Parched and pillaged – Zimbabwe gets even worse

Just when you thought things could not get any bleaker in Zimbabwe – they do. A sober section in the Middle East and Africa Section of The Economist offers a tale of increasing financial woe for the weary citizens who now cannot even afford to communally pray in the numbers they once did – they're simply too poor to travel to church. Those same people are almost certainly on their knees at home in supplication for some kind of divine intervention. – Chris Bateman

By Thulasizwe Sithole

It's the worst economic crisis in a decade. In this command economy, finance ministers flail about, rendering themselves hypocrites overnight as they change policy more often than the taps run with clean water (once a week), and corruption cripples the country, particularly when it comes to the pricing of alarmingly-scarce maize. Harare's reservoirs are leaking from lack of maintenance and the chemicals needed to keep the remaining water clean cannot be bought due to lack of foreign currency.

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