Harare - A committee responsible for drafting a democratic constitution, following the establishment of a new power-sharing government in Zimbabwe nearly two moths ago, was announced Sunday. The 25-member committee of deputies drawn from the country's 210- seat lower chamber of Parliament to draw up a new constitution was announced by the speaker of the House of Assembly, Lovemore Moyo, state radio reported.

The body will be responsible for drafting a new constitution by February 2010, to be judged in a referendum by July and finally passed by the end of the year.

Harare - Zimbabwe's new coalition government has decided to withdraw the country's worthless currency from circulation for at least a year and rely exclusively on other hard currencies, according to reports on Sunday. Economic planning minister Elton Mangoma was quoted in the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper as saying that the Zimbabwe dollar, whose value was sent crashing by an official policy of the former regime of President Robert Mugabe to print huge volumes of cash to keep up with state spending, "will be out at least for a year.

New York, Apr 10 : Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's aides are using violence to get amnesty for their past crimes.

Top lieutenants of the president are trying to force the political opposition into granting them amnesty for their past crimes by abducting, detaining and torturing opposition officials and activists, The New York Times quoted a senior member of Mugabe's party, as saying.

Harare - The United States ambassador to Zimbabwe on Wednesday warned of new targeted sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and senior members of his party unless they show willingness to reform.

In an interview with journalists in Harare, ambassador James McGee said current US sanctions against Mugabe and senior members of his party would remain in place "until we see some positive movement."

Harare  - Three prisons officers in Zimbabwe have been arrest on allegations that they helped film the shocking conditions in two of the country's prisons for a documentary that was screened to international outrage last week, reports said Sunday.

The television documentary, Hell Hole, produced by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, on Wednesday showed scores of skeletal prisoners dressed in rags and reportedly dying of malnutrition and HIV-AIDS in filthy institutions without food, medication or basic cleaning materials.

Harare - Tragedy has struck again at Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai with the death of an infant grandson, just days after Tsvangirai returned to work after grieving the recent death of his wife.

According to an official from Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party, Tsvangirai's infant grandson died in a drowning accident Saturday at the family's Harare home. The property has a swimming pool.