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Canadian firm accuses Zimbabwe opposition leader of plotting to kill Mugabe --[Excerpt] A presidential election is scheduled for March 9-10. Tsvangirai poses the greatest challenge to Mugabe's 22-year rule since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980. Mugabe has become increasingly unpopular amid the collapse of his country's economy and political violence against opposition supporters.

A man representing Tsvangirai's party approached Dicksen & Madson in November, said Ari Ben-Menashe, the firm's president.

The opposition officials appeared unaware the firm had done work for Mugabe's government for "a few years" and believed it had connections to assassins, Ben-Menashe said. It is currently representing the government as lobbyists. [End Excerpt]

Zimbabwe Defies EU Diplomat but Denies Visa Revoked --[Except] Zimbabwe is under growing international pressure and approved 30 other EU monitoring team members on Thursday.

But it has pointedly failed to invite representatives from Britain and five other EU countries -- Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden -- which have criticized Mugabe over human rights and the seizure of white-owned farms.

South Africa, the biggest regional power, has also sent a monitoring team. It urged the EU to accept Zimbabwe's ban on Schori so it could keep the rest of its team there.

"They shouldn't fight a battle on the issue of a leader or not a leader. The issue is quite simple: Are they going to be able to put in observers to observe?" South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad told reporters in Cape Town.

The Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity, Amara Essy, adopted a harsher tone toward the Europeans, saying that Africans could look after their own.

"Really I am not happy to see foreigners coming to look at what we are doing. They do not ask us to go to the United States to see what is happening," he said in Lusaka. [End Excerpt]