Zimbabwe's president and prime minister may both be in Tanzania this week, but they didn't even share a flight to get there. The agendas of the longtime rivals are worlds apart too, raising more questions about their struggling coalition government. President Robert Mugabe was attending a meeting Wednesday to combat Western "neocolonialism," while Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai sought investment in Zimbabwe's ailing economy from Western business leaders and international agencies. The separate trips show how deep divisions remain in Zimbabwe's power-sharing coalition government, which was forged last year as a compromise after disputed national elections in 2008.

Mugabe, 86, is attending a summit of African liberation leaders who had fought for independence from colonial-era rule. Zimbabwean state radio, which is controlled by Mugabe's party, says the meeting is aimed at finding ways to combat the resurgence of Western imperialist threats to developing nations.

 

The Zimbabwean government announced on Monday that a revamped licensing authority will accept applications from new broadcasters and newspapers later this month. But Zimbabwean journalists have told Mail & Guardian that they doubt the move will bring any meaningful change. The latest announcement follows last week's decision by government to slash registration fees for local and foreign media. Foreign media organisations will now pay $2 500 annually, reduced from $30 000, while local journalists will pay $30. Earlier in March, government also promised to "relax" other restrictive media laws by the end of 2010. But Andrew Moyse, project coordinator of the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ), told the M&G that the latest changes are merely "cosmetic" because the current framework of media regulations amounts to "a dog's breakfast of laws." Moyse points to a clause in the privacy Act which warns journalists not to "abuse" their "privileges" in relation to "publication of falsehoods and injurious statements". He says that as long as such laws remain, any new regulations are meaningless.

 

The country's reviled media henchman, Tafataona Mahoso, has been appointed chief executive officer of the secretariat of the new Zimbabwe Media Commission. The controversial and vitriolic former chairman of the Media and Information Commission (MIC) will run the ZMC secretariat which will receive and process applications from journalists and media houses seeking registration with the body. He was replaced as the MIC chairman in 2008, when a High court judge determined that he was unfit to perform his duties because he was politically biased. Late last year Mahoso was controversially appointed to chair the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) but Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai declared the appointment null and avoid. His latest appointment to head the ZMC secretariat has attracted mixed reactions from journalists, civil groups and human rights activists. Foster Dongozi, the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, said they were very uncomfortable with Mahoso’s appointment to the ZMC.

 

Controversial Jamaican reggae star Sizzla Kalonji has been rewarded with a farm – for singing at president Robert Mugabe's lavish 86th birthday party in February. Rather than paying the bill, Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party handed the artist – who denies he is on the run from gun crimes charges back home – a farm in central Chegutu, according to reports in state media. Mr Mugabe has seized more than 4,000 farms from white farmers since he launched his land reform programme in 2000, plunging Zimbabwe's once-flourishing agricultural sector into ruin. Sizzla, 34, has called on Mr Mugabe to "champion the cause of the return of the African people from the gates of hell they are living in in Jamaica and the Caribbean," the pro-Zanu-PF Mail reported