The police detained Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, The Daily News Chief Photographer and two American reporters covering Zimbabwe’s food crisis, for almost seven hours in Bulawayo. The journalists were accused of unlawful entry into a Grain Marketing Board they had visited.

NGOs and humanitarian actors have highlighted the need to include displaced farm workers in emergency relief programmes in Zimbabwe. They also pointed out the need to include urban areas in nutrition assessments - as urbanites struggle to cope amid food shortages and a failing economy.

Visit this web site to find out how you can support an England boycott of cricket world cup matches due to be held in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe's once vibrant civic movement is facing its greatest challenge as the country sinks deeper into economic and political chaos, but analysts and ordinary Zimbabweans say civil society is failing the test amid worsening government repression and public apathy.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has called on the government to allow the media unrestricted access to the trial of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The organisation stressed that the trial should be carried out in the presence of independent observers and media representatives, regardless of their editorial stand.

Botswana is unable to cope with the massive flow of illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe, says the head of its immigration service. Roy Sekgororwane told the French news agency, AFP, that Botswana was sending back 1,600 people every month to Zimbabwe.

It is normal for media to have different interpretations of topical issues, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe in relation to reporting by The Herald newspaper on the recent visit by James Morris, the UN special envoy for humanitarian needs in Southern Africa, to Zimbabwe. The end product of differing interpretations was editorial diversity, the cornerstone of press freedom, said the MMPZ. However, it was a serious violation of ethical journalistic practice to distort and misrepresent factual events and statements in order to reinforce a particular political position as The Herald had done.

Minister of Information and Publicity Jonathan Moyo has said that "The Daily News" newspaper and all its journalists are operating illegally because they are not registered with the Media and Information Commission.
Related Link:
*IFJ calls for end to Daily News persecution
http://www.pambazuka.org/newsletter.php? id=13106

There may be a glimmer of hope for Zimbabwe's ever-growing list of victims of politically-motivated human rights abuses, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt. The London-based Accountability Commission - Zimbabwe project, an organisation launched recently, has started to gather information on human rights violations with a view to setting up a special court to try perpetrators of violence. Rwanda and Sierra Leone have similar courts.
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* Tear-gas used to break up Zim meeting
http://www.africapulse.org/index.php?action=viewarticle&articleid=899

Kenneth Gwabalanda Mathe, an official of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, appeared at the Victoria Falls magistrate’s court, charged under section 12 (a) of the Public Order and Security Act, for having given comment to a daily newspaper.

Two international news agencies, Reuters and Agence France Press, have obtained accreditation for their bureaux and news staff in Zimbabwe, after submitting the stipulated fees in US dollars to the Media and Information Commission. The American news agency Associated Press refused to do so and closed its bureau, although it retains two correspondents.

Young people in Zimbabwe have a lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS, says a recent research article. In a country where roughly one-third of adults have HIV, the National AIDS Council (NAC) estimates that more than 50 percent of all newly-reported HIV infections are among people under age 18. Yet the country's young people are generally unaware of the risks of infection.

The Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) has gave the government an ultimatum to address its concerns to avert a possible strike early next month. Leonard Nkala, the Zimta president, said the Public Service Commission should address the teachers' demands or risk industrial action.

For the San people who live in the forests of Makhulela, about 120km west of Plumtree town in Bulilima District, the transition from abandoning their traditional life of hunting and gathering to that of cultivation and rearing livestock has left them trapped in a time-warp.

Zimbabwe's main civic groups have backed the blistering attack on President Thabo Mbeki by Morgan Tsvangirai, the main opposition leader, saying they were all frustrated by Mbeki's timidity in dealing with President Robert Mugabe. They spoke after Tsvangirai expressed his frustration with Mbeki to diplomats on Thursday, telling them that Mbeki was denying the existence of tragic circumstances in Zimbabwe and cheered Mugabe in the name of "a dubious African brotherhood".
Related Links:
* France defies UK over Mugabe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2688005.stm
* Mugabe’s grip tightens
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=37&o=14877

Fanuel Jongwe, a senior journalist with the Daily News, was arrested last Friday together with five foreigners in the mining town of Zvishavane. The group was charged for practising journalism without licences.

Amnesty International last Friday said the level of fear among human rights activists in Zimbabwe has never been greater. The rights group called on the authorities to immediately cease the crackdown on activists perceived to be opponents of President Robert Mugabe's government.

"The people being starved to death are not white; the majority of those killed by the regime's killing machine are not white; those who languish in jail as I speak to you and are subjected to incessant torture and sub-human conditions are not white; those in the rural areas who are daily subjected to brutal treatment are not white. It is therefore despicable and cheap for anyone to reduce such a tragedy to an issue of race for the sake of a fake African brotherhood and political expediency." - Morgan Tsvangarai, quoted in the Zimbabwe Independent, January 24, 2003

Solidarity for Peace in Zimbabwe has called on competing cricket teams, cricket unions, reporters and cricket supporters to insist that the security shields around cricket grounds be removed. "We are told their purpose is to protect the players. In reality we know that their real purpose is to prevent the cricketers and visitors from seeing the plight of people outside," said a statement.

Since the promulgation of the repressive Public Order and Security Act (POSA), the police have selectively used it to curtail the freedoms of the opposition and civil society through summary arrests, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe. Those arrested are usually taken to police stations unknown to their lawyers and families. Some have been assaulted and others even tortured. In most cases, the accused are either released without charge or have their cases dropped due to lack of evidence.