South African facilitators were due back in Zimbabwe on Thursday to resume mediation between ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change, hoping to achieve a meeting of the minds on the various issues troubling the power-sharing government. Facilitation team member Lindiwe Zulu, a foreign policy adviser to President Jacob Zuma, said her team will meet with the three unity government principals to relaunch the mediation process. She disclosed to VOA that the facilitators made a low-profile visit to Harare two weeks ago for a round of talks with President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, but failed to secure concessions from President Mugabe on key points. Mr. Zuma himself met with the three leaders in March and said they had agreed on a “package of measures” moving toward the resolution contentious issues, such as the fate of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono and Attorney General Johannes Tomana, both political allies of Mr. Mugabe.

 

Officials and rand and file members of both formations of Zimbabwe's Movement For Democratic Change set aside past differences on Wednesday to mourn three top officers of the MDC grouping of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara who were killed in a highway accident in Midlands province on Saturday. Correspondent Taurai Shava reported from the Midlands province capital of Gweru, where mourners converged for the burial of Lyson Mlambo, chairman of the party's national disciplinary committee. Another Mutambara MDC member killed in the same crash, Ntombizodwa Gumbo, was buried in Mberengwa at the same time in ceremonies attended by the party's secretary general, Welshman Ncube, and Priscilla  Misihairambwi-Mushonga, minister of regional integration and international cooperation. Mutambara MDC agriculture secretary Renson Gasela was to be buried at his farm outside Gweru on Sunday, sources in the former opposition party said.

 

A Zimbabwe judge has denied an urgent appeal by the diamond mining company African Consolidated Resources to block a controversial sale of diamonds.  Despite initial reports by state-controlled media in Harare that the ruling lifted a two-month ban on the sale of Zimbabwe's diamonds, a higher court's original order remains in effect. Judge Ebrahim Patel ruled last week that there was no urgent need for the High Court to hear African Consolidated Resources' appeal for an order halting the sale of diamonds extracted from the Marange area in eastern Zimbabwe. The judge had been asked to hear the appeal as a matter of urgency, and he confined his ruling to that aspect of the case.  He was not asked, and therefore made no ruling specifically about the sale of the diamonds, which are currently held for safekeeping at the country's central bank, by order of the Supreme Court. African Consolidated Resources said in court filings that urgent consideration of its appeal was necessary because the company expected the diamonds would certified for sale this month by a monitor from the Kimberley Process, which seeks to stop sales of conflict diamonds.