Yes, there was a secret plot to oust President Robert Mugabe. Yes, Sir Richard Branson was one of its ringleaders. But the British billionaire has vehemently denied last week’s extraordinary claims that he once offered a £6.5 million bribe to persuade the Zimbabwean leader to stand down. The mogul told The Independent exclusively that in 2007 he orchestrated covert meetings between Jonathan Moyo, a minister in Mugabe’s government, and several respected African statesmen.

At least seven children have died from a suspected diarrhoea outbreak which has affected over 6,000 children in two towns in Zimbabwe over the past week, a state newspaper said. 'Seven children died in Masvingo and Kadoma last week following a diarrhoea outbreak which has seen a total of 6,472 cases being recorded in the two towns,' The Sunday Mail reported. 'The main problem has always been unclean water and poor sanitation,' the newspaper quoted Portia Manangazira, director for disease control in the health ministry, as saying.

Global Press Institute (GPI) has announced that Gertrude Pswarayi, a GPI reporter on their Zimbabwe News Desk, won this year’s 2011 Kurt Schork Award in the local reporter category for her piece 'Political Rape Survivors Come Forward in Advance of 2011 Election', an article published last December about women who were raped and exploited in Zimbabwe.

‘Court poets sung praise to power and excesses’ but Tendai Mwanaka ‘speaks truth to power directly’, writes Philo Ikonya in a review of a recent collection of works by the Zimbabwean writer, ‘filled with strong and open political poetry.’

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams presented Robert Mugabe with a dossier of alleged abuses perpetrated against worshippers over the past four years. In response, the president delivered a history lesson on Anglo-Zimbabwean relations, detailed his own religious upbringing and reminded Williams that the Church of England is 'a breakaway group' from the Catholic church. Despite persistent rumours over the 87-year-old president's health, Williams commented: 'He's on top of things intellectually.'

For a man who thrives on giving the impression he is in total control, Robert Mugabe surprised many people on Thursday when he admitted he could not call for elections when he wants them. Addressing the ZANU PF Central Committee in Harare Mugabe said: 'We were looking forward to holding elections soon but I’m not in control of the mechanism that would lay the road to elections this year.' For months ZANU PF was adamant that elections would be held this year.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network sent a 15 member mission to observe Zambia‘s tripartite elections held on the 20th of September 2011. The objectives of the mission were multifaceted and included; to observe the Zambia’s electoral processes, to explore and understand civil society initiatives within and around the electoral process. Lastly, the mission sought to glean lessons and insights to inform Zimbabweans as we prepare for the referendum and the general elections in the future.

Thousands of children in Zimbabwe, who were forcibly evicted from their homes six years ago, are still not receiving proper education, a rights group says. The government had promised 700,000 families a better life when it demolished slums in major cities in 2005 under Operation Murambatsvina. But Amnesty International says many children are now worse off, attending 'makeshift' schools in new settlements.

As Zimbabwe begins investigating 700 foreign-owned companies that missed this week's deadline to submit plans on the sale of majority shares to locals, investors are looking to a deal struck by Old Mutual for clues on compliance. The company, the largest of its kind on the Zimbabwe stock exchange, has significant commercial property holdings and is the largest provider of insurance in the country. As a first step towards the required 51 per cent, Old Mutual agreed to set aside 25 per cent for staff, pensioners, policyholders, a youth fund and black investors.

This website presents material linked to an on-going research project in Masvingo province in the south-east of the country. This has involved a detailed study of what happened to people’s livelihoods after land reform, across 16 land reform sites and 400 households.

Zimbabwe's political crisis continues. Yet with the stabilisation of the currency and the overhaul of some key economic policies, the agricultural economy in particular has begun to recover. IDS research has been tracking what has been happening in one province since 2000, looking at the changing livelihood prospects of those who gained land in Zimbabwe’s controversial 'fast track' land reform programme. A series of short films have been released which provide insights into what is happening on the ground, by offering some voices from the field. Following an overview film, each of the films in the series provides a profile of a particular farm family, exploring how they have invested in the land and their visions for the future.

Khadija Sharife takes a look at the links between Hong-Kong-based private entity China International Fund, Angola’s state oil company Sonangol and Zimbabwe’s diamond fields.

Khadija Sharife takes a closer look at the involvement of key players in Zanu PF’s Mugabe faction in a diamond-mining venture between the Zimbabwean government and Chinese company, Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Co. Ltd.

Four ZANU PF youths were convicted and sentenced to 18 years in jail over the 2009 murder of MDC-T activist Moses Chokuda. Farai Machaya, the son of Midlands Provincial Governor Jason Machaya, together with his co-accused Abel Maphosa and brothers Edmore and Bothwell Gana, were all found guilty during a week-long trial at the High Court. Tawengwa Chokuda, the victims father said: 'The way he (Moses) was killed was ruthless. He was beaten to death, tied with ropes and dragged like an animal.'

Defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa has vowed to crush any possible revolt against President Robert Mugabe’s continued rule. He dismissed as wishful thinking suggestions that Zimbabweans could stage an uprising similar to those that rocked North Africa recently. He said Zimbabwe’s all-weather friends, China and Russia, stood ready to aid the ZDF to crush its enemies.

Leading local women activists have filed an urgent application with the High Court seeking the closure of police holdings cells at the Harare Central Police Station they deem inhuman and inhabitable. The Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), which has won several international human rights awards, want the court to order responsible authorities to ensure that the police holding cells at Harare Central Police Station have clean and salubrious flushing toilets with toilet paper and a washing bowl. The application was filed by WOZA leaders Jenny Williams, her deputy Magondonga Mahlangu, Clara Majengwa and Celina Madukani.

A lesbian member of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) was physically assaulted and beaten on 2 September. The attack comes after continued reports of harassment and threats towards LGBT people in the area by known individuals.

The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, has requested Nigeria and the African Union (AU) to intervene in his country's pre-elections disagreement in order to rescue it from becoming 'another Ivory Coast.'

Thousands of children die each year in Zimababwe from HIV-related illnesses, often because they have no access to life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs, the state-run Herald newspaper reports.

Robert Mugabe’s continued grip on power in Zimbabwe, and ZANU PF’s ongoing failure to properly govern the country, is causing growing impatience among African governments, the details of which have been revealed by the whistle-blowing group WikiLeaks.