Airstrip One

Zim Watch

Foreign journalists have been arrested for illegal entry. Police fire tear gas at Morgan Tsvangirai’s convoy, and soldiers allegedly assault MDC activists for postering. Kofi Annan and Jesse Jackson call for a fair vote, they're quivering in their boots in Harare. Mugabe calls for a Catholic archbishop to resign.

The man behind the allegations of the assasination plot against Mugabe earns a hostile profile. Business Day in South Africa documents how the state run media and the opposition controlled "independent" media are mirroring each other in character assassination and vitriol. I must say that in the last couple of months that the independent press has become far more partisan, even if it is still miles ahead of the state run media, and is only a moderately reliable source.

The independent (opposition supporting) media have claimed that the EU sanctions will actually hurt the poor more than the Mugabe regime.

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development has blamed the IMF and World Bank for Zimbabwe's mess. I'm not sure of their status, or whether they are a Zanu front group (perfectly plausible). Meanwhile the UN have claimed that the Zimbabwean army is exploiting timber in the Congo.