Zimbabwe inflation rate now 136%

[Jeslek]

Harare - Zimbabwe's consumer price index rose by 139.9% in the year to September, up from its August rate of 135.1%, figures from the Central Statistical Office showed on Wednesday.

The CSO attributed the rise to increases in the price of condiments, confectionery, meat, beverages, fruit and vegetables. Of the 139.9% increase, food price hikes accounted for 60.1 percentage points.

Zimbabwe's annual inflation has averaged above 100% since November 2001 as the southern African country battles with an economic crisis many blame on mismanagement by President Robert Mugabe's government.

The crisis has shown itself largely in acute food shortages affecting nearly seven million Zimbabweans and blamed partly on chaotic government land reforms, as well as a foreign currency crunch which has led to erratic fuel supplies since 1999.

The government has officially pegged the Zimbabwe dollar at 55 to the US currency since November 2000, but it is currently trading around 650 on a thriving informal market.


SOURCE: Reuters



That is a bit excessive

 

[Gato_Solo]

Looks like Zimbabwe needs a new president...an uncorrupt president.

 

[Jeslek]

Mugabe and his cronies are dictators. If you give me a gun and a bullet and a guarantee getaway I'd shoot him myself.

How is this for a thought? My boss told me that a very trusty friend once came to him and asked him to write him a check for $5,000. He has 24 other people that will do it, and that would be enough to hire a sniper to take out Idi Amin. Idi Amin moved out to Saudi Arabia before the deal could be completed though.

If someone you trust comes to you and say, Write me $5,000 and I will get someone to take out Mugabe (not Saddam, the US will do that for free), would you? I'd jump on that chance. He is murdering white people and displacing from land they legally own, all to give to his friends. The country is starving and he kills off the farmers. He needs to die, IMHO.

 

[Gato_Solo]

He is murdering white people and displacing from land they legally own, all to give to his friends. The country is starving and he kills off the farmers. He needs to die, IMHO.

*rant mode on
I find that statement to be racist and offensive. Murder is murder, and color was not needed. You make it look like white folks are more valuable than the natives. That's a no-no. Take out the word 'white', and your statement has more merit. A person's skin color does not increase, or decrease, their inherent value.
*rant mode off

 

[Jeslek]

He is murdering white people and displacing from land they legally own, all to give to his friends. The country is starving and he kills off the farmers. He needs to die, IMHO.

*rant mode on
I find that statement to be racist and offensive. Murder is murder, and color was not needed. You make it look like white folks are more valuable than the natives. That's a no-no. Take out the word 'white', and your statement has more merit. A person's skin color does not increase, or decrease, their inherent value.
*rant mode off

You've never even been there, nor have you been to South Africa. You cannot possibly comprehend the friction between the people. I speak from experience. And yes, he is murdering white people. Not blacks. If that makes me racist, well, then I'm racist. Who said it was bad anyways? Read the news on BBC World. Even THEY call it land grabbing from the whites to give to the blacks, and BBC is known for "political correctness".

I'm really sorry, I honestly did not mean to offend you, nor did I even think that statement can be offensive, since I'm merely rewriting what I read on BBC. If you have a problem with that, please PM or MSN me, so we can talk. It wasn't my intend to offend anyone. I won't apologize for the message though, what I wrote there stands. I wrote it in good state of mind and not under anger or frustration.

 

[Jeslek]

And, if I may ask, what natives? Those people were born there, like their fathers.

 

[Gato_Solo]

He is murdering white people and displacing from land they legally own, all to give to his friends. The country is starving and he kills off the farmers. He needs to die, IMHO.

*rant mode on
I find that statement to be racist and offensive. Murder is murder, and color was not needed. You make it look like white folks are more valuable than the natives. That's a no-no. Take out the word 'white', and your statement has more merit. A person's skin color does not increase, or decrease, their inherent value.
*rant mode off

You've never even been there, nor have you been to South Africa. You cannot possibly comprehend the friction between the people. I speak from experience. And yes, he is murdering white people. Not blacks. If that makes me racist, well, then I'm racist. Who said it was bad anyways? Read the news on BBC World. Even THEY call it land grabbing from the whites to give to the blacks, and BBC is known for "political correctness".

I'm really sorry, I honestly did not mean to offend you, nor did I even think that statement can be offensive, since I'm merely rewriting what I read on BBC. If you have a problem with that, please PM or MSN me, so we can talk. It wasn't my intend to offend anyone. I won't apologize for the message though, what I wrote there stands. I wrote it in good state of mind and not under anger or frustration.

Okay...so I wasn't there. It doesn't change what's written there. Try this...

Type out the statement you put in there, and leave out the word white. Read it and reflect on it. It's a good, solid, objective piece of journalism. Now...add the word white. Think on it and reflect on it, and you'll get what I'm saying.

PS. He is murdering people. White or black makes no difference.

One more thing...Caucasians are not native to Africa. Just as I am not native to the US. Doesn't matter if I was born here or not. I am a citizen, but that, in itself, does not make me a native.

 

[Jeslek]

Hm, I see. I suppose I could have typed it out that way. I didn't know you'd take offense to that though, I mean, if BBC and CNN report it that way, why can't I?

 

[Jeslek]

Oh and that statement also indicate murder based on racism and hatred. I believe in accurate information and details, so I always add as much adjective and adverbs as possible. I didn't mean it in a negative way.

 

[ris]

mugabe's zanu-pf party is murdering black people as well. those who do not support him [particualrly opposition mdc supporters] have been beaten and murdered. his land reforms are dubious not because of race but because they come illegally and through force not legal routes. his methods are one of terror, violence and aggression to achieve his objectives - regardless of race or colour.

 

[Jeslek]

I'm not going to argue this point. I've been there and I know the life and the feelings. I'd just get angry and say something I regret.

 

[Gato_Solo]

If CNN and the BBC all jumped off the Sears Tower, head-first, onto a thumb-tack, would you follow?

(I know...bad comparison)

Here's the deal...I would've reacted the same way if it was the other way around. Anytime you qualify a subset over the whole, you either detract from , or add to, the magnitude of the offense. And when you throw the term 'politically correct' to any statement, you insult the intelligence of the reader. To put it rather bluntly...I can deal with a racist. I've been doing it all my life. What I can't stand, though, is a hypocrite. I'm not saying that you are a hypocrite, but, if you go back and read over what's been said, I think you'll agree.

 

[Gonz]

There seems to be two different arguments here. He is killing white farmers because they are white. He wishes to pass the land back to the indigenous people, so the descrpitive use of color has basis here.

His murder of opposition forces, white, black or of any other race, is irrelevent.

 

[Gato_Solo]

Sorry, Gonz, but I'm still sticking to my original argument. The race of the victim only matters if you want to sway someone into doing something. This kind of story is written that way, with race, just to get a rise out of someone. It worked. It got a rise out of me. I despise this kind of reporting because it's inflammatory. To be honest, I was just as upset over the race card when those three white men dragged a black man to death behind their truck in Texas not too many years ago. The act in and of itself is abhorrent. Adding race is inflammatory at best, and racist at worst.

 

[Jeslek]

Sorry, Gonz, but I'm still sticking to my original argument. The race of the victim only matters if you want to sway someone into doing something. This kind of story is written that way, with race, just to get a rise out of someone. It worked. It got a rise out of me. I despise this kind of reporting because it's inflammatory. To be honest, I was just as upset over the race card when those three white men dragged a black man to death behind their truck in Texas not too many years ago. The act in and of itself is abhorrent. Adding race is inflammatory at best, and racist at worst.

The act is abhorrent, but I want the race and sex information there. I want as much information that is as complete as possible. And thats the way I report news too. Sorry Gato, don't mean to get on your nerves.

 

[PT]

I'm going to have to stick with LL and Gonz on this one Gato, Sorry. But there are certain acts that are done because of race, and should be reported as such. That Black man in texas wouldn't have been dragged to death were he not a Black man, nor would an article about the killing made much sense to most people if it just said that a man was drug to death by three other men. Most likely, you would have thought the one man had screwed the other threes wives or something. Race does matter, both ways.

 

[Gato_Solo]

Okay, let's take this as you agree to it...There are 2 seperate races, and the importance of the statement is not the crime, it's the race. Why else would the race be there? To me, it just doesn't matter. We all breathe, we all eat, we all die. The minor exterior differences do not make us different. How does that make the crime more horrendous?

In both cases, the motive doesn't matter. It's the crime. The crime speaks volumes about the people who commit it, and, regardless of the race of the victims or perpetrators, it's what they did, not why, that matters.

 

[PT]

Ok, as far as punishment for said crime goes, the motive does not matter, whether it was race related or not, it was still a crime.

Now, for reporting to the public, I think it is important to note that the Black man was drug behind the truck because he was Black, and the White farmers are being shot becuase they are White. If we just ignore the racism in the world, it is not going to go away.

 

[HomeLAN]

I'm with Gato on this one. If you want to know the reasoning behind it, refer to the Hate Crime thread.

 

[Gato_Solo]

Ok, as far as punishment for said crime goes, the motive does not matter, whether it was race related or not, it was still a crime.

Now, for reporting to the public, I think it is important to note that the Black man was drug behind the truck because he was Black, and the White farmers are being shot becuase they are White. If we just ignore the racism in the world, it is not going to go away.

But if all we do is dwell on it, we only make it worse. Take away the fanfare, and you take away some of the reasoning behind the crime. It's divisive when it's laid out that way, and it always will be.