Movement for Democratic Change News

The trial of Roy Bennett, a leader in the Movement for Democratic Change and its choice for deputy agriculture minister, started Monday amid signs that President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party were continuing to crack down on independent groups they see as political adversaries.

This week Zimbabwe's diamond industry was saved from a ban by the 70-member global diamond trading group as a result of a campaign from human rights organisations.

Police in Zimbabwe Tuesday released a lawyer arrested Monday for objecting to a subpoena issued for his client, Peter Hitschmann, who served a prison term for possession of weapons in connection with an alleged 2006 plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe.

The Zimbabwean human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, right, celebrates outside the court in September.

A diamond mining pit in the Marange fields of Zimbabwe. A plan calls for withdrawal of the Zimbabwe military from the fields.

Reporters Without Borders has written to Tomas Salamao, the executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community, on the eve of a SADC meeting in Maputo on the situation in Zimbabwe.

Southern African regional leaders meet Thursday in the Mozambican capital Maputo for a summit aimed at reviving the troubled power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe, deadlocked for nearly three weeks.

A Zimbabwean deputy minister from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party who was arrested for allegedly stealing a cell phone from an ally of President Robert Mugabe has been cleared of the charges.

By Kirby Chien and Deborah Kan Africa was "sick and tired" of having its natural resources exploited by China and getting little development in return, Zimbabwe's deputy prime minister said on Friday.

Representatives of Zimbabwean non-governmental organizations attending a Kimberly Process Certification Scheme meeting in Namibia scrutinizing the country's management of a diamond field in the east of the country where human rights abuses and smuggling have been reported said Tuesday they were threatened by a state delegation.

The Southern African Development Community has called a meeting Thursday in Mozambique of its troika or committee on politics, security and defense to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe's national unity government, SADC officials said Monday.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai again led the ministers of his formation of the Movement for Democratic Change on Tuesday in boycotting the weekly cabinet meeting of the national unity government in which he shares power with President Robert Mugabe.

Violence and intimidation against members of the Movement for Democratic Change increased sharply within days of the party "disengaging" from Zimbabwe's unity government, MDC spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka told IRIN.

Police violently disperse supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change, in Harare, Zimbabwe on 23 January 2008.

The widening rift between Zimbabwe's "parallel governments" has raised the spectre of renewed political violence in the country.

The use of handmade bricks is revolutionizing housing in Chinhoyi, 120km north of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, where housing estates built by poor people have mushroomed in a development that has caught the attention of the housing ministry.

Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change Wednesday accused President Robert Mugabe of trying to tear apart a unity pact by threatening to replace cabinet ministers chosen by the former opposition.

Zimbabwe's government has blocked a visit by the United Nations' torture investigator who was to examine alleged attacks on opposition activists by ruling party supporters, the world body said Wednesday.

Leaders of Zimbabwe's National Association of Non-governmental Organizations, NANGO, were arrested Sunday ahead of an anticipated meeting Monday between President Robert Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change leader, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The heads of the umbrella organisation for all of Zimbabwe's NGOs were arrested on Sunday amid worsening signs of the disintegration of the country's fragile coalition government.