The Zimbabwean economy has been in decline since the early 2000s. All attempts to save it have so far failed. Roger Southall looks at President Robert Mugabe’s most recent recovery initiatives and argues that they will land the country in financial ruin again. All the ruling ZANU-PF cares about is ensuring that it wins the next election and allowing its political elite to “eat”.

South Africa’s latest crime statistics show that murder rates in the country – someone is murdered about every 28 minutes – are stabilising while a steady rise in violent property crime continues. Anine Kriegler unpacks the numbers and looks at the potential factors driving the country’s extraordinarily high crime rates.