{"id":5657,"date":"2015-06-08T13:59:05","date_gmt":"2015-06-08T06:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/?p=5657"},"modified":"2015-06-08T14:00:41","modified_gmt":"2015-06-08T07:00:41","slug":"western-countries-tampering-with-zimbabwes-rainfall-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/zimbabwe\/western-countries-tampering-with-zimbabwes-rainfall-patterns\/","title":{"rendered":"Western countries tampering with Zimbabwe&#8217;s rainfall patterns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A top Zanu PF official\u2019s hypothesis for the failure of the party\u2019s land redistribution programme is that Britain and America have imposed sanctions on the country\u2019s weather patterns.<\/p>\n<p>The stunning revelation was made by former education minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu while addressing a public meeting in Bulawayo on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Pressed to explain the decline in agricultural production, Ndlovu said Western countries are tampering with the country&#8217;s rainfall patterns in order to sabotage the land reform programme.<\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe embarked on the chaotic fast track land reform programme in 2000, forcefully taking prime agricultural land from the minority white farmers and parcelling it out to locals, most them supporters of the ruling Zanu PF party.<\/p>\n<p>President Robert Mugabe says the programme was meant to correct historical wrongs in the distribution of land but opposition parties have accused Zanu PF of embarking on the programme as a way of propping up its waning fortunes.<\/p>\n<p>Agricultural production has gone down drastically in the last fifteen years, with the government this year expected to import over 700,000 tonnes of maize&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newzimbabwe.com\/news-22977-Zanu+PF+shocker+West+stops+Zim+rain\/news.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read More &#8211; New Zimbabwe<\/a><\/p>\n<p>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Zimbabwe\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/zimbabwe\/\">Zimbabwe<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A top Zanu PF official\u2019s hypothesis for the failure of the party\u2019s land redistribution programme is that Britain and America have imposed sanctions on the country\u2019s weather patterns. The stunning revelation was made by former education minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu while addressing a public meeting in Bulawayo on Thursday. Pressed to explain the decline in agricultural [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[248],"tags":[258,256,3691,4535,4533,4532,4536,427,257,4531,4534,254,4693,517,334,4686,421],"class_list":["post-5657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zimbabwe","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-bulawayo","tag-distribution-of-land","tag-land-redistribution","tag-land-redistribution-programme","tag-maize","tag-mugabe","tag-news","tag-rainfall-patterns","tag-sikhanyiso-ndlovu","tag-south-africa-today","tag-southern-africa","tag-white-farmers","tag-zanu-pf","tag-zimbabwe","tag-zimbabwe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}