Standard Newspaper journalist Nqobani Ndlovu was released from Khami Prison in Bulawayo on Friday, after the High Court dismissed an appeal by the state against the granting of bail by a magistrate. Ndlovu, who spent 10 days in custody, was arrested over a story he wrote claiming police had frozen internal promotions this year to accommodate war vets. He alleged the war vets were being recruited to direct operations during next year’s anticipated elections.

'The crazy old man' - this apparently is how South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Maite Nkoane Mashabane, branded Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, according to a US embassy cable from Pretoria to Washington. It is part of the first batch of 250,000 US embassy cables leaked by Wikileaks and which were published by major newspapers around the world, including The Guardian in Britain and the New York Times.

A major new study published this week asks what has happened in the ten years since large areas of Zimbabwe's commercial farm land were invaded by land-hungry villagers - and it challenges the view that land reform was an unmitigated disaster. 'Zimbabwe's Land Reform: Myths and Realities', by IDS Fellow Ian Scoones together with Zimbabwean colleagues Nelson Marongwe, Blasio Mavedzenge, Felix Murimbarimba, Jacob Mahenehene and Chrispen Sukume, presents the findings of the first comprehensive study into the controversial policy and its effects. The book challenges five myths through a detailed examination of field data:
Myth 1 - Land reform has been a total failure
Myth 2 - The beneficiaries have been largely political 'cronies'
Myth 3 - There is no investment in the new resettlements
Myth 4 - Agriculture is in complete ruins creating chronic food insecurity
Myth 5 - The rural economy has collapsed.

The African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA) has come out in defence of Zimbabwe after the Kimberley Process chairperson, Boaz Hirsch, declared that no trading would be allowed with regard to Zimbabwe's Marenge diamonds. ADPA executive secretary Edgar de Carvalho on Friday held a media briefing stating that the declaration held no water and that the Kimberly Process had no right to bar Zimbabwe from trading in its diamonds.

A new generation of activists is being inspired to find creative ways to ‘manage diversity and promote pluralism’, thanks to an annual arts and culture festival aimed at promoting protest, writes Deep Roots.

As the two-year lifespan of Zimbabwe’s coalition government draws close to an end, Japhet M. Zwana finds little cause for optimism about the country’s future.

‘What may seem to some a progressive and brave government is upon closer examination a tyranny’, which despite ‘rhetoric about land redistribution, is ultimately very hostile to its own society’s poor and working people, women, youth, elderly and ill,’ writes Patrick Bond.

The International Federation of Journalists ( IFJ) has condemned the arrest and detention by police in Zimbabwe of Dumisani Sibanda, the President of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists. The IFJ has called for his immediate release and says the action is the latest in a series of hostile incidents that are putting the country’s journalists increasingly at risk. Sibanda, Bulawayo Bureau chief of The Standard, is being questioned over a story involving the police force.

Reporters Without Borders has called for the withdrawal of bill which is about to be submitted to parliament and which would allow the authorities to block public access to official documents including judicial decisions, new legislation and public records. Announced on 22 October and called the 'General Law Amendment Bill', the proposed law’s sole aim seems to be to place additional obstacles in the way of access to information and thereby hamper the work of the media even more.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum urges the African Commission to call upon the Government of National Unity:
- to fulfil its obligations in terms of the African Charter on the rights and freedoms of its citizens;
- to implement fully the provisions of the GPA and accept and implement various recommendations from civil society;
- to effect genuine electoral reforms in line with the Declaration by the African Commission on principles governing democratic elections in Africa before the conducting of any new elections.

A researcher from the Anti-Corruption Trust of Southern Africa (ACT-Southern Africa) traveled by road in public transport from Namibia (Windhoek) to Zimbabwe (Harare) via Botswana through the Mamuno border post. The journey to and fro Zimbabwe was an eye-opener on the nature and extent of corruption bedeviling traffic police officers in the three countries. In a nutshell, the following findings were made:
- Zimbabwean traffic police officials are more corrupt than their counterparts in Botswana and Namibia.
- The governments of Namibia and Zimbabwe could be losing significant amounts of revenue due to corruption in which police officers are involved.
- Transport business operators are losing income due to bribes paid to traffic police officers.
- There were no indications of corruption by traffic police officials in Botswana.

The signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) and the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) prevented Zimbabwe from continuing to spiral out of control and helped to establish a measure of political and economic stability, says this research report from the Institute for Democracy in Africa. 'However, major concerns remain, given the intransigence of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) specifically over honouring its responsibilities outlined in the GPA...The international community has three options: maintain the status quo, completely lift restrictive measures, and the calibrated lifting of restrictive measures tied to six benchmarks.'

'Media reforms are inevitable, they are by public demand,' says the MDC Information & Publicity Department in response to permanent secretary in the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity George Charamba's announcement that the government has no intention of issuing broadcasting licences. 'Zanu PF wants to refuse these reforms and continue with its propaganda agenda on its failed policies and rampant corruption that is now in the public domain. By maintaining the status quo and denying the entry of private broadcasters, Charamba and his masters are desperately trying to prop-up Zanu PF’s declining grip through the airwaves ahead of elections expected next year.'

As the deadline to deport undocumented Zimbabwean migrants on or after 1 January 2011 looms, human rights activists warn South Africa could face a potential human rights disaster, though a senior South African official says the government is not aiming for a 'massive deportation operation'. Rights NGOs working with Zimbabwean migrants said they were bracing for hundreds of thousands to be deported.

A top official with the Zimbabwe Prison Services (ZPS) has confirmed that Zimbabwean prisons are a harsh environment for female prisoners, adding that new prisons need to be built as the old ones are dilapidated. ZPS Commissioner, Retired General Paradzayi Zimondi, told journalists during a tour of Khami Prison in Bulawayo that there is need to build new prisons. 'We need special prisons for juveniles and females with children. Our prisons are old and they do not have facilities to cater for such prisoners,' he explained.

When it comes to Zimbabwe’s transition, the experience in Kenya shows that reforms must be on paper and in the real world. And the logic of reform must be for the people and not to maintain power for the ‘big boys’, Cyprian Nyamwamu says.

The police have reportedly issued a warrant of arrest against Wilf Mbanga the London-based editor of The Zimbabwean newspaper following publication of a story linked to the death of a senior official with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in 2008. Mbanga is accused of publishing a story after the 2008 elections 'which undermined President Robert Mugabe'. According to The Zimbabwean, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) reported that the police want to question Mbanga over an article published in The Zimbabwean following the death of ZEC director for polling, Ignatius Mushangwe.

The shortage of doctors in Zimbabwe has reached crisis levels with the country having only 21 per cent of the required medical practitioners amid other frightening statistics on the worsening health situation, a Parliamentary report has revealed. 'Child health status indicators are worsening with infant mortality and under-five mortality rising from 53 percent to 77 per 1?000 live births in 1994 to 67 and 94 per 1?000 live births respectively in 2009,' a Parliamentary report said.

The African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (Afrodad) is undertaking research to critically evaluate Zimbabwe’s tax system to determine its role and impact on the development agenda. The move comes against the backdrop of reports that the country is losing billions of United States dollars in corporate tax through evasion and externalisation as institutions seek to evade a punitive tax regime. The Washington-based Global Financial Integrity revealed in February this year that Zimbabwe was among the world’s top five countries with the largest tax revenue losses as a percentage of total government revenue at 21,5 percent.

The two authorised sales of Marange diamonds make clear the Zimbabwe government has no reason to feel threatened by a Western diamond import ban, says this commentary from the International Crisis Group. Emerging powers are challenging the rules and becoming more influential. Buyers, especially from India, have been more than willing to fill the gap resulting from the absence of most Westerners. Chinese buyers could also potentially compete. With world diamond production falling by 24 per cent since 2009 and increased competition, buyers are becoming readier to push human rights and governance standards aside.