Grace Mugabe assaults photographer: A SUNDAY Times photographer has been beaten up and punched repeatedly in the face by the wife of President Robert Mugabe. Grace Mugabe, 43, flew into a rage when she was spotted last week leaving the exclusive Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong. She has been staying there with her entourage at a cost of £2,000 a day while her country endures poverty, hunger and disease. Holding a Jimmy Choo-style bag estimated to be worth at least £2,000, and hiding behind Cavalli rhine-stone-framed glasses with a red cashmere shawl over her head, she ordered her bodyguard to attack the photographer, Richard Jones. Over the past nine months Zimbabwe has been without a legal government. Talks to implement a power-sharing agreement have collapsed and hostility to his rule has intensified. Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, returned for talks yesterday after two months in Botswana. Annual inflation has soared to more than 231 million percent and a Z$100 trillion banknote was introduced on Friday. Dozens of activists have been detained, accused of plotting to overthrow the regime. Nevertheless the Mugabes went ahead with their holiday. While the president stayed on in Singapore until January 11 before flying home, his wife flew to Hong Kong on January 9 and installed herself in the £600-a-night Harbour suite on the 18th floor of the Shangri-La. There she played hostess to the couple’s daughter, Bona, who studies in the city, and to a stream of relatives and friends. She rarely went out but other members of the party were ferried around in black limousines costing £60 an hour.
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