FAMILIES forcibly relocated from Marange have been dumped in an abandoned farm house 60 km from the diamond rich fields whose early proceeds netted government and its private partners US$72 million on Wednesday.

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s call for amnesty on political crimes has all but ended hopes of justice on Zimbabwe’s recurring state-sponsored abuses in the near future.

TOP police officers have been fingered in an asset firm ownership wrangle, accused of corruptly fighting in the corner of former Assetfin Pvt (Ltd) director Oniyas Gumbo to block alleged fraud cases against him.

THE Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (Copac) has demanded to handle cash for its operations, saying the current system where donors and the government pay directly to service providers was slowing the crafting of a new governance charter.

ZIMBABWE will dominate discussions at the Sadc summit in Windhoek, Namibia, next week with all three political principals of the inclusive government attending the meeting.

THE state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) is investigating suspended chief executive and general manager Dominic Mubayiwa and three other company executives over the siphoning of  US$40 million in gold and diamond proceeds.

The probe comes as questions are being raised within ZMDC and in public about Mubayiwa’s building of a huge mansion in Borrowdale.

POLICE chief Augustine Chihuri has demanded a reversal of sweeping electoral reforms agreed to by coalition government partners and suggested that police maintain a presence in polling stations as well as the postal voting system seen as aiding vote rigging, the Zimbabwe Independent can reveal.

Chihuri, who has repeatedly been named by rights groups and political parties as involving the police in electoral irregularities, wrote to the co-Home Affairs ministers, Kembo Mohadi and Teresa Makone on July 26 protesting against the agreed electoral reforms.

A BIZARRE incident, in which an MDC-M rapporteur was arrested for allegedly exposing his private parts to a Zanu PF official, has ground the constitutional outreach process to a halt in some parts of Manicaland.

GOVERNMENT ministers who disclose information to the media on cabinet meetings and proceedings will be arrested together with offending journalists in a move calculated to stem “damaging leaks”, the Zimbabwe Independent can reveal.

Media, Information and Publicity minister Webster Shamu yesterday said that even though leaking cabinet details was illegal, ministers were using information obtained from cabinet discussions to further their political agendas. He said some of his colleagues even distort or misinterpret cabinet information in a bid to promote their narrow party political interests.

DESPITE spirited efforts by President Robert Mugabe and his allies to remove Zimbabwe from the agenda of the forthcoming Sadc summit in Windhoek, the regional bloc’s executive secretary Tomaz Salomao has said the issue would be discussed.

Salomao this week told an international radio station that the Zimbabwe issue would be discussed under the review of the political situation in the region. He said the Sadc facilitator on the Zimbabwe crisis, South African President Jacob Zuma, would give a report on the country’s political situation and that would bring up the issue for discussion.

THE Ministry of State Enterprises and Parastatals, in a joint operation with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra), is investigating reports that some parastatals have two payrolls which they are using to siphon public funds amid a growing furore over the staggering salaries being paid to bosses of the bankrupt state companies.

MDC-T Matabeleland North province has asked party leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to continue as president until he succeeds in removing President Robert Mugabe from power, ahead of the party’s elective congress due next year.

THREE expelled MDC-M MPs have taken President Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to court for delaying calling for by-elections in vacant constituencies.

POLITICAL parties in the shaky inclusive government seem to be expressing divergent views on many subjects but a closer look clearly indicates that they are singing the same song when it comes to whether Zimbabweans should go to the polls next year.

RECEIVING neither counselling nor apologies, victims of Gukurahundi are still living with the trauma of the 1980s military-led ethnic killings, a report on transitional justice released by a coalition of human rights groups has noted.