Slow_Rocket

A friend has brought to my attention this tweet by a Rhodesian racist called Adam Rhys Lurie who calls himself Jahman. I have never been an asylum seeker in Britain or in any other country in the world. Every visa I hold was issued on the strength of my financial standing or investment, not on asylum grounds. Most Zimbabweans know that this man has been obsessed with me since the day I spoke about how overpriced Mazoe was in Britain, where he ran a tuck shop that later collapsed and closed down. I do not usually respond to such social media drivel. I know there will always be morons desperate for attention who post nonsense using my name to chase social media engagement because of my social media following. But the record must be set straight. I am not a refugee in Britain, South Africa or anywhere else in the world. My immigration status rests on my investments, nothing else. As for Tommy Robinson, I would never defend him, and I make no apology for that. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as he is really called, made his name founding the English Defence League and has spent years stirring hatred against migrants and refugees, the very people who flee persecution. I have spent 36 years as a journalist standing up for the poor, the voiceless and the persecuted, and exposing those who abuse power. Racism is injustice in its rawest form, and I have never stood on its side. I will not lend my name to a man whose politics feed on dividing people by race and religion, and no amount of goading from his racist admirers will ever change that. Racism is evil. To ask me to spend my journalistic credibility defending a racist is, in itself, an insult. I am well aware that this Rhodesian racist, Adam Rhys Lurie, has built a strange following among some black Zimbabweans who cheer him on, willing cheerleaders of their own humiliation, too hungry for his approval to see the contempt he holds for them and how he uses them. I am certainly not one of those. Thank you.

The idea is good. UPI is the most successful instant payments system in the world, and a single QR code would help small traders who cannot afford several POS machines. But technology is not our main problem. ZIPIT already allows instant bank transfers. Payments are expensive because of the 2% transfer tax, high bank charges and currency instability. UPI is cheap in India because the government ordered zero fees. New pipes will not fix a policy problem. Governor Mushayavanhu also refuses to guarantee lower charges, the deal must be concluded by 31 October, and we have not been told what it will cost or who will control our transaction data. The real test is whether a vendor in Mbare will pay less to receive money than she pays today? Until we get that answer, this is a promising idea without the details that matter. Since January the rate on ZiG transactions has been 1.5%, while payments made in foreign currency still attract the 2% levy. It is basically a revenue stream for the state. That is why many folks prefer cash transactions to avoid charges. The informal sector will remain formal industry's biggest competitor and threat as the article says because it trades in cash. Formal businesses pay the Intermediated Money Transfer Tax (IMTT) of 2% on US dollar transactions and 1.5% on ZiG transactions, as well as bank charges, and these costs are passed on to customers through higher prices. The informal trader pays none of these charges, so he can undercut the formal sector, and people naturally go where goods are cheaper. If the proposed idea doesn’t resolve this, then it is a merry go round fixing very little!

A three-year-old boy named Nevada was so good at football against five-year-olds in Winter Park, Florida, that the police were called and his family was escorted off the pitch in front of other children. His offence? He kept the ball for too long. Grown racist adults complained that their five-year-olds could not get the ball off a toddler. The league then served his family with a trespass notice. This is 2026. A Black child who should be celebrated as a rare talent is instead treated as a threat. Had he been white, he would be on every television channel as the next great star of the game. Imagine what would have happened to this little boy a hundred years ago.

You are lying, just like the many others who keep repeating the same falsehood you are now spreading. This dispute had NOTHING to do with filming. The Winter Park Police Department has released the bodycam footage. In it, the man who called the police tells the officers that the Black boy is very advanced and scores a lot of goals against the five-year-old white boys, as we all saw in the viral video. He goes further. He says he took this three-year-old Black kid off the pitch because he is so good, and the parents objected because they had paid money for their kid to play football. He says the white parents were arguing with the boy’s parents. He even lied to the police, claiming the boy was pushing other children. We all saw the videos. He never pushed anyone. He simply used his brilliant skills to dribble past them. That is what started this, in the coach’s own words, on camera. So why are you lying?