Zimbabwe

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS is in mortal danger in Zimbabwe. Two bombings, harassment of its editors and reporters and attempts to thwart distribution have failed to silence that southern African country's largest newspaper, the defiant Daily News. Now President Robert G. Mugabe's government is trying to close it down again. At 7 p.m. Friday, 20 rifle-toting police officers raided the newspaper's offices, arresting two key executives and putting the building under heavy guard. The reason: The newspaper was "operating outside the law," a Zimbabwe Supreme Court justice decreed.

Earlier this year, I saw a powerful play set in Zimbabwe in the 1890s (when it was called Rhodesia) that brought back some disturbing memories of my visit there about 15 years ago. "The Convert," the first in a trilogy being written by Zimbabwean award-winning playwright Danai Gurira, ran from mid-February to March 10 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. The play centered on Jekesai, a young girl from a rural village, who moved in with an aunt who worked for a Zimbabwean Catholic priest.

WASHINGTON -- Prompted by the death last week of former United Nations Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, I looked up her essay from the November 1979 issue of Commentary magazine, "Dictatorships and Double Standards." Ms. Kirkpatrick, then a Democrat, excoriated the Carter administration for applying a double standard in its treatment of right-wing and Communist dictatorships. The former, she argued, can eventually be coaxed into democratization (or at least made amenable to United States interests)

- American diplomats abroad confront a rapidly changing world brimming with both promise and peril. This reality is perhaps no more daunting than in the countries and regions - including parts of Africa, southeast Asia and key corners of the Middle East - where populations are young and the 21st century global power struggle will unfold. More than half of the world's 7 billion people are age 25 or younger. According to World Bank data, more than a dozen African nations also feature under-15 population shares near or above 40 percent.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Hopes for a way forward in Zimbabwe's disputed elections hang on a weekend meeting of the regional Southern African Development Community, after negotiations this week between Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition failed to seal a deal. Despite upbeat talk from Zimbabwean President Robert G. Mugabe and the mediator of the talks, South African President Thabo Mbeki, little progress was made on the key issue: the division of power between Mugabe and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- As the toll of Zimbabwe opposition supporters injured in post-election violence rose to more than 200 yesterday, neighboring South Africa hardened its position on the crisis, calling for the speedy release of election results. South African government spokesman Themba Maseko described the situation in Zimbabwe as "dire." "When elections are held and results are not released two weeks after, it is obviously of great concern," Maseko said, referring to the March 29 presidential election in Zimbabwe.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Opponents of Zimbabwe President Robert G. Mugabe apparently sealed their political control over Harare in weekend parliamentary elections, but the triumph was marred yesterday by the arrest of an opposition leader. Gibson Sibanda, vice president of the Movement for Democratic Change, the nation's main opposition party, was arrested in his hometown of Bulawayo as security forces increased their patrols of the capital's main boulevards and around Mugabe's home.

During the late 20th century, human rights campaigns led by Western progressives helped to liberate two nations on the tip of the African continent from brutal whites-only rule. In 1980, the apartheid regime of Rhodesia gave way to a black-led Zimbabwe. And in 1994, the first multiracial elections in South Africa delivered the presidency to a black man, the longtime anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. In the years since, the two nations have traveled very different paths. South Africa has enjoyed stability, a free press, international investment, an independent judiciary and democratic elections - helped by the graceful exit of Mr. Mandela, who retired after one term.

BY THE TIME you read this, the little girl in the hooded jacket is probably dead. Sitting with her friends on a hot Zimbabwe morning, she needed the winter coat because AIDS had drained the warmth from her body. A group of Crofton residents on a trip to the African country met the girl a few weeks ago. They were told that she was in the final stages of the disease and would survive only a few days. But in their hearts, the memory of her will never die. She is among about 1.5 million people stricken by an epidemic ravaging Zimbabwe, where about a quarter of the adult population is said to be suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome and an estimated 900,000 children have been orphaned by the disease.

WHEN EMILY Frye wakes up in the morning in her Crofton home, she still feels the dusty road beneath her feet. She sees the dark poverty inside the village huts. But, most of all, she sees the children, orphaned by AIDS, alone in the world, with no food, no money, no schooling and no one to hug them at night."How long," she asks, "will I remember those children's eyes?" As her eyes fill with tears, Frye knows the answer. She will remember those children forever. She and her friend, Cleo McCoy of Odenton, returned to Maryland on Wednesday after a six-week trip to Zimbabwe, part of the outreach mission of Crofton's Community United Methodist Church.

Hours before Prudence Mabhena performs for a packed house at Maryland Institute College of Art's Brown Center for the local premiere of the Oscar-winning short documentary "Music by Prudence," she is relaxing in her guest room, watching MTV as she greets an interviewer. "We can get MTV in Zimbabwe, you know," she says, with a toothy grin. It's a casual conversational stroke that immediately puts you at ease and also conveys how savvy she is and how internationally ambitious. "Music by Prudence" came to life partly because of early financial, technical and creative support from MICA and its chief of film and video arts, Patrick Wright (who gets co-producer and assistant editor credits)

The making of the Oscar-nominated movie "Music by Prudence" is a tale of two schools, one in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and one in Baltimore. A favorite for best short documentary at tonight's Academy Awards, this 33-minute flight presents an affecting portrait of its tough, gifted title character, the singer-songwriter in a band of disabled youths at the King George VI School & Centre for Children With Physical Disabilities in Bulawayo. Prudence Mabhena suffers from arthrogryposis, a condition that deforms joints and cost her both her legs.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Facing severe pressure from Southern African leaders, Zimbabwe's opposition voted yesterday to join a unity government under President Robert G. Mugabe, despite failing to win its key demand for control of the police. The opposition will share control of the police ministry with Mugabe's party, an arrangement that many in the opposition see as unworkable. Mugabe retains control of the military and intelligence ministries. The U.N., meanwhile, reported that Zimbabwe has suffered more than 60,000 cholera cases since August, surpassing what experts had said would be a worst-case scenario.

The fate of Southern Africa is hanging in the balance as a result of continuing upheavals in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where political instability and economic uncertainty are threatening to unravel the promise both nations once held out of being models for the region after emerging from white minority rule more than a decade ago. It's a situation that demands international attention. In Zimbabwe, negotiations between President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change collapsed over Mr. Mugabe's refusal to make good on a power-sharing deal signed last month that would have given Mr. Tsvangirai's party a significant role in the government.

MASVINGO PROVINCE, Zimbabwe - They look like birds pecking, grain by grain, along the nation's roadsides. Tattered women and children bend to pick up the corn blown from passing trucks. The precious grains are about all there is to eat. Millions of people across Zimbabwe are on the brink of starvation, largely because of the failure of this year's harvest and the nation's collapsed economy, along with President Robert G. Mugabe's ban on humanitarian aid during the recent election campaign.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Bitter rivals reached a power-sharing deal yesterday that leaves Robert G. Mugabe president of Zimbabwe and in control of its armed forces but gives his opponents hopes for enough power to rescue the shattered country. The complicated agreement makes Mugabe's rival, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, prime minister and creates a government whose ministers meet twice in parallel structures - once with the prime minister in charge and once under the president.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - After three days of intensive negotiations to resolve Zimbabwe's political crisis, President Robert G. Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai were deadlocked yesterday on the most fundamental issue: which one of them would lead a new unity government. The talks, which began last month with high hopes for a quick settlement, were adjourned with no date set for a resumption. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the official mediator in the crisis, left Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, yesterday without the power-sharing deal he had hoped to broker.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Hopes for a way forward in Zimbabwe's disputed elections hang on a weekend meeting of the regional Southern African Development Community, after negotiations this week between Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition failed to seal a deal. Despite upbeat talk from Zimbabwean President Robert G. Mugabe and the mediator of the talks, South African President Thabo Mbeki, little progress was made on the key issue: the division of power between Mugabe and the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.