07-03-2016 15:00

Zimbabwe, a country in the south of Africa, won its independence from Britain in 1980. Since then, Robert Mugabe has been the country’s leader.

Mugabe recently celebrated his 92nd birthday at a party, which cost nearly 1 million dollars. Some people criticised the party for being too luxurious and said that it was an insult to the poor. There was even a 92-kilogram birthday cake.

Right now, there is a drought in Zimbabwe, and three million people don’t have enough food because of bad conditions.

Tens of thousands of people came to the country’s capital to celebrate. In his birthday speech, the president blamed Zimbabwe’s economic problems on Western countries.

Difficult words: independence (freedom), insult (to say something disrespectful), drought (when the weather is very dry and it does not rain), blame (to say that something is somebody’s fault).

You can read the original story and watch the video in the Level 3 section.