The latest from Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's kleptocrat-for-life, last seen lecturing the West at the Copenhagen climate summit: White-owned companies in Zimbabwe will be forced to hand control to black businessmen under laws reminiscent of those that led to the seizure of the nation's farms.
The regulations demand that companies, including foreign firms, hand over at least 51 per cent of ownership to "indigenous" Zimbabweans.
Thousands of businesses, including the operations of Barclays bank, Standard Chartered bank and mining company Rio Tinto, will be affected. They must submit their plans to comply by March 1. Owners who fail to comply will face jail sentences.
Well, no wonder Mugabe wants to seize property from whites. Because he's done it before, and it's worked so well.
The collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy and health system is unprecedented in scale and scope. Zimbabwe has over 90% unemployment as well as the world’s highest inflation – an unfathomable ninety sextillion percent. All public-sector hospitals have been shuttered since November 2008. The nutritional and health status of Zimbabwe’s people has acutely worsened this past year due to epidemics of cholera, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. Zimbabwe now has one of the world’s lowest life expectancies at 36 years. High maternal mortality and severe malnutrition augment the daily death toll.
