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WASHINGTON - [[[The United States will impose travel and financial sanctions against 38 more people and two companies with ties to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, a senior State Department official said.]]]Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, warned in a speech Monday that the U.S. will expand the sanctions further [[[if violence does not cease.]]]She did not identify the individuals or the companies affected, but said they included [[[nine state security officials and five adult children of Zimbabwean government officials studying in the United States.]]][[[[[[The United States already has imposed travel and financial sanctions against 130 people with ties to Mugabe.Zimbabwe is embroiled in its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980. Unemployment is around 80 percent, and political unrest is high. Foreign investment, loans and development aid have dried up. Official inflation is 4,500 percent-the highest in the world-although independent estimates put it substantially higher. Mugabe, 83, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence, blames the crisis on Western sanctions and rejects criticism that mismanagement caused the meltdown.]]]]]]Given Mugabe's escalated use of violence, "the United States will be imposing additional sanctions against the worst perpetrators of the regime's brutality...and human rights abuses," Frazer said, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.[[[[She said it was "intolerable" that those closest to Mugabe should be sending their children to study in the United States "when they have destroyed the once outstanding educational system in their own country." She said the U.S. was especially watching those using their position "to enrich themselves at the expense of suffering Zimbabweans.]]]]"Frazer described Zimbabwe as an imploding country that remains "a powerful blight on sub-Saharan Africa," a region where she said democracy is on the rise and poverty on the decline.Store shelves there are bare of corn meal, meat, bread, eggs, milk and other basics that sell for at least five times the government price on a thriving black market. There are also shortages of fuel and foreign currency as well as soaring poverty.As in the days of Noah...
