Washington Post—U.S. Won’t Support Zimbabwe if Mugabe Stays On, Envoy Says
The U.S. can no longer support a proposed Zimbabwean power-sharing deal that would leave Robert Mugabe — “a man who’s lost it” — as president, the top U.S. envoy for Africa said Sunday. A power-sharing agreement between Zimbabwe’s opposition parties and Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe with increasing severity for 28 years, is “not credible with Mugabe as president” because he appears unwilling to share control, said Jendayi Frazer, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs. The comments, which came days after Frazer echoed calls by President Bush and other world leaders that Mugabe step down, indicated a shift in U.S. policy toward a power-sharing deal signed in September.

LA Times—Zimbabwe can’t paper over its money woes
The LA Times looks at the truly astounding hyper-inflation affecting the Zimbabwe economy and its people. For instance, a pale blue bank note of Zimbabwean currency that says 1,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars really means 10,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s 10 quintillion, taking into account the 13 zeros Zimbabwe’s central bank has lopped off in the last couple of years to make the country’s currency somewhat more manageable. Every time the inflation gets out of hand, Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank scythes away 00000s. Inflation is soaring so fast in Zimbabwe that it’s hard to figure out what a Z$1-million note is actually worth on a given day, all with disastrous consequences for the economy.

-Steve Wilson