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Zimbabwe: Enemies of the State

Mugabe's "Do or Die" Campaign to Stay in Power

Zimbabwe: Shopping for Survivial

New Arrests in Human Smuggling Operations at Mexican Border

Burma's Cyclone: The Tipping Point?

 

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Zimbabwe: Enemies of the State

Morgan Tsvangirai

A cameraman, Edward Chikomba, was killed after he shared video with the outside world of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai (shown here leaving hospital) after Tsvangirai was arrested and beaten unconscious by Robert Mugabe's police force.

Editor's Note: In the last of our three-part series, our anonymous correspondent in Zimbabwe details what it is like to work as an independent journalist in one of the world's most repressive regimes. "By exposing the government's shortcomings journalists have become enemies of the state," says this writer. "I work in fear every day." Read her dispatch about the crackdown below.

Since the latest round of election-related violence, our reporter has gone into hiding in the capital of Harare. From her safe house, she spoke with iWitness correspondent Joe Rubin and described the frightening conditions in the city over the last few days.

WATCH VIDEO

Read more in-depth reports from our correspondent in Zimbabwe and a related video from South Africa in our iWitness section.

* * *

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Mugabe's "Do or Die" Campaign to Stay in Power

burned homes

Farm workers survey the charred remains of their homes on Muniya Farm. Evictions and destruction of property began on April 15, 2008, after the area had voted overwhelmingly for the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.

Mrs. Plaxeded Mutariswa Ndira was getting her children ready for school a few weeks ago when she heard a scuffle in the bedroom where her husband was still sleeping.

"Some men ordered him out of bed," she says. "He refused, saying he wanted their IDs. He was grabbed naked and shoved into a vehicle that speeded off. My husband was screaming and wrestling."

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Zimbabwe: Shopping for Survivial

empty shelves

Empty shelves at a supermarket in Harare.

Editor's Note: Our correspondent is a Zimbabwean reporter based in Harare, the capital. Because of the government's crackdown on the press, we are protecting the reporter's identity. This is the first in a series of eyewitness accounts of the crisis there.

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Empty Shelves and 400 Million Dollar Bars of Soap

It's hard to be positive when everything around you is crumbling. Hard to believe that my country, Zimbabwe, was once Southern Africa's breadbasket. The prosperity we experienced is becoming a colorful, distant memory, as we sink further into the abyss.

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New Arrests in Human Smuggling Operations at Mexican Border

Crimes at the Border logo

The broadcast of "Mexico: Crimes at the Border" airs Tuesday, May 27 on PBS at 9 pm ET.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was arrested May 16 in San Diego on suspicion of allowing smugglers to drive illegal aliens and drugs through a U.S.-Mexico border checkpoint.

It's the latest arrest in a string of recent cases of corrupt U.S. border officials involved in smuggling humans.

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Burma's Cyclone: The Tipping Point?

Dead bodies after cyclone

A whole family is laid on the ground, killed after cyclone Nargis struck the township of Bogalay, in one of the hardest hit regions in Burma. Photo: European Press Agency.

As heavy rains continue to batter survivors of the cyclone that slammed into Burma's Irrawaddy Delta region, the International Red Cross and the United Nations estimate the death toll as high as 120,000 people, with 2.5 million in urgent need of food, shelter and medical aid. Burma's military government -- which has been reluctant to allow international relief workers into the country -- acknowledges some 78,000 deaths.

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The Webbys: We Won...Thanks to You!

Webby Logo

FRONTLINE/World has won two Webby People's Voice Awards. Thanks to you, we won the popular vote in two categories: one for the best online Documentary Series, and one for our story about prostitution in Dubai, "Night Secrets," as best Individual Episode in a News & Politics series.

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Kenya: The Online Tribal Wars

Edwin Okong'o

Kenyan journalist, Edwin Okong'o.

Editor's Note: Since we last covered the tribal violence that flared in Kenya after last December's disputed election, the two parties contesting the outcome have reached a powersharing agreement and the worst of the bloodshed is over. But as the following dispatch reveals, the tribal hatred that left around 1,500 dead and thousands more displaced, also erupted online. Our regular contributor, Edwin Okong'o, describes how he became an unwitting target in the online tribal wars, much of it fueled by normally rational well-educated Kenyans living in the U.S.

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Egypt: Eyewitness to an Uprising

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Length: 5:14

Riot police

During the crackdown, a 15-year-old boy and two men were killed and more than 100 wounded.

Editor's Note: Freelance reporter James Buck was detained by Egyptian security forces on April 10 while photographing demonstrators outside a police station in the city of Mahalla, where food riots had broken out. A journalism student at the University of California at Berkeley, and a contributor to the FRONTLINE/World website, Buck had gone to Egypt on March 24 to complete a master's degree project and traveled to Mahalla on April 6 to report about a planned strike at the Middle East's largest textile factory.

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Tibet's Moment

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Length: 7:07

lhadon tethong

Lhadon Tethong, executive director of the Students for a Free Tibet, rallies protesters in San Francisco.

It's the night before the highly anticipated Olympic torch relay in San Francisco, and I am watching a training session for protestors led by Students for a Free Tibet, the group who scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl two banners the day before. A stream of young Tibetans files into the back of a Berkeley church until the room is filled. Lhadon Tethong, the executive director of the organization, arrives with a caravan of weary protesters who had attended a candlelight vigil in San Francisco. Nobel Peace laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu had spoken there. So did actor and activist Richard Gere. Draped in Tibetan flags, with their face paint reading "Free Tibet," the protestors look like sports fans after a long tournament.

But the outcome of this event is still to be decided.

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Beijing's Blaze

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Length: 3:09

protester shouting

A protester in downtown San Francisco protests the imminent arrival of the Olympic Torch.

On Wednesday, the Beijing Olympic torch is scheduled to blaze through San Francisco, home to the second largest population of Chinese in America. But rather than celebratory cheers, cries of protest from China's critics have rung throughout the city. Today, Tibetan exiles scaled Golden Gate Bridge and unfurled a banner that read: "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet."

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