http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/02/28/zimbabwe.mugabe.birthday.party/index.html

Quote :

"CHINHOYI, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was celebrating his 85th birthday with a lavish all-day party Saturday despite the fact that the country is gripped by an economic and health crisis. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party said it raised at least $250,000 to hold the party in Mugabe's hometown of Chinhoyi, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) outside of the capital, Harare."

And while we are at it, a missile up his nephew's ass too:

Quote :

""I think it is going to be a great day for the legend and icon whose birthday we are celebrating today here," said Mugabe's nephew Patrick Zhuwawo, one of the fund-raisers for the birthday. "The country might be having problems, but we need to have a day to honor the sacrifices the president has made for this country.""

Quote :

"As Saturday's celebrations began in a carnival atmosphere, just less than a kilometer (0.62 miles) away stood a deserted Chinhoyi government hospital -- a reflection of the country's dire health situation. A few nurses are attending to patients. "There are no medicines. These patients have no option but to come here, but there is nothing we can do," said one nurse at the hospital. On Friday Tsvangirai visited Harare Hospital, one of the country's biggest, and said its intensive care unit will need $30,000 in order to start operating again after a funding shortage."

Oh wait, we all know the answer. No need to say it.


Who cares about:

80,000 people with cholera (~4,000 dead)
Z$100 trillion banknote
Prices doubling every 1.3 days
10 sextillion percent inflation (10^22) (100,000% just a year ago!)
25% of population fled country
Infant mortality of 123 per 1,000 (5th highest)
80%+ unemployment rate
50% of population malnourished
700,000 slum dwellers' homes razed
~13% of total population are orphans (25% of those under 18)
Life expectancy of 37/34 (men/women)


Oh wait, no genocide there? Well, there's always Darfur.

2/28/2009 6:03:21 PM

lets be honest

there is no oil there, why should we give a fuck?

2/28/2009 6:04:37 PM

Quote :

"Oh wait, we all know the answer. No need to say it."

2/28/2009 6:05:35 PM

^^Bingo. We have zero interest in most of Africa, for that and other reasons.

2/28/2009 6:10:45 PM

Dude, 100,000,000,000,000 Z$ banknote (enough to buy bread)

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 % inflation

think of the children zeros


[Edited on February 28, 2009 at 6:15 PM. Reason : ]

2/28/2009 6:14:43 PM

what could we do there? we can barely keep our own heads above water.

2/28/2009 6:56:09 PM

^ Exactly. Let someone else deal with it. Why are we World Police?

2/28/2009 6:58:05 PM

Wait. Men live longer than women there?

I know there's like pregnancy-related shit that women die from.

But what the fuck?

I don't know about solving Zimbabwe's problems. But we could at least go in and off some males to get those life expectancies back in shape.

2/28/2009 9:26:20 PM

I remain completely in favor of exterminating Mugabe and a number of other world leaders.

Of course, the exterminating is a lot easier than the part that comes right after, but there's a whole separate set of discussions.

I'd be all in favor of arming opposition groups and other African nations and letting them go at it, maybe with support from American advisers and even aircraft. At this point Zimbabwe is so fucked that even a coalition of other fucked-up African countries couldn't fuck it up anymore.

3/1/2009 2:59:53 AM

oh, because Mugabe never tried to kill his daddy

3/1/2009 3:50:01 AM

Quote :

"Of course, the exterminating is a lot easier than the part that comes right after, but there's a whole separate set of discussions."

Those things generally work out best when they are discussed together, not separately.

3/1/2009 3:52:49 AM

Wasn't Mugabe at least at some point in history elected democratically? And didn't he just form a 'collation' government with the opposition party that was bullied out of the runoff.

Make no mistake, Zimbabwe is a failure of democracy.

So if Iraq was us bringing democracy to the people, and you bring an army into Zimbabwe - what are you fighting for?

3/3/2009 9:30:25 AM

This is the type of thing the UN is supposed to take care of. But they have no backbone and hence no teeth.

3/3/2009 9:34:37 AM

Gonna sanction me with your army?

[Edited on March 3, 2009 at 9:37 AM. Reason : +]

3/3/2009 9:36:35 AM

Quote :

"Oh wait, no genocide there? Well, there's always Darfur."

There's ethnic cleansing of white people getting hacked to death with machetes on their farms but no one cares about them..

3/3/2009 2:32:12 PM

Quote :

"Wasn't Mugabe at least at some point in history elected democratically?"

Yes, and Zimbabwe was actually pretty prosperous due to fertile farmland and relatively skilled workers thanks to farm wealth until he attempted land reform around the turn of the millennium.

Quote :

"And didn't he just form a 'collation' government with the opposition party that was bullied out of the runoff."

Yes, but seeing as how a couple of years ago ZANU-PF beat a hole into Tsvangirai's skull and threw him in jail, who knows what its prospects are.

I'll admit I don't follow this as closely now that I'm no longer around Dr. Vickery.

[Edited on March 3, 2009 at 7:44 PM. Reason : .]

3/3/2009 7:44:28 PM