Harare

Four journalists from a Zimbabwean independent weekly accused of defaming President Robert Mugabe for reporting that he ”grabbed” a commercial plane for a holiday in Asia, appeared briefly in court on Thursday.

Nearly two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s rural population will need food aid in the coming two months, the United Nations said in a humanitarian situation report. ”Around five-million people, 64% of Zimbabwe’s 7,8-million rural people, are estimated to be food insecure and requiring food assistance between January and March 2004,” said the report.

The leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, who is facing charges of plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe, on Wednesday wound up his evidence before a Harare High Court hearing his trial.

The parliament of Zimbabwe on Wednesday passed a controversial land law that will allow the government to take land more easily from white farmers. The new law allows the government to compulsorily acquire white-owned farms after publishing a notice of intention in the Government Gazette.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told a court hearing his trial on Tuesday that a Canada-based political consultant had tried to convince him of the need to assassinate Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, but denied he had in any way agreed to such a plot.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday acknowledged he had flown to South Africa at the weekend, saying it was to help a nephew with traditional marriage ceremonies. He was responding to South African media that had reported his visit was to seek medical treatment.

Zimbabwe’s Chief Justice, Godfrey Chidyausiku, has ”fast-tracked” an application by the state’s media watchdog for the independent Daily News to be shut down until the courts hear a comprehensive appeal over the legality of official press controls, lawyers said on Tuesday.

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was grilled during his trial on Monday on why his party hired a Canadian political consultancy to help promote its image when it had already engaged a British firm to do so. The state queried why it engaged Dickens and Madison when BMSG of Britain was already doing work for it.

President Robert Mugabe did travel to South Africa last week, but the 79-year-old leader did not go there for emergency medical treatment, and was on holiday. ”The president is as fit as none of his detractors can ever hope to be in their lifetime,” said the the state-controlled daily Herald newspaper.

Zimbabwean police on Friday raided the offices of the country’s main opposition party, the MDC, in search of ”subversive publications”. This comes a day after Mbeki proudly announced that talks between the MDC and the ruling party of Mugabe aimed at ending Zimbabwe’s political crisis would start ”soon”.

Zimbabwe’s popular independent Daily News — a fierce critic of President Robert Mugabe’s government — hit the stands on Thursday four months after it was shut down by authorities but the government moved swiftly to close it again.

Zimbabwe’s popular independent Daily News hit the stands on Thursday morning, a day after police left its premises for the first time since it was shut down in September, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, on trial for plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe, on Wednesday said the political consultant he had hired to help promote his party introduced the concepts of ”elimination” and a ”military coup” during a meeting.

A white farmer has been killed in Zimbabwe, the first in almost 18 months, the predominantly white Commercial Farmers Union said on Wednesday. The body of Peter Sivertsen, believed to be in his 70s, was found ”mutilated … in a hole in the ground” by a neighbour in the central town of Kwekwe.

Zimbabwean police were on Wednesday again ordered to allow the country’s embattled Daily News to resume publishing. High Court Judge Tendai Uchena ordered the execution of a previous court order, issued on January 9, which tells police to stop interfering with publishing and leave the Harare premises of the paper.

Zimbabwe’s senior ruling party official and lawmaker Phillip Chiyangwa — in jail for 10 days over a major financial scam — was freed on Tuesday after the Zimbabwe Supreme Court ordered his release.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told the Harare High Court on Tuesday that any attempt on President Robert Mugabe’s life would be ”disastrous”, as he refuted charges that he plotted to assassinate Zimbabwe’s leader and seize power. Tsvangirai began giving evidence on Monday in his 11-month treason trial.

Zimbabwe’s year-on-year rate of inflation fell 21% to 599% in December, the first decline in the country’s skyrocketing cost of living in 18 months, according to official figures released in Harare on Tuesday. The reported trend surprised economists, with some even suspecting ‘doctoring’ of the figures.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, accused of plotting to ”eliminate” President Robert Mugabe, on Monday stood on the witness stand for the first time since his trial began last February. He denied allegations that he plotted to assassinate Mugabe, saying Mugabe was ”hero of the liberation struggle”.

A day after a Zimbabwean editor and two reporters were released from jail, they found themselves threatened by the government again, this time for alleged racism. The government’s press control body accused the privately owned Zimbabwe Independent weekly of racism, after the newspaper published a letter saying Zimbabweans were as docile as ”a herd of wild beasts”.

Iden Wetherell, editor of the privately owned Zimbabwe Independent, and two of the newspapers’ reporters were released on bail on Monday after being held for a weekend in police cells. They were arrested after printing a report that President Robert Mugabe had ”commandeered” an Air Zimbabwe plane to go on holiday.

An outspoken Zimbabwean businessman and senior ruling-party lawmaker, Phillip Chiyangwa, arrested at the weekend for obstructing the course of justice in a fraud probe, is due to appear in court on Monday, police said. Chiyangwa was arrested during investigations into the ENG Capital asset management company.

Foreign currencies will be traded in Zimbabwe from Monday in a controlled auction system set up by the central bank in a bid to narrow extreme differences between the official and parallel rates. The auctions are aimed at bolstering foreign exchange inflows to the official market and eradicating the parallel market.

The Roman Catholic archbishop in Zimbabwe’s western Matabeleland province said on Friday at least 10 000 people died of hunger and diseases hastened by malnutrition across the southern African country last year.

A high court judge on Friday ordered President Robert Mugabe’s government and police to lift its illegal four-month ban on the Daily News, the country’s critical daily voice and biggest circulating newspaper. The government has ignored all three previous rulings by the courts to allow the paper to publish.

Zimbabwe’s largest private newspaper was granted a court order on Friday barring police from interfering with publishing operations, the second to be issued in favour of the embattled paper in less than a month.

A legislator and top Harare businessman was on Thursday hauled before the Harare Magistrate’s Court to explain his role in a multi-million dollar scandal that has hit Zimbabwe’s financial sector. Phillip Chiyangwa is the first politician suspected of involvement in the financial sector crisis that has seen a run on deposits by panicky depositors.

Zimbabwe police have arrested a second suspect in connection with the murder of Australian accountant Philip Laing. The second member of the four-member gang was arrested in Harare a few days after a first suspect was picked up in late December.

The government has repossessed about 400 farms from black owners who occupied more than one property seized from white farmers under a controversial land redistribution program, the state-run Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Human rights activist Judith Todd says she had been forced to forgo her Zimbabwean citizenship in order to obtain a New Zealand passport and be able to travel. Todd has fought a two year battle with Zimbabwean officials who claim she has not renounced a claim to New Zealand citizenship through her father.