In Hopley Farm, a resettlement camp about 10km south of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, Simon Dhewa's chicken coup has been converted into a bedroom for his three daughters, the eldest of which also uses it as a venue for her commercial sex activities. The 20-year-old is the sole bread winner for her 45-year-old widowed father, her two sisters and two brothers. The residents of Hopley Farm have nicknamed her "chicken".

Civil Society organizations, including Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, and Partnership Africa Canada, have condemned the state-sponsored harassment and intimidation of a Zimbabwean nongovernmental organization, the Centre for Research and Development (CRD). The group has been instrumental in exposing ongoing human rights abuses in Zimbabwe's notorious Marange diamond fields.

A delegation of the Chinese Communist Party officials in Harare for a three-day visit at the invitation of the ZANU-PF party of President Robert Mugabe has met with him and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The delegation signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday with ZANU-PF Chairman Simon Khaya Moyo and hailed the close ties between the two countries, sources informed on the meeting said.

Licences have been granted to four private daily newspapers in Zimbabwe by a commission set up by the unity government to implement media reforms. The Zimbabwean media is currently dominated by state-run newspapers. One of the licences has been granted to the Daily News, a paper critical of President Robert Mugabe, which was closed down in 2003.

Zimbabwe has banned all exports of diamonds until a monitor from the Kimberley Process regulator approves the sale of gems from a field plagued by human rights abuses, the mines minister said Thursday. "I have suspended all diamond exports from Zimbabwe with immediate effect until the issue of Kimberley Process certification scheme has been sorted out," mines minister Obert Mpofu said in the state-run Herald newspaper.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said Thursday a referendum on a new constitution will be delayed, possibly until next year. Under the unity deal that brought Tsvangirai into government with his long-time rival President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe was meant to vote on a new charter by August.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has requested Zimbabwe to re-deploy its troops in the central African country to replace of a United Nations (UN) force that has been stationed there since 1999. The DRC wants the UN mission, known as MONUC to start winding down its operations by June 30 when the vast country marks 50 years of independence from Belgium.

While Blessing-Miles Tendi’s review of ‘Mugabe and the White African’ fails to acknowledge that not all of Zimbabwe’s white farmers disputed the need for land reform, writes Allison Lobb, he accurately sums up the key ‘white’ problem stalling progress: ‘Becoming “African” is not about economic integration alone – something many white Zimbabweans never grasped. It is also about social, residential and political integration, and about learning local languages.’

A farmer from Inyathi was released from police custody on Thursday, after spending two nights behind bars in what is being described as a deliberate drive to force his farming partner to give up his land. Ernest Nyoni was arrested on Tuesday night and charged with ‘contravening’ the Gazetted Lands (Consequential Provisions) Act by not leaving the farm he co-owns with farmer Glen James. He was only released after his lawyer argued that the farm, Robert Block 14, is not wholly owned by Nyoni, who was being charged in his personal capacity.

The Movement for Democratic Change has condemned the engagement and involvement of prominent "media hangman" Tafataona Mahoso in the reform of the media industry currently being spearheaded by the Zimbabwe Media Commission. This follows reports that Mahoso, former chairman of controversial Media and Information Commission, has been appointed chief executive officer of the ZMC.

The uneasy partners in Zimbabwe's national unity government have one more issue to divide them: President Robert Mugabe's appointment this week of a new Supreme Court judge and four High Court judges without consultation with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to which his Movement for Democratic Change immediately objected.

After 13 years on Zimbabwe's death row, George Manyonga is still waiting to see his lawyer. He saw him once, briefly, the day before his trial, but since then he has been left on his own. He has lost his lawyer and now he is losing hope. "I'm paying a price for something I never committed," Manyonga says.

The statutory Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) is set to receive applications for registration by media houses with effect from 4 May 2010 in a development that raises hope for the return of the banned The Daily News and other new publications.

The number of reported rapes and sexual assaults of Zimbabwean migrants to South Africa is increasing, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said. "From March 1 to May the number of cases treated was 71," MSF nurse Mashudu Nelufule said from Musina in Limpopo. Of these victims, 45 were female and 26 were male. Fifteen were children. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Nelufule. Many victims who were attacked had not sought treatment to prevent the contraction of HIV.

MDC provincial youth chairman for Mashonaland Central, Tonderai Samhu, appeared in court on Tuesday facing allegations of insulting Robert Mugabe. Samhu handed himself over to the law and order section in Bindura on Monday. Police had been hunting him down since he organized a rally in Mvurwi last week Wednesday to bid farewell to the late MDC provincial Chairman Biggie Chigonero.

Zimbabwe's three leading figures have condemned international sanctions on the country at a World Economic Forum conference in Tanzania. In a rare show of unity, President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara appealed for investment. Only Mr Tsvangirai had been expected to represent Zimbabwe at the forum in Dar es Salaam.

Zimbabwe has announced it was shelving the privatisation of the country's huge iron and steel company, in what is suspected to be a growing bickering in Zimbabwe's coalition government. Arcelor Mittal, the world's biggest iron and steel company, and India's Jindal Steel and Power company, had been short-listed to buy a controlling stake in the loss-making Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (Zisco).

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions says the controversial diamond mine in Chiadzwa, Manicaland Province, must be nationalised. ZCTU chairman Lovemore Matombo said no single individual or company should be allowed to exploit the diamonds now at the centre of a row between a British company which claims title and the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Company (ZMDC).

Gertrude Hambira doesn’t look like someone who gets arrested regularly. Nor do the other women and men in suits who work with her at the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), formed in the mid-1980s to protect farm laborers. But arrest, harassment and even torture have been regular occupational hazards for Gertrude—the General Secretary of GAPWUZ—and her staff for many years. Unfortunately, things have not gotten much better since the 2008 elections when President Mugabe refused to cede power to the democratically elected Morgan Tsvangirai, a former union leader himself.

A new report by Zimbabwe's National AIDS Council (NAC), showing a dramatic rise in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among people aged 15 to 24 in the capital, Harare, has health experts worried that the country's success in reducing HIV could be unravelling. STIs heighten vulnerability to HIV infection, and this age group is one of the hardest hit. According to the NAC report, more than 24,000 people were treated for STIs in 2009, compared to 8,500 cases recorded in 2008; over 60 percent of the cases were women.