FIRST Lady Grace Mugabe has ordered the destruction of 100 households in a Mazowe suburb to make way for the expansion of the orphanage she is building in the area.

Although the affected households have been promised land elsewhere, anxiety has gripped the suburb after the residents were given notices to vacate their houses to make way for the extension of the orphanage she is struggling to build in the farming town in Mashonaland Central.

TELECEL board member and businesswoman Jane Mutasa yesterday appeared at the magistrates’ court with two others facing nine counts of fraud involving the illegal sale of seed packs and recharge cards worth over US$750 000.

The trio was remanded in custody to March 19 after Harare magistrate Don Ndirowei ruled that they were not fit candidates for bail.

IN an open rebuke to Media, Information and Publicity secretary George Charamba who has been frustrating the licensing of new players in the newspaper publishing sector, President Robert Mugabe has told the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) to get on with its mandate of opening up the media space.

PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will in May launch a new charity foundation to carry on the legacy of his wife, Susan who died in a car crash in March last year.

THE faces of three old women sitting hopelessly around a small fire say it all.

BULAWAYO — Matabeleland South and North provinces will require urgent food aid in the next two months owing to widespread crop failure this season.

YOUTH Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere on Friday ordered foreign banks operating in Zimbabwe to start lending money to blacks or “ship out’ in remarks that are likely to further unsettle foreign investors.

BULAWAYO — The city council has admitted that its water quality has been compromised by the now-frequent breakdown of its pumping system.

TO many in Zanu PF, Saviour Kasukuwere, the Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment, is their saviour.

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has barred Presidential Affairs Minister Didymus Mutasa’s lawyer from taking over Rydings Primary School in Karoi in one of his most decisive actions against Zanu PF sympathisers abusing the land reform programme to seize private assets.

HIGH drama is unfolding in Gokwe in a case that will put the national healing process to the test.

CHIMANIMANI — Tucked in rural Chimanimani, the small Mutambara Mission Hospital faces a workload usually associated with the country’s biggest referral hospitals.

CHIMANIMANI — Chipo Maraidze, pregnant with her first child, has just arrived at Mutambara Mission Hospital and is battling for her life.

THE MDC-T is demanding drastic action against Zanu PF youths who last week threatened Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai with unspecified repercussions for not  advocating for the removal of sanctions imposed by western countries.

The demand, made after Zanu PF youths marched through the streets of Harare on Wednesday is set to further widen the gulf between the two parties in the unity government.

BULAWAYO — Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his two deputies yesterday stayed away from President Robert Mugabe’s lavish 86th birthday party where the organisers splashed thousands of dollars on exotic food.

Mugabe’s actual birthday was last Sunday but Zanu PF’s communist styled 21st February Movement organised an all-night music gala on Friday and the feast yesterday.

BULAWAYO — Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Savior Kasukuwere says the empowerment law that has rattled investors is only the beginning of legal interventions his ministry will undertake as it seeks to indigenise the economy.

PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai will return to work tomorrow to address issues threatening the fragile unity government after successfully undergoing surgery in South Africa, his office confirmed yesterday.

BULAWAYO — The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists plunged deeper into a crisis yesterday when another election, described as a “sham” by journalists was held in Bulawayo yesterday.

UNDER-FIRE Harare councillors have accused residents’ associations of using donor funds to decampaign them instead of helping to improve service delivery.

HARARE City Council last week resolved to forcibly remove controversial “inventor” Daniel Chingoma’s “helicopters” following concerns that he had set up illegal “aerodromes”.