The editor of one of Zimbabwe’s only remaining independent newspapers, The Standard, which belongs to the stable of media outlets belonging to Mail & Guardian owner Trevor Ncube, this week received an envelope containing a bullet.

President Robert Mugabe is likely to be made life president of the ruling Zanu-PF party, allowing him a dignified exit as the country’s leader. Word has it that Mugabe wants to run the government from the helm of his party should Zanu-PF decide to appoint a prime minister after the country’s 2008 parliamentary elections.

Senior Zimbabwe government officials, including the police, have been sucked into a diamond smuggling scandal, which is believed to have cost the country about -million in lost revenue in the past eight months. In April last year, thousands of villagers descended on Marange, a district in the eastern Manicaland province, to pan for diamonds with the permission of the political leadership in the province.

Countries across the continent are headhunting the last remaining white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe, the majority of whom are contemplating packing their bags in search of more secure pastures. Five countries in the region have expressed an interest in welcoming farmers from Zimbabwe.

People on antiretroviral treatment in Zimbabwe are struggling with the price of the drugs having risen by 60% over the past year. ”We are suffering, unemployed and desperate. I can’t buy drugs or feed my four children. Christmas doesn’t mean anything to me and my family,” says Irene Kumbirai (34), a HIV-positive widow from Highfields township near Harare.

There are rumours that treasury boss Dr Herbert Murerwa and central bank chief Dr Gideon Gono are at one each other’s throats. They reportedly regularly have SMS wars, with a defiant Gono reminding his boss that they are ”working for the same government, and that he [Murerwa] should be patriotic and listen to him,” treasury insiders say.

There are growing signs that factions within Zanu-PF will push for an extension of President Robert Mugabe’s mandate by pushing through contentious constitutional amendments which would allow him to stay on until 2010. This means presidential elections in 2008 will be deferred as Zanu-PF seeks to take advantage of its majority in Parliament and the Senate to push through the constitutional amendments.

A clerk stormed into the September hearing of the industry and international trade portfolio committee, which was gathering evidence about corruption at the state-run Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company. Obert Mpofu, the Minister of Industry and International Trade, was testifying. He had just declared that there was a ”shocking … thick file” implicating people in high places.

President Robert Mugabe blocked the release of a report by the ministry of finance that exposes the looting of the country’s sole steel manufacturing company, Zisco, by Cabinet members and senior Zanu-PF officials. Mugabe’s cronies are believed to have been under-invoicing and using front companies to overcharge for goods and services provided to Zisco. Some of the goods and services were never supplied.