Zimbabwe scrambles for hard currency

The government of Zimbabwe has ordered the country's commercial banks to sell all foreign currency to the central bank or the state-owned national oil company until further notice, Zimbabwean news reports said on Monday. Analysts were quoted as saying that this meant that companies would be unable to pay foreign suppliers in anything but the Zimbabwean currency, and exporters will be forced to accept the official exchange rate of 55 Zimbabwe dollars to US $1 instead of the market rate of 80 to 1. Economists warned on Monday that the new policy would be a disaster if it lasted for any length of time. ZANU-PF ups pressure on judges Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party has called on two Supreme Court judges to quit, news reports said on Monday. The state-owned 'The Herald' newspaper quoted Minister of State for Information Jonathan Moyo as saying a meeting of its members of parliament on Friday passed a vote of no confidence in the country's highest court and urged justices Nicholas McNally and Ahmed Ebrahim to resign. Moyo said the judges had "usurped" parliament's powers by recently overturning a government ban on election result challenges. Justice McNally was quoted as saying that Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa asked for his resignation and that of his colleague Justice Ebrahim. "We were told very nicely and politely we should take our leave and go, otherwise anything could happen. They didn't want me to come to any harm," he said. Meanwhile, Sternford Moyo, president of the Law Society, told the BBC that if the judges agreed to resign in such circumstances it would set a precedent, making it difficult for the courts to rule against the government.