Zim has no choice but to embark on painful reforms

output of 2017, for example, while a plant for the production of lithium carbonate project in Kweke is off to a promising start. Critically, agriculture is increasingly being funded by the private sector.

However, Zimbabwe cannot succeed alone. We are seeking new areas for co-operation and partnership. I was delighted, therefore, by the warm welcome our delegation received at the recent UN general Assembly, where I urged the international community to support us as we revive our economy and build a better future.

Mthuli Ncube, the Minister of Finance, a former African Development Bank chief economist, delivered this message at the recent IMF and World Bank meetings in Bali. There, he met development partners and creditors who welcomed Zimbabwe’s debt-settlement and transitional stabilisation plans.

The process of change is not smooth. Some pain and discomfort along the way is inevitable. The arduousness of the path of reform can sometimes lead governments to stall or backtrack. But as a passionate reformer leading a reformist government, I know there is no other way. We cannot allow anything to slow us down.

As Thatcher once said: “Yes, the medicine is harsh, but the patient requires it in order to live.” THREE people, who allegedly planned to defraud a man of the R78m he inherited from his elderly German employer, have been arrested by the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation Unit.

e German woman nominated the man as her sole beneficiary and it is alleged that after her death in 2014, neighbours conspired to defraud him.

“The employee went to [the] neighbours to seek assistance and advice on the administration and winding up the affairs of the deceased. The neighbours allegedly gave him a few thousand [rand] and allegedly requested him to go back to his home whilst they start with the process on his behalf,” Hawks spokesperson Simphiwe Mhlongo said on Monday.

“Upon his return he noticed that the three had STAN Lee, who dreamed up Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk and a cavalcade of other Marvel Comics superheroes that became mythic figures in pop culture with soaring success at the movie box office, died at the age of 95, his daughter said on Monday.

As a writer and editor, Lee was key to the ascension of Marvel into comic book titan status in the 1960s when, in collaboration with artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he created superheroes who would enthral generations of young readers.

“He felt an obligation to his fans to keep creating,” his daughter JC Lee said. “He loved his life and he loved what he did for a living. His family loved him and his fans loved him. He was irreplaceable.”

Lee was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, according to Kirk Schenck, a lawyer for Lee’s daughter. The cause of death was not disclosed. Americans were familiar with superheroes before Lee, in part thanks to the 1938 launch of Superman by Detective Comics, the company that would become DC Comics, Marvel’s archrival.

Lee was widely credited with adding a new layer of complexity and humanity to superheroes. They had love and money worries and endured tragic flaws or feelings of insecurity. “I felt it would be fun allegedly altered the deceased’s signature on the will, putting themselves as beneficiaries,” Mhlongo said.

e German woman’s relatives later opened a fraud case at the Durban North police station.

The Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation unit was roped in to assist with investigations in 2016, leading to the arrest of the three people — retail manager Pamela Pillay (62), lawyer Rodney Reddy (51) and lawyer Pravin Rajadene (55) — last Thursday.

They appeared in Durban Specialised Commercial Court on the same day and were each granted R2 000 bail.

Pillay, Reddy and Rajadene are expected to appear in court again on February 4, 2019, pending further investigations. — AP to learn a little about their private lives, about their personalities and show that they are human as well as super,” Lee said in 2010.

He had help in designing the superheroes but he took full ownership of promoting them.

His creations included web-slinging teenager Spider-Man, the muscle-bound Hulk, mutant outsiders The X-Men, the close-knit Fantastic Four and the playboy-inventor Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man.

Dozens of Marvel Comics movies, with nearly all the major characters Lee created, were produced in the first decades of the 21st century, grossing over $20bn in theatres worldwide, according to box office analysts. Spider-Man is one of the most successfully licensed characters ever.

Lee, as a hired hand at Marvel, received limited payback on the windfall from his characters.

In a 1998 contract, he wrestled a clause for 10 percent of profits from movies and TV shows with Marvel characters.

In 2002, he sued to claim his share, months after “Spider-Man” conquered movie theatres. In a legal settlement three years later, he received a $10m onetime payment.— Al Jazeera

as one of the Church leaders who helped to cover up the scandal.

Wuerl’s predecessor in Washington, Theodore McCarrick, resigned from the Vatican’s College of Cardinals in July.

McCarrick, one of the most high-profile Catholic leaders to face abuse claims, was accused of sexually abusing a teenager nearly five decades earlier.

In October, the bishops’ conference announced the launch of a hotline to report abuses.

Some 6 721 priests have been accused of sexual abuse in the United States for alleged acts that took place between 1950 to 2016, according to the group Bishop Accountability.

It counts around 18 565 child victims. — AFP