"As a journalist, any kind of oppression of the media saddens me profoundly. My heart is heavy as I read, hear and watch the media oppressions in Zimbabwe. I ask myself, is too much to ask if we can only work in a conducive environment in our quest to provide information? Freedom of the press has been lacking for a long time now in Zimbabwe."

Top Zimbabwe government and ruling party officials who have acquired multiple farms must surrender the extra farms for peasant resettlement or risk imprisonment for "theft" of state property, John Nkomo, special affairs minister in President Robert Mugabe's office, has warned. Nkomo, who was tasked with overseeing land reform and resettlement after the recent cabinet reshuffle, said influential people who were refusing to give up extra farms as ordered by Mugabe last year were violating the country's laws.

Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, and its sister publication, The Daily News on Sunday, will lay off the bulk of their staff by the end of the week. The publishers, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), have bowed to the financial pressure caused by the regular closure of the pro-opposition newspapers by the authorities.

Fears by local democratic watchdogs over South Africa's sincerity in resolving the deepening crisis in Zimbabwe were clearly vindicated when that country's Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma defended the recent Supreme Court ruling legitimising sections of the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). The Herald reported Zuma as saying her government had no plans to discuss AIPPA with their Zimbabwean counterparts as the legislation was constitutional. Said Zuma rather blithely: "We accept it. Should we not accept it? What is really the issue? Has any journalist been refused registration? Have reasons been given for that?" Read the full story in the latest edition of the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe newsletter.

As Zimbabwe marks the fourth anniversary of its controversial land redistribution programme, there is widespread concern about the impact this is having on the country's environment. Many of the peasant farmers who were resettled on land forcibly acquired from white owners lack funds to buy the seed, fertilizer and tools needed to produce a crop. This, combined with poor rains in parts of Zimbabwe, has prompted some peasant farmers to start harvesting other resources instead.

A fundraising drive by British students to help school children in Africa has resulted in the formation of a new charity and an ongoing commitment to improve the lives of young people in Zimbabwe. Students at George Elliot Community School in Nuneaton, England were involved in a pioneering fundraising drive to raise money for Pafiwa High School in the Mutasa District of Zimbabwe. As a result of the success of the fundraising effort, the fundraising drive has become an ongoing effort and is now known as the George Eliot Charity Organisation. (Sources: Heartland Evening News and Noneaton Evening Telegraph)

The directorate of disease control has warned that threatened countrywide water cuts by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), could result in the spread of diseases like cholera. ZINWA, a parastatal charged with managing and distributing water, has threatened to disconnect supplies to councils in a bid to recover a soaring collective debt estimated at around Zim $200,000,000 (US $50,000).

The Zimbabwe government has suspended the acqusition of farms and the issuing of further land offer letters in a move it says is aimed at cleaning up confusion in the land reform exercise. John Nkomo, special affairs minister responsible for the land reform programme, said in interviews published in local newspapers that he would also investigate compliance with the government's one-man one-farm policy.

Leaders in Zimbabwe are not considering themselves to blame for the people living on the streets. Instead they are shifting the blame onto the street families in a country where even the middle class are below the poverty datum line.

Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) activists have announced that a successful protest was carried out on Valentines Day in Chitungwiza and five other suburban centres in Harare despite the fact that the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) refused to allow other protests to proceed and threatened to "shoot to kill" any protesters. Peaceful love marches had been planned for Bulawayo, Victoria Falls and central Harare but ZRP were fearful that the spirit of love would overcome hate, said WOZA in a press statement.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has given himself powers of detention that allow his police to hold opponents of his regime in prison for up a month without legal process on charges of "subversion," the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said. The law applies to a wide range of offences under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), including "attempting to coerce" the government through boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience or "resistance to the law," said MDC secretary for legal affairs David Coltart.

Gibson Sibanda, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) vice-president, this week walked out of the regional magistrates' courts a free man after the state withdrew charges against the former trade unionist and his colleagues who were facing charges of attempting to overthrow the government. The charges against Sibanda, Milton Gwetu, the MDC legislator for Mpopoma and other top executives of the main opposition party in Matabeleland were withdrawn before plea on Tuesday.

A community-based support network is hoping to provide material and emotional support to more than 40,000 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Zimbabwe. The network was initiated in November last year by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society, Family AIDS Caring Trust Mutare (FACT), and the Centre for Total Transformation (CTT).

They form a single file. Some are singing, though their voices have been dwarfed by the hum of the stream. The girls, estimated around 50, are being accompanied home by three middle-aged women from a nearby river. Suddenly the procession is interrupted by irrepressible sobbing. Several teary-eyed, young women have failed their virginity tests. They are dreading the rebukes and curses, likely to follow, once their parents find out about their status. Men eager to marry virgins in this eastern border town, more than 180 kilometres from the capital Harare, must produce documented proof of their HIV-negative status as part of chief Makoni's controversial anti-AIDS campaign. His unorthodox initiative has drawn the ire of women's rights activists and health care workers, to name but a few.

The University of Zimbabwe opened this week with lecturers vowing not to report for duty unless they are awarded a 300 percent salary increment backdated to July last year. This, however, did not disrupt examinations as temporary staff were invigilating. UZ acting director of information and publicity Mr Daniel Chihombori confirmed that the college had opened but said it was difficult to tell whether the lecturers were present.

The government-controlled media's tendency to portray a picture of peace and tranquility in the country has resulted in these media ignoring the continued erosion of basic human rights by overzealous ZANU PF fanatics, security force members and the government through its promulgation of unconstitutional laws. According to the latest newsletter from the Zimbabwe Media Monitoring Project, the responsibility for exposing rights abuses has been completely left to the private media. "For instance, this week SW Radio Africa carried 17 stories, which reported 18 cases of rights abuses. Studio 7 had four stories highlighting two incidents of rights violations. ZBC had none. The trend was similar in the print media. While the private papers published 12 reports on human rights abuses, the government Press only carried a single story."

Repression by the government and an ongoing economic crisis have caused an exodus from the troubled nation.

Owen Mugurungi, program coordinator for the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and Child Welfare Tuberculosis and AIDS Program, last Thursday announced that the government next month will begin providing antiretroviral drugs to some of its HIV-positive citizens as part of the country's implementation of the World Health Organisation's 3 by 5 Initiative, Xinhua News Agency reports. The $5.5 billion WHO plan aims to treat three million people throughout the world with antiretroviral drugs by 2005.

In a non-verbal but eloquent answer to a question posed by a visiting government and UN delegation about health conditions in her school, eight-year-old Tendayi Bwanali started coughing. When she finally settled down, she told the education department and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) officials: "We are holding lessons in tobacco barns where tobacco is prepared (cured) every year - the smell of tobacco is so strong that we have problems breathing."

It was once celebrated as a rare African success story, an example of what committed leadership can do. Education for all was the policy Zimbabwean authorities pursued diligently for much of the first decade since independence, from Britain, in 1980. The goal was to extend education to the previously disadvantaged black majority. As a result, scores of schools were built and the training of thousands of teachers speeded up. Sadly, those classroom gains are currently in jeopardy, threatened by triple digit inflation and political impenitence.