The revamped Zimbabwean supreme court delivered a temporary ruling yesterday which upheld President Robert Mugabe's "fast track" seizures of white-owned land.

The entire educational infrastructure for secondary education in Zimbabwe is in dismal shape - teachers are scarce, buildings are deteriorating and crucial educational materials are becoming a luxury. An ever-growing number of families are forced to make the choice as to which of their children should attend school. And boys are the favourites. Camfed, an organisation that works for disadvantaged girls in sub-Saharan Africa, is trying to change that.

The week under review witnessed increasingly hysterical attempts by the state controlled media to convince its audiences that the government had fulfilled its obligations to the Abuja Accord but that white farmers and ex-Rhodesian racists resident in Australia were attempting to bury the agreement by discrediting the government’s land reforms at the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Brisbane.

Between 1980 and 2000 Zimbabwe was a relatively peaceful, stable and generally tolerant country. It is now being torn apart by violence and the ZANU (PF) government is now constantly inciting racial hatred.

This brief report has been produced to underscore the difficulties in accepting that elections, be they by-elections or the Presidential election, can be free and fair in the current situation. The persistence of organised violence and torture seem to mitigate against any acceptance that the conditions for holding elections are even close to desirable. The current by-election in Chikomba constituency provides an interesting case study of the electoral process in Zimbabwe currently.

Top Zanu commanders from the Dare Rechimurenga and the Zanla High Command killed former Zanu chairman, Herbert Chitepo, in Zambia in 1975, a special report by a Zambian commission into the late leader's mysterious death reveals.

MDC Party leader Morgan Tsvangirai told a jubilant rally in Bulawayo that he would easily win the presidential elections, due before April, in which he would challenge President Robert Mugabe.

The government-appointed Media Ethics Committee is set to be a permanent fixture on Zimbabwe's media scene after locating a head office and recruiting permanent staff.

Civic bodies are being hampered by pro-government militia from carrying out voter education in some rural areas, ahead of Zimbabwe's 2002 elections.

Between 40,000 and 60,000 children are born HIV positive in Zimbabwe every year, according to a senior health official.

Talks between white farmers and the Zimbabwean government over land seizures and lawlessness on farms collapsed in deadlock last week.

President Robert Mugabe's government insists Zimbabwe did not agree to curb violence on white-owned farms under the Abuja land deal.

President Robert Mugabe's government insists Zimbabwe did not agree to curb violence on white-owned farms under the Commonwealth-brokered Abuja land deal.

Continuing violent invasions of Zimbabwean farms are jeopardising the country's food security and crucial foreign exchange inflows from tobacco, according to the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers' Union.

To coincide with the start of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Brisbane, Australia on Saturday 6 October, there will be two large, colourful, and peaceful demonstrations - one in London, and one in Pretoria. It is very important that a strong protest is registered, to make sure that the delegates to CHOGM fully appreciate the importance of holding the government of Zimbabwe to the public promises it recently made in Abuja and Harare. Pretoria : Starts at noon at the Union Buildings. London : Starts at noon on Saturday 6 October outside the Zimbabwe High Commission.

Rural Zimbabweans are facing a desperate food security situation due to a combination of a bad harvest and deepening poverty.

Central Intelligence Organisation operatives have been deployed at the Harare International Airport cargo area to intercept documents the opposition MDC intends to present at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia next month.

The Zimbabwean media was dominated by a variety of interpretations of two election results and the increase in international pressure on President Mugabe and his government. An upsurge in political violence, which claimed at least three deaths during the week, was also widely reported in the print media. However, the perspectives from which these topics were reported once again revealed the state media’s enslavement to government’s interpretation of the events.

As pressure mounts on Zimbabwe to restore the rule of law on white farms, the government is seeking a Supreme Court ruling to endorse the controversial land reform programme.

Violence on Zimbabwe's commercial farms has intensified two weeks after the government signed the landmark Abuja agreement in which it undertook to respect the rule of law in land redistribution, farmers and analysts said this week.