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FORMER British Prime Minister Tony Blair admits he “would have loved” to topple President Robert Mugabe militarily, but found the task “impractical” because he enjoys a “lingering support” from fellow African leaders.

The disclosure is made in Blair’s autobiography, A Journey, which was published this week.
Blair, who stood down as Prime Minister in June 2007 after a decade in power, writes: "People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, [Slobodan] Milošević, the Taliban and Saddam, why can't you get rid of Mugabe?

“The answer is I would have loved to, but it wasn't practical (since, in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously)."

BULAWAYO - A Zimbabwe artist's attorney says the artist will go to trial next month for depicting scenes in his paintings of civilians being massacred by government troops, images that have now been banned under the country's censorship laws.

Earlier this year, police shut down Owen Maseko's exhibit depicting an armed uprising after Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 when civilians were crushed by troops loyal to President Robert Mugabe.

Attorney Lizwe Jamela said Tuesday that Maseko has now been charged with displaying "false statements" prejudicial to the state and faces a fine or imprisonment. Jamela says the artist is not charged under censorship laws. He is expected to go to court mid-September.

MOUNT HAMPDEN - A diamond firm operating from Zimbabwe's Marange diamond fields has begun constructing a multi-million dollar cutting and polishing centre in the country, officials said Tuesday.

The Zimbabwe Diamond Technology Centre, which is being constructed by Canadile miners, one of the three firms operating in Marange, is set to become operational within six months.

Faber Chidarikire, governor for Mashonaland West province said the diamond industry was set to revive the country's economic woes.
"The ailing country's economy shall be revived through the proceeds, marketing rates, making life easy for the minister of finance (Tendai Biti)," Chidarikire said.

HARARE  - Zimbabwe has invited new takeover bids for state steel-maker ZISCO, a minister said on Wednesday, following rejection of offers from ArcelorMittal South Africa and India's Jindal Steel and Power.

A power-sharing government formed by bitter rivals President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has sought to attract foreign investors in a bid to raise at least $10 billion to fix the economy.

The government has identified cash-starved ZISCO, once a major foreign currency earner with the capacity to produce 1 million tonnes of steel per year, as the first state-owned enterprise to be disposed of in a bid to revive its operations.

BOTH formations of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change closed ranks Wednesday in objection to President Robert Mugabe’s refusal to endorse liberation participant, labor leader and MDC co-founder Gibson Sibanda as a national hero following his death on Monday.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara wrote to Mr Mugabe asking him to grant Sibanda national hero status which would allow him to be interred at National Heroes Acre on the outskirts of Harare along with prominent liberation figures.

But sources in Mr. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party said he consulted just a few party officials and sent word to Mutambara that Sibanda would only be accorded a so-called state-assisted funeral, not a hero’s burial. His family said he will be buried in his rural home of Filabusi, Matebeleland South.

LONDON – An award-winning record producer defended X Factor yesterday over claims the TV talent show used technology to make some contestants’ voices sound better.

Viewers filled internet forums with complaints about the use of “autotuning” during the programme.

Some threatened to boycott the show in protest at the alleged use of the studio technology, used to correct pitch and off-key mistakes.

HARARE  - Zimbabwe's annual inflation fell to 4.1 percent year-on-year in July from 5.3 percent in June, driven down by a drop in the cost of food and non-alcoholic beverages, official data showed on Monday.

Zimbabwe, whose inflation peaked at 500 billion percent in Dec. 2008 according to IMF data, has stabilised its economy under a coalition government set up last year by bitter rivals President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The price of food, which constitutes 30 percent of the consumer price index basket, has stabilised over the last year thanks to a better agriculture output.

HARARE - National Healing Minister and MDC founding president Gibson Jama Sibanda has died, his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party announced on Tuesday.

He was 66.
Sibanda, who led the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions for more than a decade, died at Bulawayo’s Mater Dei hospital on Monday night, his party’s deputy secretary general Priscilla Misihairabwi said.

Misihairabwi said Sibanda had been in and out of hospital over the last year quietly battling cancer.
“We have lost a gentle giant, a father figure and quiet spirit who was hardly ruffled by many things,” Misihairabwi told New Zimbabwe.com by telephone from Harare.

FISSURES in the coalition government appeared to widen on Friday with President Robert Mugabe ruling out the reallocation of gubernatorial posts until sanctions are removed while Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party insisted new governors should be sworn into office.

The MDC-T claims the terms of office of the present governors, all of them members of President Mugabe’s Zanu PF, have since expired and argues new appointments should be made in terms of the Global Politcal Agreement (GPA).

PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party on Wednesday applauded calls by regional leaders for partners in Zimbabwe's unity government to iron out their differences within a month.

Movement For Democratic Change secretary general Tendai Biti said the MDC was "reasonably pleased" with this week's summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which called Tuesday for Zimbabwe's strained power-sharing government to resolve outstanding issues within a month.

Southern African leaders leaders have given themselves another six months to review a 2008 tribunal ruling on Zimbabwe land reform.  The decision not to act came at this week’s Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Windhoek, Namibia.

A SADC tribunal had ruled that nearly 80 white Zimbabwe farmers had their land unfairly taken from them due to their race.