In the Mail and Guardian I read that the Gauteng High Court has ruled that South Africa must prosecute Zimbabweans, accused of torture, if they ever appear in South Africa. This according to their obligations under the Rome Statute, which they signed (and which led to the founding of the International Criminal Court).

On the same page, Minister Chinamasa made some very strong comments. It is a “sad moment”, an “Ex-Rhodie plot”, and the South African justice system was now “in disrepute”. And he explains how it will happen, the steps that must be taken, to get a Zimbabwean criminal to South Africa.

However, he never says once that no crime was committed. That no torture was conducted. That the people here are innocent. So it would seem, by neglecting to bring up this first most obvious point, (their innocence), that he is admitting to the fact that torture took place in Zimbabwe in 2007 when the Harare headquarters of the MDC were raided by Zimbabwe authorities.

Being too tired (and too full) to move last night, I found myself watching last night’s 8 ‘O’ Clock news broadcast on ZBC. For the most part I try to avoid watching the news, it long ago abandoned its analytical, investigative and informational functions, and now merely serves to justify ZANU PFs existing position.

In an in-depth report, the bulletin featured unabashed condemnation, badly disguised as analysis, of the Pretoria High Court Ruling passed on Tuesday obliging South Africa to investigate Zimbabwean torture allegations. It then moved on to discuss the issue of the lack of coin change from retailers, a cold news item that had been publicly discussed last year; and as a coup de grace a feature report on the lack of innovation in the tourism sector.  I quite doubt that the programmes producers appreciate the irony of their levelling this charge when they are lacking in innovation themselves. Chris Mutsvangwa ZBC’s newly favourite public intellectual was quoted in at least three stories, in his multiple capacities as a legal expert, economic analyst and government representative. One might assume that he was the only person in all of Zimbabwe with any kind of education or opinion.

There’s an hour of my life that I will never get back. The entire bulletin was poorly constructed and superficial in it’s coverage. Zimbabweans are not stupid, their response has been to access paid and free to air channels from South Africa. It’s no wonder that the Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey has consistently reported a decline in viewership. I wonder how Zimbabwe Broadcasting holdings management can doggedly continue to create programming that few can access and even fewer care to watch. Surely they cannot be so deluded as to call what I witnessed last night journalism? Thankfully ZBC’s reception is limited to an 80km radius around Harare, leaving the rest of the nation unaffected. I can’t say it’s a loss to Zimbabwe’s media-scape.

Beth Ditto, living life large and proud. This feature from the Guardian is well worth a read.

Clearly, the public fascination with her went way beyond her music, homing in on her evident ease with her body size and shape and her willingness to sound off at the drop of a hat on the issues she felt strongly about, whether it be the iniquities of the fashion industry or the urgency of furthering civil rights legislation. Most simply, she clearly didn’t care. The Daily Mail, for example, once pictured her getting out of a car in slightly inelegant fashion, noting censoriously that “Someone needs to remind Beth Ditto about the rules of stepping out of a car when there are teams of photographers on hand to capture the moment.” It rather fantastically missed the point, which is that she’d have most likely done exactly the same if the entire world’s photographers were there – or not.

Acoustic Night debuted at HIFA this year on the Coca Cola Green, how did that go?
It was amazing! We had such a good time and the response was overwhelming! The artists really enjoyed it. It was also their first time at HIFA as well. For a virgin experience it was amazing!

How are you finding HIFA so far?
I’m enjoying it; I just haven’t had time to see all the shows. But I think there are a lot of new people, a lot of new faces. It’s very different from the past years where you had the same faces. We’re enjoying the new talent.

Of the shows that you’ve seen which one is your favourite so far?
Jamaram, not just because its ZGS, but because they’ve got such a lively reggae act. They’re very energetic on stage.

Since the introduction of the Internet in Zimbabwe a lot of people have started to embrace social media as a means to share information and to socialize. In countries in the Middle East social media was mainly used to cover the Arab spring protests where citizen journalists, only armed with a camera phone and Internet connection, managed to cover the events. Recently in Zimbabwe the press has been awash with stories of poor service delivery. The most recent and painful one being of a child who was seriously burnt by naked ZESA cables, the child eventually died. The good thing about citizen journalism is its done by citizens reporting on issues relating to their day to day lives and one can it do it without incurring any costs. Since an informed citizenry is a basic principal of self-governance, citizen journalists are the people who report from the ground and this makes their stories more credible than most of the profit driven articles we now read from the established media houses.

On my way out after a show last night a young man spotted the camera around my neck and demanded (in a nice way) that I take his picture, pretty soon a couple of his friends wanted their pictures too. Now, usually I’m wary of being alone with three young men in the dark, but HIFA has a way with people. We had a lot of laughs taking the photos and they even took down our web address to see them live on the internet.