Venezuela and Zimbabwe have signed a cooperation deal to strengthen ties in energy, agriculture, economic and social affairs and culture, a government statement said here Wednesday.

Zimbabwe`s main opposition said Wednesday it had not seen a proposed constitutional amendment that would create a post of prime minister, earmarked for the party`s leader under a unity accord.

Under the power-sharing deal signed more than two months ago, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would become prime minister while veteran ruler Robert Mugabe would remain as president.

South Africa has treated 68 cholera patients since the weekend in a town by the border with Zimbabwe, where the disease has killed dozens of people in recent weeks, a health official said Wednesday.

`Since Saturday, we have received and treated a total of 68 cholera patients from Zimbabwe,` said Phuti Selobi, spokesman for the health department in the town of Musina said.

South Africa has treated 68 cholera patients since the weekend in a town by the border with Zimbabwe, where the disease has killed dozens of people in recent weeks, a health official said Wednesday.

`Since Saturday, we have received and treated a total of 68 cholera patients from Zimbabwe,` said Phuti Selobi, spokesman for the health department in the town of Musina said.

Zimbabwe`s gold production plunged by 64.5 percent in October compared to the same period last year, the Chamber of Mines said Wednesday, underscoring the woes of the once-vital industry.

Gold output in October was 125 kilogrammes in October, down from 352 kilogrammes in the same month last year, the chamber said.

Zimbabwe`s gold production plunged by 64.5 percent in October compared to the same period last year, the Chamber of Mines said Wednesday, underscoring the woes of the once-vital industry.

Gold output in October was 125 kilogrammes in October, down from 352 kilogrammes in the same month last year, the chamber said.

The World Food Programme said Wednesday that it has signed a new food aid deal to allow the UN agency to provide 350,000 tonnes of grain to millions in the strife-torn country.

`The agreement is part of our long-standing partnership with the goverment of Zimbabwe. It runs until April 2010,` said WFP spokesman Richard Lee.

The World Food Programme said Wednesday that it has signed a new food aid deal to allow the UN agency to provide 350,000 tonnes of grain to millions in the strife-torn country.

`The agreement is part of our long-standing partnership with the goverment of Zimbabwe. It runs until April 2010,` said WFP spokesman Richard Lee.

Zimbabwe`s main opposition said Wednesday it had not seen a proposed constitutional amendment that would create a post of prime minister, earmarked for the party`s leader under a unity accord.

Under the power-sharing deal signed more than two months ago, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would become prime minister while veteran ruler Robert Mugabe would remain as president.

Zimbabwe`s main opposition said Wednesday it had not seen a proposed constitutional amendment that would create a post of prime minister, earmarked for the party`s leader under a unity accord.

Under the power-sharing deal signed more than two months ago, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would become prime minister while veteran ruler Robert Mugabe would remain as president.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai warned Sunday that President Robert Mugabe would cause the collapse of a power-sharing agreement if he imposes a unity government.

`He would have literally collapsed the deal,` Tsvangirai told AFP in Stasbourg, northern France, during a rare visit to Europe.

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai warned Sunday that negotiations on a power-sharing government with President Robert Mugabe must not be allowed to run on indefinitely.

`It can`t be forever,` Tsvangirai told AFP in Strasbourg, northern France, during a rare visit to Europe. `We cannot go on and on and on.`

HARARE, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The Zimbabwean government has published a draft bill to reform electoral laws following a surprise agreement last month between the ruling party and the opposition, a state-run daily said Saturday.

HARARE, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's home affairs minister summoned main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to explain claims of escalating violence against opposition supporters, a state newspaper reported Sunday.

Home Affairs Minister Comrade Kembo Mohadi summoned Tsvangirai to a meeting on Thursday 'where the opposition party will be given the opportunity to substantiate claims that some of its members have been killed or maimed in incidents of political violence,' The Sunday Mail said.

LISBON, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown renewed Thursday a warning that Britain will boycott a summit of European and African leaders if Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe attends.

Speaking shortly before the start of a European Union summit in Lisbon, he said Mugabe had overseen a 'tragedy' in the African country, a former British colony.

'We will not participate in a conference that President Mugabe is at. We cannot sit down at the same table as President Mugabe,' he said, referring to the planned December summit between EU and African leaders.

HARARE, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - A South African businessman appeared in a Zimbabwean court to face charges of attempting to smuggle three rifles and 108 rounds of ammunition, a state-run daily reported Thursday.

McCallum Douglas Wayne, a 40-year-old tour operator, was arrested at Harare International Airport after he was found with the firearms and ammunition without a certificate, the Herald reported.

PARIS, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Portugal, current holders of the EU presidency, is doing what it can to ensure that all countries including Zimbabwe take part in December's EU-Africa summit, Prime Minister Jose Socrates said Wednesday.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that no one in his government will attend the summit in Lisbon if Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe is there.

'We are working diplomatically to ensure that no one abandons their place,' Socrates told France's L'Express magazine.

HARARE, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's inflation rate, already the highest in the world, rose to a new peak of nearly 8,000 percent last month, figures released by the central statistics bureau showed on Wednesday.

'The year-on-year inflation rate in September 2007 was 7,892.1 percent, gaining 1,389.3 percentage points on the August rate of 6,592.8 percent,' the bureau said in a statement.

The month-on-month rate of inflation was 38.7 percent, the CSO added.

HARARE, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe will not allow foreigners to own broadcasting stations but could relax rules and licence locals who have been battling to meet stringent requirements, the information minister said Monday.

'On the issue of ownership we cannot compromise,' Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told a committee of lawmakers.

'Why should a foreigner want to own a voice in Zimbabwe? Government policy on broadcasting seeks to achieve strategic goals. We seek to expose those we perceive as adversaries and win over those we see as useful allies.

HARARE, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - A Zimbabwean court on Monday postponed hearing a case against six men accused of trying to topple veteran President Robert Mugabe after the prosecution said it was not ready.

'The accused persons are warned to attend court on October 29,' magistrate Kudakwashe Jarabini said at a hearing in Harare.

The men's lawyer Charles Warara told the court he would apply at the next court date for refusal of further remand for his clients who have been in detention since their arrest in June on coup plot charges.

HARARE, Oct 14, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's government has allowed bakers to increase the price of a loaf of bread by more than 200 percent, as shortages persit across the country, an official of the bakers' association said Sunday.

A senior manager from one of the country's leading bakeries, Lobels, who demanded anonymity, told AFP that the government approved the hikes for bakers late Friday.

LONDON, Oct 13, 2007 (AFP) - Demonstrators marked Saturday the fifth anniversary of protests outside Zimbabwe's embassy in London, blasting President Robert Mugabe and vowing to keep up the fight against his regime.

The Zimbabwe Vigil has been held outside the embassy every Saturday since October 2002 to campaign for fairer elections and improved human rights in the former British colony.

Demonstrators chanted, sang and waved 'No Mugabe No' banners outside the building on the Strand, one of central London's main thoroughfares.

HARARE, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's supreme court has ordered a government school to readmit an eight-year-old schoolboy who was expelled for wearing dreadlocks, his lawyer said Friday.

'The supreme court has ordered that the school be barred from refusing the boy entry into class or interfering with his education,' lawyer Tafadzwa Mugabe told AFP.

'This means schoolchildren can now wear dreadlocks as long as their parents approve. Others may disapprove and say we are opening floodgates for dreadlocks in schools but this is what the law says.'

HARARE, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - The Zimbabwean government authorised Friday new increases in the prices of basis foodstuffs in a bid to ease widespread shortages that followed an order for retailers to halve their tariffs.

The National Incomes and Pricing Commission announced it had approved rises of between 50 percent and 200 percent for a range of staples including a bag of sugar which will now cost 255,232 Zimbabwe dollars, up from 84,000 dollars.

LISBON, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - The European Union will finalise the invitation list for the long-planned EU-Africa summit by the end of this month, Portugal's Foreign Minister Luis Amado said Thursday.

The names will be announced when EU and African officials meet October 30 in Accra, Ghana, Amado told the Lusa news agency in a report from Johannesburg, South Africa where he was visiting.

CHEGUTU, Zimbabwe, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Eleven of Zimbabwe's last remaining white farmers are to be tried for defying government eviction notices after they lost a bid Thursday to stay on their farms while appealing the orders.

A magistrate in the town of Chegutu, northwest of Harare, ruled the group had been abusing the legal process in order to delay their fate and should quit their land immediately.

LISBON, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe can attend the EU-Africa summit in December despite vehement British opposition, Portugal's Foreign Minister Luis Amado said Thursday.

'If the meeting in Lisbon takes place in the presence of Mugabe, he must hear what is said not only by European countries but also by some African nations,' Lusa news agency quoted Amado as saying in Pretoria.

CHEGUTU, Zimbabwe, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Eleven of Zimbabwe's last white farmers will go on trial for defying a government eviction after they lost a bid on Thursday to stay on their land pending the outcome of an appeal.

Magistrate Tinashe Ndokera dismissed an application by the farmers from the nortwestern Mashinaland west province to challenge the law evoked to order their evictions as 'a delaying tactic'.

CHEGUTU, Zimbabwe, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - A court was to rule Thursday on whether 11 of Zimbabwe's last remaining white farmers should stand trial after they stayed on their properties in defiance of a government eviction order.

In a test case that will likely determine the fate of all the other white farmers, a magistrate in the farming town of Chegutu was also to decide whether the 11 can appeal against their impending eviction in the supreme court.

MAPUTO, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Mozambique will export more than 100,000 crocodiles to neighbouring South Africa and Zimbabwe over the next four months, a local official said on Thursday.

'Fishermen in the valley of River Zambezi in central Tete Province are set to collect crocodile eggs in coordination with South Africa breeders,' Manuel Santos, a provincial government official, told AFP.

'Crocodiles born following artificial incubation will be exported to South Africa and Zimbabwe,' he added.

PRETORIA, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - The European Union-Africa summit planned for Lisbon in December will go ahead with or without British Premier Gordon Brown, the foreign ministers of South Africa and Portugal said Wednesday.

'A summit does not depend on one person and one person does not make a summit,' South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said.

LISBON, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe can attend the European Union summit with Africa if that is what African nations want, Portugal's foreign minister Luis Amado said Wednesday.

Despite widespread human rights problems, no country 'can be pushed aside from dialogue and from the development of long-term strategic relations between the EU and the continent,' Amado, whose country is current EU president, told the Lusa news agency.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he may boycott the planned summit if Mugabe is present.

HARARE, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change demanded compensation Wednesday after terrorism charges were dropped against dozens of activists who spent nearly four months in custody.

'We are definitely pressing for compensation,' Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the main MDC faction, said another group of 15 party members had their case struck off by a Harare magistrate on Monday.

HARARE, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe will import 30,000 tonnes of wheat from its neighbours in a bid to ease widespread bread shortages of bread, the agriculture minister has announced, according to the state daily.

Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo was quoted as saying in the state-run Herald newspaper as saying 2,000 tonnes had so far been delivered while the bulk of 30,000 tonnes was expected 'anytime soon from now.'

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Women are being regularly tortured and sexually abused by Zimbabwean security forces for their opposition to President Robert Mugabe's regime, a new report by a leading rights group charged Tuesday.

'Many of us have been detained more than once and suffered extreme abuse perpetrated by state actors,' Jenni Williams, national coordinator of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), said at the launch of the report in Johannesburg.

PRETORIA, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa's ambassador to the European Union warned Tuesday against the setting of pre-conditions for attendance at an upcoming EU-Africa summit, saying everyone should be present.

Anil Sooklal told reporters in Pretoria that any move to have Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe excluded from the summit in Lisbon in December would not hold with his fellow African leaders.

He said African nations were very keen to have the summit take place, saying 'it can only be to the benefit of both sides.

HARARE, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Eleven of Zimbabwe's last remaining white farmers face a court battle Thursday to remain on their properties in defiance of a government eviction order under the country's controversial land reforms.

'The magistrate will make his ruling on Thursday whether the case should be referred to the supreme court or whether they should stand trial,' their lawyer David Drury told AFP.