In December of last year, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) hosted a public lecture by Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in Cape Town on 'The State of Zimbabwe’s Economy', as well as a dialogue with members of country’s diaspora. Emerging from that dialogue, diaspora members recently launched the Development Foundation for Zimbabwe – ‘a non-profit, non-partisan organisation created and driven by Zimbabweans’. The Foundation aims to ‘provide a platform for constructive engagement between Zimbabweans in the Diaspora and fellow compatriots in the Zimbabwean government, business, civil society and the general public’.

A parliamentary select committee has begun compiling comments on a new constitution, gathered at 4,000 meetings held across Zimbabwe over the past three months. Gender activists are confident that women's views have been expressed; it will be up to the eventual drafters of the new constitution to ensure they are reflected. Over 700,000 people attended public meetings on Zimbabwe's draft constitution.

Getting a passport can be vital for making a living but mounting hidden costs are making it tougher to access one, despite the government recently slashing passport fees. Fees have been reduced from US$140 to $50, but the document can cost up to $120 or even $300, as Theresa Makone, the joint minister of home affairs, discovered on an impromptu visit to the Harare office which issues passports.

Indian buyers who visited the country last week to seal diamond deals have pledged to lobby their government to endorse Zimbabwe's gems ahead of the Kimberley Process meeting scheduled for Israel early next month. Surat Rough Diamond Sourcing India Limited said it would put its weight behind Zimbabwe as the KP meets in Jerusalem, Israel next Monday to determine whether Zimbabwe should be allowed sell its diamonds from Marange.

Freelance journalists Andrison Manyere and Nkosana Dhlamini were arrested and detained overnight at Waterfalls police station in Harare on 30 October 2010 while covering a constitutional information gathering meeting, reports the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). Manyere and Dhlamini were arrested together with Diana Nyikadzino, Phineas Natarika and Eric Murayi during the meeting held at St John Retreat in Harare South. The five were arrested in the melee of scuffle that ensued after Dhlamini tried to interview some of the participants at the meeting.

Zimbabwean immigrants in South Africa and the United Kingdom have called for devolution of powers and the slashing of provinces by more than half in submissions to the Constitutional Select Committee that is leading the drafting of a new charter for Zimbabwe. The proposals by the exiles - some which echo the views of the opposition ZAPU party and the two MDC formations - appear tilted towards whittling down the powers of central government.

The economic upswing in Zimbabwe is luring workers under 18-years-old to the now bustling mining town of Shurugwi, about 350km south of the capital Harare in Midlands Province. Tinashe Mugwira, 15, left home in January this year and walked the 50km to Shurugwi in search of work at the mines in the mineral belt known as the Great Dyke, where gold, chrome and nickel are found. 'I had always heard that these Chinese were employing young children for as long as they can work on the mines, so I decided to come here when I stopped going to school after my father fell ill and my mother could not raise money for food,' a skinny Mugwira told IRIN.

Zimbabwe entered a new digital era last week Friday when the largest mobile phone network Econet Wireless launched its mobile broadband package available to their estimated 4.5 million subscribers. The project has cost Econet close to US$100 million and covers many of the major cities.

On October 22, 2010 Zimbabwean blogger Hope noticed a series of fast twitter updates coming from Professor Welshman Ncube, the Zimbabwe Minister of Commerce and Industry and the MDC Secretary General. In a blog post appearing in Sokwanele: This is Zimbabwe titled, 'Professor Welshman Ncube uses Twitter to air his frustrations,' Hope wrote: 'The snippets I saw were intriguing enough to prompt me to visit his twitter feed page to read more. I saw then that he’d been posting for two hours, all his tweets amounting to an online statement.' Read more at Global Voices.

A vigil outside the Zimbabwean embassy in London will take place every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The vigil will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. Visit the website to read stories and see pictures from the vigil.

With Zimbabwe’s diamond industry still shrouded in secrecy, the Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW) and three Zimbabweans have petitioned South Africa’s New Reclamation Group for access to information that will shed some much-needed light on its controversial mining operations - and prove whether any of its promises to local communities have been fulfilled. In particular, the petitioners are asking for information relating to whether communities that were forced to relocate were consulted and have been given compensation, whether the requisite schools and hospitals have been provided and whether environmental and safety standards are being complied with.

Mugabe Inc. has once again, in anticipation of forthcoming elections, vigorously begun to engage in exploitation through 'primitive accumulation' of resources via war vets, corrupt corporate execs and political cronies, writes Khadija Sharife in this article for Harvard International Review. Prior to the discovery of diamonds, specifically in Marange the big kahuna was land. This time around, legal concessions to Marange have been voided, with two South African companies granted right of access via fraudulent licenses.

Zimbabwe’s constitutional reform process is failing to represent the views of young people, who make up more than half the country’s population, writes the Youth Alliance for Democracy.

Zimbabwe’s debt burden of about 8,3 billion dollars, owed to internal and external institutions, is crowding out essential national budget items such as health and basic services, with detrimental effects for particularly women. Indications are that many Zimbabwean women opt to give birth at home, with some children being born HIV positive because their mothers cannot afford the maternity fees or the fees charged at hospitals and clinics for the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV, according to the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD).

MISA-Zimbabwe on 16 October 2010 set up the first rural community radio in Ntepe, 40kms South-West of Gwanda town. Ntepe community radio station is the first rural community radio initiative in Zimbabwe. All the other community radio initiatives in the country are located in the urban areas of Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Kwekwe, Mutare, Hwange, Kadoma and Mutare. MISA-Zimbabwe is currently running a broadcasting campaign, calling upon the authorities to open up the airwaves for Zimbabwe to have a three-tier broadcasting system that includes public, commercial and community broadcasting.

State security agents on 15 October 2010 allegedly blocked accredited journalists from covering the graduation ceremony at Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo, officiated by President Robert Mugabe. According to the daily NewsDay the state security agents blocked journalists from entering the ceremony, demanding invitation cards similar to those issued to graduates and their relatives in addition to their accreditation cards.

Robert Mugabe has threatened to retaliate if ambassadors he unilaterally appointed to the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) are sent back to Zimbabwe. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last week told the EU and the UN that ambassadors appointed solely by Mugabe don’t speak on behalf of the whole government. But Mugabe has now threatened that the EU will face retaliation if they heed Tsvangirai’s advice and expel the diplomats he appointed. His spokesman George Charamba on Monday told NewsDay news service that Zimbabwe would reserve the right to ‘reciprocate’ if its diplomats were thrown out of their postings.

President Robert Mugabe wants Zimbabwe's power-sharing government to end next year, saying the unity pact was only meant to last two years, state media has reported. 'Some will say let us negotiate and give it another life. I am reluctant because part of the things happening [in the inclusive government] are absolutely foolish and stupid,' Mugabe said in the Herald newspaper.

Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans are attempting to legalise their status in South Africa. They have been given a deadline by South Africa of December 31 to submit documentation seeking permission to work and live in South Africa. Most illegal Zimbabweans in South Africa say they fled to survive and earn money for their families and some fled fearing political persecution from President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF Party officials.

Zimbawe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has asked the United Nations and European Union not to recognise new ambassadors unilaterally appointed by President Robert Mugabe, his spokesman said Tuesday. 'Those appointments are supposed to be by consultation,' Tsvangirai's spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka told AFP. Under the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that created the unity government between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, the prime minister should be consulted on all appointments, Tamborinyoka said.