How can Mugabe get any more shockingly awful?

ZIMBABWE’S President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace have secretly bought a £4m bolt-hole in the Far East while his country struggles with hyper-inflation, mass unemployment and a cholera epidemic.

The Mugabes’ house, in an exclusive residential complex in Hong Kong, was purchased on their behalf by a middleman through a shadowy company whose registered office is in a run-down tenement block. When a reporter and a photographer called at the house last week, they were attacked by the Zimbabwean occupants. The assailants were questioned by the police.

The property came to light during a Sunday Times investigation into the Mugabes’ financial interests in Asia, where a web of associates has helped them to spend lavishly on luxuries and stash away millions in bank accounts. In Zimbabwe, meanwhile, inflation has reached 231m%, unemployment stands at 94% and 3,467 people have died in recent months from cholera.

According to sources in Zimbabwe and Asia, Grace Mugabe has splashed out £55,500 on marble statues in Vietnam and £8,700 on a handbag in Singapore. She and her husband have enjoyed some of the region’s finest hotels.

In Hong Kong, where she has discussed a venture to have Zimbabwean diamonds cut and polished in China, her aides paid one hotel bill with a bag of cash containing £10,500. [Times]

"Staggering... even by Illinois standards..."

Wow! That's right, Blago was trying to sell Obama's Senate seat. In a state where we half expect our governor's to end up in the Big House, this takes the cake. From a press release by the US Attorney's Office:

Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges alleging that they and others are engaging in ongoing criminal activity: conspiring to obtain personal financial benefits for Blagojevich by leveraging his sole authority to appoint a United States Senator; threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical of Blagojevich; and to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for official actions – both historically and now in a push before a new state ethics law takes effect January 1, 2009.

Right, definitely want to do this before any new pesky ethics laws come into effect.

At various times, in exchange for the Senate appointment, Blagojevich discussed obtaining:

• a substantial salary for himself at a either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;
• placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;
• promises of campaign funds – including cash up front; and
• a cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.

Can you really blame him for trying to line up his next job when he gets booted from the Governor's mansion? It's a tough job market out there.