zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has fired 4 top Cabinet ministers according to the AP:

All those involved were from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party. Tsvangirai has no power over ministers from President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party in a unity government forged last year as a compromise after disputed national elections in 2008.

AFP reports:

New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch said on Monday that Zimbabwe has broken its promise to halt physical abuse of diamond miners and should have its international certification frozen.
The call came in a new report issued by the group to coincide with a meeting in Tel Aviv of partners in the Kimberley Process (KP) certification scheme, created to prevent the sale of “blood diamonds”.

CNN just posted a great story out of Zimbabwe about four new publications recently awarded licenses in the country. This is a big deal freedom of press in the country:

The papers granted licenses include the previously banned “Daily News,” which was shut down by Robert Mugabe’s government in 2002. The papers will be the first privately owned newspapers to go on sale in six years.

According to the AFP, Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai met with Secretary Clinton yesterday to “recognize that Zimbawe has made progress toward democracy as he appeared to suggest it ease sanctions”:

But there was no sign US President Barack Obama’s administration would ease sanctions targeted at President Robert Mugabe and his loyalists, the people with whom Tsvangirai has shared power uneasily for more than a year.

AP reports:

Zimbabwe’s information minister says the country will implement wide-ranging media reforms that could bring in independent media outlets that would break the government’s hold on the media.