News stories by Ignatius Banda, page 8

At independence in 1980 Loyce Tshuma (55), a villager in rural Tsholotsho in Matebeleland North, was a loyal believer in politics as a powerful vehicle to change and better lives. Since then she never missed an opportunity to cast her vote.

A newly available electronic banking service has received a lukewarm reception from cross-border traders in Zimbabwe’s second largest city Bulawayo, despite it alleviating the need to move around with large sums of cash.

Zimbabwe's veteran women politicians fear there are no younger women coming up through the ranks to replace them. Measures to improve women's representation have achieved little and young women are absent from the traditional entry points into politics.

Across Zimbabwe, economic and political crisis has forced students to do without books, classroom furniture, teachers - the basics of a conducive learning environment. These learners cannot go to libraries, so the libraries have gone to them.

'Women in Zimbabwe are largely seen as a huge demographic to be exploited by politicians who seek our support,' says Ntombikayise Mswela. 'But when we take to the streets to demand respect and our rights from the same government we are thrown into prison.

In the dusty streets of Bulawayo’s densely populated townships, Susan Nkiwane is making house calls today. She is one of a group of twelve women who form a fragile web of support for TB sufferers in her community.

Zimbabwe's government recently announced that the country had run out of the critical painkiller morphine. It was just the latest development in a debilitating health care crisis that has seen hospitals turn away patients because of drug shortages.

When the government of national unity (GNU) was formed two years ago, Zimbabweans expected that the days of shop shelves being filled with imported consumer goods would soon be over.

The southern Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo has not been spared the heavy rains that have fallen across Southern Africa; the water is welcome in this semi-arid part of the country, but the coming of the rainy season has provoked fresh memories of the 2008 cholera epidemic.

'The fish are disappearing.' The words and the world-weary gaze could belong to a fisherman from almost anywhere, as stocks come under pressure due to over-exploitation all over the world.