South Africa's taxi council in Limpopo is calling out fake patrol squads shaking down travelers near the Beitbridge border crossing. Chairman Ngwepe Lesiba Frans said these bogus crews stop private cars, force people into different vehicles, demand cash, and chase drivers in ways that get folks hurt or killed.
Around 15,000 people cross between Musina and Beitbridge every day through what's apparently the busiest land border in the southern African region, and the scammers hit hardest when traffic picks up. Real taxi patrol vehicles only watch over actual taxi operations and protect passengers, but they have zero authority to pull over regular cars or shake anyone down for money.
The council wants associations to suspend members...
The energy regulator dropped off a bunch of sunscreen and protective gear for people with albinism after running charity golf tournaments in Bulawayo and Harare that pulled in over 16,000 dollars plus some local currency. ZERA's boss, Eddington Mazambani, said giving folks with albinism proper sun protection lets them go to school and work without worrying about getting wrecked by UV rays, and he pointed out that skin cancer risk is massive for this group.
A provincial official named Godwin Bongwe backed up the donation by saying sunscreen should be treated as essential rather than optional, since people with albinism deal with brutal sunburns constantly. One community member mentioned the stuff costs way more than most families can...
Zimplow just offloaded some property called Dagenham for 3.2 million bucks, and the company wants to pump that cash back into parts of the business that actually make money instead of sitting on real estate that does nothing. CEO Willem Swan told shareholders the deal lets them boost liquidity and fund inventory cycles while ditching assets that have zero connection to their main operations in agricultural equipment, mining gear, and automotive stuff.
The sale price came in way higher than what appraisers thought the property was worth, which made it a no-brainer to pull the trigger before the window closed. Swan said the whole point is giving the balance sheet more breathing room so they can jump on growth opportunities or knock down...
Zimbabwe's finance minister told local business owners to quit singling out Chinese entrepreneurs during a budget meeting in Bulawayo after some guy from the grain millers group wanted the government to crack down on foreign competition. Mthuli Ncube basically said calling out specific nationalities is how xenophobia gets started, and he reminded everyone that Zimbabweans have dealt with that garbage themselves when South Africa turned hostile years back.
The minister pointed out that Chinese investors are hitting business sectors where locals never even bothered looking, and as long as they stay out of reserved industries and operate legally, they should get left alone. He dropped a story about a Nigerian military commander who showed...
Harare dropped 879 smart water meters in Warren Park 1, and residents are apparently hyped because they finally get to pay for what they actually use instead of dealing with sketchy billing. The capital already got 20,000 meters from suppliers, and another 40,000 units are supposed to show up soon to speed things along.
People keep hitting up the city council asking when their neighborhoods get the meters, which shows they actually trust this thing might work. The whole point is cutting down on water theft and leaks while making the billing less shady, and once everything rolls out across town, it should kill most of the fights between residents and municipal workers about inflated water bills.
Zimbabwe's corruption watchdogs and government agencies kicked off a two-day workshop in Harare to crunch numbers for their annual SADC accountability report. The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission is running the show alongside the courts, prosecutors, police, and civil society groups like Transparency International Zimbabwe to compile stats on how the country handled graft cases over the past year.
This marks the third time they've assembled one of these regional reports, and it tracks 17 different metrics like money laundering prosecutions, corruption convictions, prevention training, and whether the government actually has a strategy to tackle bribery. The monitoring manager says they're racing to submit everything by early next...
The ruling party's women's wing got together at headquarters in Harare to map out what they want to tackle next year, and Secretary Mabel Chinomona ran the session with national executives plus provincial heads from all ten regions. The group wants to review how the president's economic programs for women played out over the past twelve months and figure out what actually worked versus what flopped.
Part of the agenda involves taking a harder stance against domestic abuse and shutting down holiday traditions that mess with women's and kids' rights, since the festive period apparently brings out some sketchy cultural practices that need to get axed.
A mine shaft caved in near Pickstone Mine outside Chegutu, and rescue teams pulled out five bodies while more artisanal miners remain stuck underground. The local district coordinator confirmed the collapse happened at Chegutu-Alisha Mine, but he kept details pretty tight about what went down.
Search crews are still working to get the trapped miners out after the shaft they were digging in just gave way and buried everyone inside.
INTJ Software just dropped AudioBench for Mac, and the whole point is letting people wire up audio signal chains without touching any code. The company says everyone from total newbies to DSP nerds can drag modules around to build custom processing setups and watch what happens to the sound in real time through waveform displays and spectrum analyzers.
The app basically gives you building blocks like filters, delays, compressors, and oscillators that snap together however you want, and it comes loaded with templates showing off compression tricks, stereo imaging, and other processing concepts. The founder says it works as a sandbox where musicians can figure out what their effects actually do, while students get a visual playground for...
