New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was scheduled to brief the UN Security Council later Monday on the deterioration of living conditions in Zimbabwe, where a cholera epidemic has killed more than 900 people.

The 15-nation council was to hear Ban behind closed doors as is the normal practice for sensitive issues. Last week, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on the council to take "meaningful action" against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for his leadership in the worsening situation.

Johannesburg  - The US ambassador to Zimbabwe on Sunday accused President Robert Mugabe's regime of splurging on expensive presents for party loyalists, and leaving the job of caring for desperate Zimbabweans to Mugabe's so-called "enemies" in the West.

In a letter published in South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper, James McGee accused the regime of forking out on cars for government ministers and plasma televisions for judges while Zimbabweans were being snuffed out in large numbers by cholera, an easily preventable and treatable disease.

Mugabe's regime accuses Western sanctions of causing the country's nosedive, although the sanctions are aimed only at his ruling clique.

Harare, Dec. 13 : Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has accused Britain of waging "biological warfare" against his people through a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 800 people so far.

Health officials in South Africa have said that Zimbabwe''s cholera epidemic is now of a "massive magnitude".

Mugabe has long sought to portray the suffering of his country''s people as the result of a dispute between London and his own government, blaming the former colonial power for a range of ills. But the cholera claim is further and more bizarre than his Zanu-PF party has ever gone before.

Washington - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will urge the UN Security Council next week to to take "meaningful action" against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for his mismanagement of the faltering country, the US State Department said Friday.

Rice heads to New York Monday and Tuesday for discussions that will also focus on the tension between India and Pakistan, piracy on the Somali coast and other topics, spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Washington  - The United States warned Thursday that the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is worsening and announced millions of dollars in spending to combat the disease.

US officials refuted a declaration by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe that the cholera epidemic was over. The US Agency for International Development announced it will provide 6.2 million dollars to fight the cholera outbreak in addition to the 4.6 million dollars already spent.

Durban, South Africa  - An invasion of Zimbabwe or tougher sanctions to dislodge President Robert Mugabe are not on the cards, a senior official in South Africa's ruling party said in Durban on Thursday.

"I don't think invading Zimbabwe or sanctions would work," African National Congress (ANC) Secretary General Gwede Mantashe told journalists and editors at a breakfast in Durban.