Police in Zimbabwe have arrested 16,290 illegal miners – mostly gold panners – in a countrywide blitz that began just over a month ago, the official media reported today.

Police in Zimbabwe say they have razed more than 20,000 shacks and other structures in what President Robert Mugabe calls an urban cleanup campaign – but what critics at home and abroad have decried as an assault on the poor.

Zimbabwe today said it did not need any international food aid, despite predictions of a humanitarian crisis with up to four million people at risk of famine.

Paramilitary units armed with batons and tear gas patrolled Harare’s main roads today as police said they would tolerate no more protests against their crackdown on street trading – the only livelihood for thousands in Zimbabwe’s shattered economy.

A white farmer will be charged with murdering one of a group of black Zimbabweans that took over part of his land, police said today.