Zimbabwe’s mining minister vowed that the country “will no longer be begging for anything from anybody” after international diamond regulators agreed to let it trade some $2bn in diamonds from a field where human rights groups say miners have been tortured.

Zimbabwe promised to withdraw its soldiers from diamond fields in the east, an official newspaper reported – a week after a rights group alleged the military was committing killings and abuses in the area.

Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe today said there was no going back on price controls and told MPs they faced a massive task in guiding Zimbabwe through what he called “adverse challenges” in the nation’s economic crisis.