Your guide to the best of tonight's viewing on TV.

The role of election monitors will be vital to ensure free and fair elections in Zimbabwe, writes Mary Lawlor

Zimbabwe’s president said he is confident his party can win proposed elections, and he criticised opponents for losing sight of the nation’s future goals.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s supporters said today they spent around €220,000 to celebrate his 86th birthday.

Zimbabwe's new prime minister today blamed the arrest of one of his top aides on factions who want to destroy the country's coalition government.

ZIMBABWE yesterday slipped deeper into crisis as the death toll from a cholera epidemic neared 500 and members of President Robert Mugabe’s armed forces were accused of taking part in a looting spree.

ZIMBABWEAN playwright Cont Mhlanga, who has challenged President Robert Mugabe’s rule throughout his career, has been awarded a new prize celebrating the role the arts can play in promoting human rights.

Key parts of Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal will not take effect for at least a month, it emerged today.

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was sworn in for a sixth term today, just hours after officials announced that he had overwhelmingly won an election many countries have condemned as a sham. His main rival dismissed the inauguration and said the next step would be power-sharing talks.

Roaming bands of government supporters heckled, harassed and threatened people into voting in a run-off election in which Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was the only candidate, ensuring he will remain in power despite international condemnation of the balloting as a sham.

Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe accused the Zimbabwe opposition of lying over political violence to justify claims that next week’s presidential run-off vote will not be free and fair, the official media reported today.

Zimbabwe’s opposition will hold rallies in the capital Harare today thanks to a favourable court ruling with only weeks to go before its leader faces Robert Mugabe in a presidential runoff.

Just three weeks before the runoff election, Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe is giving the opposition no room to manoeuvre – harassing and threatening to arrest its candidate, banning its rallies and attacking diplomats who try to investigate political violence.

Police stopped the election campaign of Robert Mugabe’s main rival in its tracks today.

Police have today prevented Zimbabwe's main opposition leader from reaching an election campaign site.

British and US diplomats were attacked as they tried to investigate political violence in Zimbabwe today in an operation blamed directly on president Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe’s opposition presidential candidate has resumed campaigning today after spending nine hours in police detention in the country’s second main city.

An opposition party official says police have released the Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was being held by police after being stopped at a roadblock today.

Zimbabwe’s presidential election is increasingly likely to be decided by a second round of voting, it emerged today.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader is insisting that he has won presidential elections outright and is not negotiating to ease out Robert Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe from liberation to ruin.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition party has claimed an early lead in elections and says it is leading the presidential race against Robert Mugabe with 67% of votes.

Zimbabweans queued for hours today to vote in elections that present President Robert Mugabe with his toughest political challenge in 28 years in power.

Two people died in stampedes at the exit gates of Zimbabwe’s annual agriculture show, which was packed with crowds lured by scarce snack foods and soft drinks and stalls selling cheap Chinese toys and consumer goods.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said he would pray for Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, an outspoken government critic named in an alleged adultery case.

Roman Catholic bishops marked Easter Sunday with an unprecedented message to President Robert Mugabe to end oppression and leave office through democratic reform or face a mass revolt.

Government opponents in Zimbabwe, bloodied and defiant after police brutally crushed fresh dissent, today vowed to drive President Robert Mugabe from office in a campaign of protest they described as “war” against the nation’s rulers.

A defiant and angry Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has lashed out at Western support for what he called violent opposition activists and told his growing number of critics to “go hang”.

POLICE used tear gas and water cannons to break up a key rally of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the Zimbabwean capital Harare yestertoday, arresting dozens of people, it has been reported.

ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe threatened yesterday to bring down “the full wrath of the law” against anyone who disturbs peace and stability.

President Robert Mugabe threatened in a speech today to bring down “the full wrath of the law” against anyone who disturbs Zimbabwean peace and stability.

A MEMBER of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement posed as a printer for a job interview to prove that Rhodesian companies were targeting Irish workers under the pretence that they were recruiting for South Africa.

A Zimbabwean churchman appealed to the British government today not to forcibly send back hundreds of people who have fled from the Mugabe regime.

Two buses crashed into each other on a Zimbabwean bridge today, killing 18 people.

Amnesty International today released new secretly-filmed footage from Zimbabwe revealing the “desperate plight” of people it said were made homeless by the government’s slum clearance policy.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe defended the eviction of tens of thousands of informal traders and shack dwellers from city streets as a clean-up drive, and a two-day strike against the campaign got off to a slow start.

A two-day general strike got off to a slow start today with most Zimbabweans seemingly heeding police warnings not to participate in the protest against the forced removal of tens of thousands of informal traders and shack dwellers from city streets.

A two-day general strike called to protest a government crackdown on the urban poor began slowly today with a heavy police presence on the streets of Harare.

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.

The Prince of Wales shook hands with the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe at the Pope’s funeral today.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe arrived in Rome to attend the funeral of Pope John II, sidestepping a European Union travel ban because it does not apply to the Vatican.

President Robert Mugabe defied a European Union travel ban and flew from Zimbabwe unannounced to join world leaders attending Pope John Paul II’s funeral in Rome, state radio announced today.

ZIMBABWE’S fractured and frustrated political opposition is starting to question whether its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, can bring down President Robert Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party.

President Robert Mugabe’s branding of opposition supporters as traitors rang out repeatedly on state radio, raising fears of new political violence as his party and its main rival held rallies two days before parliamentary elections.