Harare - Zimbabwean citizens have taken a government department to court for failing to provide them with adequate and safe drinking water, as the country's cholera-related death toll nears 400, reports said Saturday.

A group from Chitungwiza, a town outside Harare, filed an application in the High Court on Friday suing the government-run Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) which is responsible for supplying water in the beleaguered nation.

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Nov. 28 -- A deputy health minister in Zimbabwe says the oncoming rainy season could aggravate an outbreak of cholera in the African nation.

Washington  - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on African nations to take more steps to pressure Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to reach a political deal with the opposition.

Mugabe appears to be breaking his promise to form a power-sharing agreement with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the wake of disputed elections earlier this year, Rice said.

"It is shortsighted on the part of the region to let this continue, because it looks to me as if what Mugabe is doing is that he is pulling as much power into his own hands as he possibly can," Rice said. "MDC, I think, is being squeezed out and intimidated. And what started out as power-sharing talks don't look very promising."

Johannesburg  - Sounding gloomy about the prospects for reaching agreement with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF on a unity government, Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change on Wednesday proposed taking over some of government's responsibilities.

In a statement issued on the second day of fresh multi-party talks in South Africa, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said in the absence of "any progress" the MDC was now "committing itself to addressing the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe."

"In the absence of a legitimate government in Zimbabwe, in the absence of a government of Zimbabwe that puts the will and welfare of the people first, the MDC must take on this leadership responsibility," Tsvangirai said.

Harare/Johannesburg  - Zimbabwean riot police beat striking doctors and nurses at a Harare hospital on Tuesday and sent them running for cover in wards, witnesses said, as reports emerged of dozens

New York  - Half of Zimbabwe's 12 million people would require food assistance and some households have already cut back on the number of meals a day, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday.

Ban said in a statement that the news from Zimbabwe was "distressing" because of the collapse of health, sanitation and education services in addition to an escalating outbreak of cholera.