Campaign groups in Cape Town have demanded the release of Zimbabwean civil society and opposition activists, describing their safety as ‘of grave concern’. Calling for South Africa to take action against ‘the Mugabe regime’, the group held a protest outside parliament to make the point that many Zimbabweans are refugees, not just economic migrants.

The three principals in the unity government, Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, have met five times recently to discuss the controversies surrounding the implementation of the Global Political Agreement, but they have still failed to come up with a solution. Observers say this ‘dilly-dallying’ has been part of Zanu PF's strategy to wear the MDC down while not addressing the fundamental issues.

In every country, bank notes carry unique serial numbers which are never reapeated, except, it seems, in Zimbabwe. Dealers in the USA, Germany and South Africa who sell pristine-quality paper money to collectors are turning up Zimbabwe dollar notes with duplicate numbers, especially on the $100bn "Agro-cheques" that were released last year.

The making of a new constitution is slowly turning into one big fight. That our country needs to revitalise itself is in no doubt, and the fact that it needs a constitutional overhaul is also a well known fact. But the road to constitutional reform is full of landmines, and more will be planted if threats by the National Constitutional Assembly and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions are to be taken seriously.

The decision by the Washington-based International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) came after a six-year legal battle between a group of Dutch farmers and President Robert Mugabe's government. It finally ruled last week that Mr Mugabe's government had broken a bilateral investment treaty with the Netherlands and awarded the group more than £14 million in compensation.

The South African government should immediately halt detaining and deporting Zimbabweans from South Africa in violation of the government's recently announced moratorium, Human Rights Watch has said. Police in the town of Musina, close to the Zimbabwean border, continue to detain Zimbabweans at a military base and then deport them.

Zimbabwe's teachers have vowed to go on strike when the new school term begins next week after government reneged on a pledge to increase their salaries. "There has not been any concrete response to address the issue of teachers salaries," Tendai Chikowore, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers' Association told AFP. "We issued an ultimatum to the minister to say if the issues of remuneration of teachers are not addressed before schools open, teachers will not report for work."

The board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was meeting on Monday to discuss Zimbabwe, an official said. The IMF’s Africa Department Director Antoinette Sayeh added that the financial institution is satisfied with the progress made so far by the inclusive government and as such it would offer “small, technical assistance” in due course and encouraged other donors to follow suit.

The battle between the Ministry of Finance and Reserve Bank over the allocation of cars to MPs has left ministers open to charges of hypocrisy by the legislators as they have more than two vehicles each while trying to block their colleagues in parliament from taking any from the central bank.

The Media Alliance of Zimbabwe, comprising the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum, Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, MISA Zimbabwe and the Africa Community Publishing Development Trust, has heavily criticised a proposed government media stakeholders’ conference which is littered with anti press freedom participants.

cc As Zimbabwe celebrates 29 years of independence, Nyaradzai Mugaragumbo-Gumbonzvanda honours the ordinary women who fought for freedom and life with dignity, and reflects on the meaning of the liberation struggle both for her late mother Mbuya Rozaria Dizha and for Zimbabwean women of different generations. Mbuya Dizha ‘gave her daughters and sons to the liberation’, provided food and financial contributions for freedom fighters and was among the many thousands of rural women who voted for the first time in 1980, her contribution to creating ‘a new nation’. While the early eighties ‘were sweet moments for us, as girls old enough to understand the…dynamics brought by this wave of change and its possibilities,’ writes Mugaragumbo-Gumbonzvanda, ‘today’s young Zimbabwean girls are desperately looking for education, employment and hope.’

The Global Information Technology report of 2008-2009 has ranked Zimbabwe’s Information and Communication Technology sector at 132 out of 134 countries on the network readiness index list, ahead of East Timor and Chad. The Network Readiness Index (NRI) measures the capacity of countries to exploit the opportunities offered by the ever-changing Information and Communications Technology sector. The NRI comprise of three components: the environment for ICT offered by a given country or community, the readiness of the community’s key stakeholders to use ICT’ s, and the usage of the ICT amongst these stakeholders.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's seizure of a ministry controlled by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is casting more doubt on his commitment to the fledgling power-sharing deal. The birth of the unity government on 11 February 2009 was designed to dilute the powers accumulated during Mugabe's nearly 29-year rule, which has reduced the once prosperous nation to penury.

Botswana has offered a US$70 million credit line to help revive struggling Zimbabwean industries, a senior Zimbabwean official said on Thursday. “Botswana is proposing to provide US$70 million in credit support for some industries, all that is left is to tie up the agreement,” the official said.

The World Bank is willing to help Zimbabwe recover from a devastating economic crisis, but it is critical for the country's institutions to restore democracy and human rights, the bank has said. World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters Zimbabwe's new finance minister, Tendai Biti, would attend the the Spring meetings of the bank and the International Monetary Fund next week.

All but one of Zimbabwe's ministers from the former opposition has accepted an official Mercedes Benz. When they were in opposition MDC politicians condemned the profligacy of Mr Mugabe’s Mercedes Benz-mobilised Zanu PF party. Last September, when the agreement to form a power-sharing Government was signed, senior MDC figures made an informal decision never to accept an official Mercedes.

South Africa's president Kgalema Motlanthe, current chairman of the Southern African Development Community, SADC, has been mandated to present a request for an eight-billion US dollar lifeline for Zimbabwe at the G20 summit in London on April 2. He will also have the unenviable task of pleading with the leaders of the world's richest countries to lift travel and visa restrictions imposed on President Robert Mugabe and more than 200 of his party leaders, government officials and loyalists.

Gweru based freelance journalist Kudzai Musengi was on 31 March 2009 allegedly abducted by three unknown men who bundled him into their car and blindfolded him before speeding off to a bushy area where he was subjected to intense interrogations. According to MISA-Zimbabwe, Musengi who was eventually released around 7pm on 1 April 2009, was interrogated about his alleged involvement with reports that were being beamed by Voice of America’s Studio 7 on farm invasions. Musengi denied having any links with Studio 7.

A spectacular concert in an atmosphere of joy and freedom marked the end of the inaugural Nguva Yedu ~ Thuba Letu ~ Our Time youth arts festival in Harare. 600 people packed the Book Café car park for the final concert on Saturday 28 March, which presented 10 hours of outstanding poetry and some of the southern African region´s top music acts.

The challenge of making a fresh start in Britain is the subject of a darkly comic and fast-paced new novel, Harare North, by Zimbabwean writer Brian Chikwava. The novel is set in Brixton in south London, and it offers a view of London as seen through the eyes of its migrant population, particularly Africa's dispossessed. Hence, Harare North, the title and ironic name the book's unnamed hero gives to London.