver convenience more effectively than digital alternatives or provide experiences that cannot be replicated online.

Zimbabwe faces a unique challenge because many of its retail systems remain informal, fragmented and data-poor. The country’s retail economy generates substantial commercial activity but relatively little structured information.

The question facing Zimbabwe is therefore larger than whether businesses can adopt artificial intelligence. The real question is whether the country can transform an economy built around cash transactions, informal supply chains and fragmented markets into one capable of generating the data that modern commerce requires.

In the age of AI, the most valuable retail asset may no longer be shelf space, location or even inventory.

It may simply be information.

And economies that fail to generate it risk becoming invisible in the marketplaces of the future.

The post Shopping in the Age of AI: Why Zimbabwe Risks Being Left Behind in the Data Economy appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

Source: Retired generals warn MPs against backing Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 -Newsday Zimbabwe

HARARE, Jun. 2 (NewsDay Live) — Retired Air Marshal Henry Muchena has warned Members of Parliament and Senators against supporting Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 (CAB3), saying history will judge lawmakers who back the proposed changes at the expense of the Constitution.

In a statement issued on behalf of retired generals and former senior civil servants, Muchena urged legislators to uphold their constitutional obligations as Parliament prepares to debate the contentious Bill.

“The electorate is watching. History is watching. Every Zimbabwean will remember those who chose personal enrichment over constitutional duty,” Muchena said.

He argued that lawmakers who support the Bill risk violating the Constitution by endorsing proposed changes that could extend presidential and parliamentary terms without direct approval from citizens.

“Complicity in CAB3 constitutes a blatant violation of the Constitution of Zimbabwe,” the statement said.

Muchena’s intervention comes amid growing pressure on legislators ahead of debate on the Bill, which has sparked intense debate among politicians, civil society groups and constitutional law experts.

Critics argue that some of the proposed amendments could weaken constitutional safeguards and democratic accountability, while supporters maintain the changes are necessary to improve governance and policy continuity.

The post Retired generals warn MPs against backing Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3  appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.