The CNN news presenter Christiane Amanpour’s husband James Rubin has been hired by Emmerson Mnangagwa to “encourage the re-examination of Zimbabwe by the State Department with a view to establishing the best possible bilateral relationship with the United States.”

The contact is worth $500,000 a year.

The ZANU PF government has hired a firm Ballard Partners to represent it in Washington, making it the first firm to lobby on the country’s behalf in more than a decade. Brian Ballard, a top ftmdraiser for President Donald Trump’s campaigns, and the firm’s other lobbyists will counsel Zimbabwe on “communication with U.S. government officials, U.S. business entities, and non-governmental audiences,” according to a disclosure filing.

— “In as much as the government of Zimbabwe has been denied ac,cess to intemational financial institutions and been under intense diplomatic pressure from Western countries, it shall be the main objective of the firm to encourage a re-ocamination of Zimbabwe by the State Department with a view to establishing the best possible bilateral relationship with the United States and facilitating the restoration of Zimbabwe’s membership in good standing in the community of nations,” the firm’s contract states. The contact is worth $500,000 a year.
— It’s not the first African contract for Ballard, who has also worked for the government of Mali and opposition political parties in Congo and Nigeria. James Rubin, a former State Department official in the Clinton administration who will be the lead lobbyist for Zimbabwe, said in an interview that the firm’s lobbyists thought carefully before agreeing to work for the country, which was ruled for decades by the brutal dictator Robert Mugabe before he was deposed in 2017. – Politico/Agencies