Johannesburg/Harare - The International Federation of the Red Cross announced Wednesday that it has deployed seven so-called emergency response units
(ERUs) in the past week throughout Zimbabwe in response to the ongoing cholera crisis there.

The seven units include three basic health care units, two mass sanitation units, and two water supply units from Red Cross societies around the world.

Harare - Incarcerated top Zimbabwean human rights activist Jestina Mukuko charged Tuesday that she had been subject to abuse while in detention after her early December arrest.

In papers filed to the High Court demanding an end to criminal proceedings against her on charges of plotting to topple President Robert Mugabe's government, Mukoko said she had been blindfolded during her detention, had been beaten, and had not received medication for more than 10 days.

Mukoko was seized early on the morning of December 3 from her home in Norton, some 40 kilometres south-west of the capital Harare. In the papers she filed with the court, she demanded that the people who abducted her should be prosecuted.

Harare/Johannesburg  - The legal battle between Harare and white landowners continues in Zimbabwe as President Robert Mugabe's government indicates it will prosecute 140 of them on charges of failing to vacate their farms.

"A total of 140 farmers are to be prosecuted for failing to vacate farms after being issued with eviction notices," the state-run The Sunday Mail reported.

The government had ordered the 140 farmers off their land by September 30 to pave way black peasant farmers but they defied the directive.

The newspaper cited a report presented at the ruling Zanu-PF party's recent national conference.

Pretoria  - South Africa on Tuesday confirmed it had provided its ailing neighbour Zimbabwe with humanitarian aid to the tune of 300 million rands (30 million dollars).

The move amounted to an about-turn on the part of Pretoria that had initially made the formation of a unity government in Zimbabwe the condition for such assistance.

Harare  - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe vowed to fend off his "political death" and urged his party to be ready for new polls as he blamed Britain for the economic woes facing the country.

Closing his ZANU-PF party's 10th annual conference in Bindura, about 80 kilometres north of Harare late Saturday, Mugabe brushed off international pressure to resign as Zimbabwe crumbles under its worst humanitarian and economic crisis.

London, Dec 20: President Robert Mugabe has declared that "Zimbabwe is mine," and vowed never to surrender to calls to step down, as his political rival threatened to quit stalled unity government talks.

Addressing his ZANU-PF party's annual conference amid a ruinous political crisis and a deadly cholera epidemic, Mugabe returned to the kind of defiance he has often shown in the face of mounting criticism, The Telegraph reported.