A Zimbabwean woman has been sentenced to 420 hours of community service for impersonating President Robert Mugabe's wife Grace, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Rosemary Chakacha, 23, was sentenced by Harare magistrate Sandra Nhau after she pleaded guilty to fraud by pretending to be the first lady in order to get herself and a friend enrolled in a nurse training school at Harare Central Hospital.
The state-controlled Herald said that in September last year Chakacha phoned the hospital and told the matron she was Grace Mugabe and was sending two aspiring candidates to be registered.
Chakacha and her friend then went to the hospital and had their applications processed.
`Brazen criminal resolve'
In passing sentence, the magistrate said Chakacha was guilty of "brazen criminal resolve."
"The need to protect the dignity and reputation of the first lady as well as the Office of the President cannot be underestimated," she said.
The Herald said Chakacha's plans were foiled when she insisted that she and her friend be enrolled immediately, prompting the authorities to make enquiries with the president's office and exposing her plan.
Zimbabwe-trained nurses are in demand in places like Britain, where they can get well-paid jobs and remit money to families struggling to survive back home. Zimbabwe is in the grip of an economic crisis, marked by triple digit inflation, 70 percent unemployment and growing poverty.
In a separate report the Herald said Harare's Parirenyatwa Hospital needed more than 200 nurses. Seventy-four left the hospital between January and last month, the paper said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was