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Tendai Biti, the southern African country’s finance minister, is the brains behind a new statute that bans the importation of “articles of second-hand undergarments of any type, form or description, whether purchased, donated or procured in any other manner,” according to a report in UK’s The Guardian.

Recently, he sounded particularly offended that any self-respecting husband would even fathom allowing his wife to wear such clothing.

“I am told we are now even importing women’s underwear in this country,” he was quoted saying recently. “How does that happen? If you are a husband and you see your wife buying underwear from the flea market, you would have failed.”

The minister added: “If I was your in-law, I would take my daughter and urge you to first put your house in order if you still want her back.”

With one of the world’s highest unemployment rates at more than 90 percent, some Zimbabweans have been forced to buy under garments that are often used or supplied by donations from abroad, according to the report.

The ban, which has been in effect since Dec. 30, has ticked off some trade associations who claim they are being pushed out of business. But there are hopes that the new restrictions will spur the country’s textile industry into producing garments locally.

Ghana had also banned secondhand underwear in 1994 but the measure was never implemented. But last year, officials started enforcing the restriction citing the potential health hazards.

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According to reports, the women were arrested after police found them driving around with 31 used condoms in their car. The semen is believed to bring success in business.

One anonymous man interviewed on TV claimed women kidnapped him, injected him with something “that gave me a strong sexual desire,” and when they were finished they dumped him naked in the countryside.

Read more at Newser.

The Daily Nation reports:

“We appeal to members of the public to pass any information to the police regarding three women who have gone on a spree of kidnapping and indecently assaulting young men around town,” Harare police boss Angeline Guvamombe said in a statement.

“The women drive in posh cars and offer their unsuspecting victims lifts before spraying some liquid substance on their faces.

“Once the victim is drowsy, he is taken to a secluded place or house where he is forced to have sex,” said Ms Guvamombe. “I want to warn these criminals that their days are numbered,” she added.

Read More At The Daily Nation

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Zimbabwe Launches Valentine’s Day Blood Drive

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Maronhodze was discovered 2 years ago on the street of Northamptonshire by a modeling agency, who encouraged her to compete in the UK Elite Model Look competition, which she coincidently won.

The schoolgirl, who arrived for her first casting wearing her school uniform – experienced a meteoric rise through the echelons of the fashion industry, with an impressive debut season that saw her walking for shows including Louise Gray, Clements Ribeiro, Jonathan Saunders during London Fashion Week SS11 as well as Loewe, Emanuel Ungaro, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Louis Vuitton in Paris.

Read more at Dailymail.co.uk

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Health Minister Henry Madzorera said Monday that many Zimbabweans are “scared of the needle” and believe there are enough donors already. Some are also afraid to learn their HIV status – official figures put Zimbabwe’s HIV infection rate at about 13 percent.

The national campaign is supported by the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention and seeks more adult donors, and U.S. funding was used to better screen donated blood.

Most blood supplies – over 70 percent – come from schoolchildren. Adults receive 80 percent of those donations.

Madzorera urged Zimbabwean adults to do some “soul searching” and contribute to the blood bank.

Deputy U.S. ambassador David W. Abell said the campaign aimed to provide blood at affordable prices after years of shortages.

A unit of blood costs $65 in government hospitals – too high for many Zimbabweans who live on a daily income of about $1.

The nation has suffered acute shortage of medical supplies in a decade of political and economic turmoil that collapsed main health services and public utilities.

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Red Cross: Zimbabwe Cholera Cases To Top 100000

HARARE, Zimbabwe — President Robert Mugabe pledged Sunday to move ahead with plans to hand over 51 percent control of businesses to blacks under a controversial program.

During ceremonies Sunday marking the 30th anniversary of independence from colonial rule, Mugabe said the proposed business take overs are a concrete example of policies followed over the last three decades that enable locals to own the nation’s resources.

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The so-called indigenization and empowerment act was passed in 2008, when parliament was still dominated by Mugabe’s lawmakers. The law came into force on March 1 and all businesses were given to April 15 to hand in proposals as to how they’d hand over 51 percent of their company to blacks. This included foreign and white-owned businesses.

Text continues after gallery …

The party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader who was also present at the ceremonies Sunday, has opposed the program and said Wednesday the law had been shelved to avoid deterring much-needed foreign investment in the ailing economy.

Tsvangirai’s party on Wednesday said a meeting of the coalition cabinet chaired by Mugabe suspended the act, which defined “indigenous” Zimbabweans as those who suffered under colonial-era racial discrimination and their children born after independence in 1980, effectively excluding the nation’s 20,000 whites.

Saviour Kasukwere, a minister from Mugabe’s party in charge of empowerment policy, countered this and said Wednesday the law will go ahead, but it had only been delayed for more discussions.

The new so-called indigenization law “recognizes our sovereign right of ownership,” Mugabe told crowds at the 50,000 seat Chinese-built sports stadium in Harare.

Mugabe said the nation, governed by a yearlong coalition between his ZANU-PF party and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change, faced continuing criticism from what he called “unrepentant and incorrigible racist forces.”

He said the coalition was proceeding with national reconstruction despite outside opposition from Western countries.

RELATED: Zimbabwe Blocks Visit By United Nations Torture Investigator

Seizures of white-owned farms and “now the indigenization program serve as concrete and living examples of empowerment … designed chiefly to redress the historic imbalances in ownership of the economy,” Mugabe said.

Mugabe on Sunday did not elaborate on any fresh deadlines under the law.

Coalition leaders watched military displays at the stadium which was reopened this month after being shut down for three years for structural repairs by Chinese engineers. Crowds cheered and whistled for Tsvangirai when Mugabe formally welcomed him to the celebrations.

Mugabe, 86, acknowledged a need for national healing Sunday “following a period of polarization and hostilities between our people.”

Years of political violence, much of it blamed on Mugabe militants and state agents, and economic turmoil came with the often violent seizures of white-owned farms that Mugabe ordered in 2000, disrupting the agriculture-based economy in the former regional breadbasket and leading to acute food shortages and world record inflation.

Human rights groups say at least 600 people, mostly Tsvangirai supporters, died in the past decade and tens of thousands of cases of torture, illegal arrests and other rights violations were reported.

From NYTimes.com:

POLOKWANE, South Africa — Men in Westenburg Township went hunting Zimbabweans. They prowled its dirt roads by the truckload as night fell recently, brandishing clubs and throwing stones.

At dawn that day, the body of Steven Hamilton, a 24-year-old local man, had been found near a tavern. In a flash, word spread that drunken Zimbabweans had stabbed him in the chest. By the time people returned home from work, the township had erupted. Men shouted for the Zimbabweans to be killed, or for them to go back where they came from.

Mike Mpofu, 34, a former high school art teacher from Zimbabwe who sells vegetables from a shed, saw the mob coming. Charneal Carelse, a South African teenager whose family had befriended Mr. Mpofu, happened to be walking by. “I told her, ‘There is war coming,’ ” he said.

Charneal said she told him to hide in her house, and he took off running.

In May 2008, South Africa’s image as a home to people of all races and nationalities took a hard knock as xenophobic violence leapt from city to city, victimizing poor Africans who had sought asylum and opportunity in the region’s richest country.

In the year and a half since, such attacks have flared periodically, but recent ones against Zimbabweans here, near South Africa’s northern border, and at its southern tip have brought the problem to the fore again.

Click here to read more.

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JOHANNESBURG — Zimbabwe’s government has blocked a visit by the United Nations’ torture investigator who was to examine alleged attacks on opposition activists by ruling party supporters, the world body said Wednesday.

The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Manfred Nowak was initially invited to Zimbabwe for a week-long trip beginning Wednesday.

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However, Zimbabwe’s government canceled the visit while Nowak was in Johannesburg en route to Zimbabwe, citing talks over the country’s fragile power-sharing agreement, the U.N. said.

Longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai joined into a unity government with longtime ruler Robert Mugabe in February, but withdrew temporarily from the coalition earlier this month accusing Mugabe’s party of human rights violations.

Foreign ministers from three of the southern African nations that pushed for the coalition — Mozambique, Zambia and Angola — were due in Harare Thursday for talks with Tsvangirai and Mugabe to try to revive the agreement.

RELATED: World Bank Gives Zimbabwe $74 Million To Revitalize Agriculture

The U.N. said Wednesday that Nowak welcomes “all efforts to resolve the political crisis” in Zimbabwe, but he did not consider this a valid reason to cancel his planned visit.

Opposition supporters and human rights defenders have accused Mugabe’s aides of violence, harassment and carrying out arbitrary arrests.

On Tuesday, Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change said one of its security officials was beaten by the president’s militants, and said the attack was part of new violence unleashed because it has stepped back from the governing coalition.

“Recent allegations that MDC supporters and human rights defenders have been arrested, harassed and intimidated during the past few days, highlight the urgency of objective fact-finding by an independent U.N. expert,” the U.N. said.

Ephraim Masawi, a spokesman for Mugabe’s party, denied the allegations, saying they were “cheap propaganda” intended to mask the failure of Tsvangirai’s party to explain his decision to withdraw temporarily from the coalition.

HARARE — The World Bank on Wednesday announced a 74-million-dollar grant to revive Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector.

“The money is 74 million dollars up from 25 million last year,” David Rohrbach, a senior agricultural economist at the World Bank, told reporters on the sidelines of an agriculture conference in the capital Harare.

The bank hopes the money will help 700,000 farmers, said Rohrbach.

RELATED: EU Will Continue Sanctions Against Zimbabwe

“We are dealing directly with NGOs. We are following suit with what other donors have done to help Zimbabwe. We are not yet at a stage to deal with government directly but we consult them,” he said.

The announcement came as a new report — prepared for the conference by donors and the government — said compensation had been paid for about three percent of the 6,500 white-owned farms seized under Mugabe’s land reforms.

The study said land reforms had drastically reduced the area of land under cultivation by 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) and lands under irrigation also declined more than nine percent to 139,500 hectares.

Mugabe launched the land reforms in 2000, with at least 4,000 white farmers forcibly removed from their properties. He has defended the programme as meant to correct colonial-era imbalances.

RELATED: Zimbabwe Faces Bleak Christmas Amid Food Crisis

Black farmers resettled on the land have received little government support, while banks have been unwilling to offer them loans without legal guarantees on ownership of the land.

Production of both food and cash crops like tobacco have plunged, leaving millions of people dependent on international food aid.

Secretary for agriculture Ngoni Masoka told a media briefing at the predicted a jump in crop production this year.

“This year the preparations are much more advanced compared to last year,” he said. “Even in terms of funding, this year we are better prepared.

Mugabe in February joined former rival Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister, in a unity government tasked with returning Zimbabwe to stability after years of economic ruin.

From CNN:

The European Union will not lift sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his allies until the country improves its human rights record and moves ahead on a power-sharing plan, an EU official said Sunday.

European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Karel de Gucht spoke to reporters at the conclusion of a two-day visit about Mugabe’s calls for an end to the sanctions.

Under a power-sharing agreement last year aimed at ending months of turmoil and violence that followed the March 2008 presidential elections, Mugabe retained his office, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai became prime minister.

Called the Global Political Agreement, the accord spelled out a number of fundamental democratic reforms. But so far there has been no progress toward them, EU officials have said.

Click here to read more.

We are in Week 2 of our Picture This caption contest. Judging from last week’s submissions, there are a LOT of really creative people in the BP universe!

Last week’s Picture This winner is davettalashley with the caption: “Okay, so how many wishes do I get again?” for the following picture:

CONGRATULATIONS ON WINNING A FREE 1-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION TO GIANT MAGAZINE!!!!

Submit your caption ideas for this week’s photo in the comments section and check back next week to see if your comment won you a free 1-year subscription to GIANT MAGAZINE!

PICTURE THIS OFFICIAL CONTEST RULES HERE.

The cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, the worst in Africa in more than 15 years, is slowing but is still expected to reach 100,000 cases this week, the Red Cross said Tuesday.

The Red Cross is appealing to donors, who have responded only reluctantly in the past, for more money to help keep the disease under control.

In a report, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the outbreak of the waterborne disease has killed almost 4,300 people since August 2008.

“We stand now within days of 100,000 cases,” said Red Cross spokesman Matthew Cochrane, adding that milestone had appeared unimaginable just a few months ago.

Cochrane said the outbreak 15 years ago killed 12,000 people in camps in what was then Zaire, as refugees fled turmoil following the genocide in Rwanda. What makes Zimbabwe’s outbreak stand out, Cochrane said, was that it spread so quickly and was so deadly in a country at peace.

According to figures compiled by the U.N.’s World Health Organization, more than 98,000 cholera cases have been recorded in Zimbabwe since August.

Custodia Mandlhate, head of WHO’s Zimbabwe operations, said in an e-mail that the outbreak appeared under control, but added that “our main challenge is now to make sure that preparedness for future epidemics is done.”

Cholera is usually easily treated. The scale of Zimbabwe’s outbreak is blamed on the collapse of the country’s water and health infrastructure following years of violent political impasse.

Donors have been slow to provide funds to rebuild that infrastructure because they do not trust President Robert Mugabe, accused of trampling on democracy and ruining a once-thriving economy. Mugabe joined his longtime rivals in a unity government in February, but has been slow to act on his promises of reform.

The global financial crisis also has slowed aid and development giving.

Late last year, the Red Cross asked the international community for about $9 million for an emergency response in Zimbabwe that included distributing water purification chemicals and ensuring tent hospitals had drugs and trained staff. The Red Cross had to end that operation early when it received only 45 percent of the funds it needed.

Now, the Red Cross is asking for $3.44 million for the next stage, rehabilitating water systems, digging wells and constructing latrines. The agency, conscious of the international community’s reluctance to fund development work while Mugabe continues to stall reforms, stressed that donations are necessary to complete humanitarian work.

Taking steps now to prevent a cholera resurgence, Cochrane said, would ensure aid workers are not coming to donors again in a year asking for millions in emergency funding. “Cholera has retreated, but it hasn’t been defeated,” he said.

President Robert Mugabe swore in his longtime rival as prime minister Wednesday, cracking his nearly three-decade stranglehold on power and conceding they must work together to rescue Zimbabwe from economic and humanitarian disaster.

The image of Mugabe administering the oath of office to Morgan Tsvangirai was extraordinary given the history of state-sponsored violence against opponents. The opposition leader has been beaten and was once nearly thrown from a 10th floor window by suspected government thugs.

Tsvangirai acknowledged in a speech after the ceremony that many Zimbabweans don’t think the partnership will work, but he said it is the “only viable arrangement.” He promised to begin repairing the economy and healing the country’s other wounds.

Government has been gridlocked since elections last March left the presidency in dispute and broke the long-ruling ZANU-PF party’s control of Parliament. As the political factions squabbled month after month, the once-vibrant farm economy slumped deeper into calamity.

Many people have new hope now that the unity government is taking office, but they also worry about how serious Mugabe will be in sharing control after determinedly holding on to every shred of power since independence from Britain in 1980. He has been under pressure from aides in the military and government who do not want to give up power and prestige to the opposition.

Unusually for a state occasion, no military chiefs were at Wednesday’s ceremony. Generals in the past have said they would not salute Tsvangirai, a former labor leader who did not take part in the independence war that ousted a white-minority regime and swept Mugabe to power.

Elphas Mukonoweshoro, an opposition leader who was to take the oath of minister of public service when the rest of the Cabinet is sworn in Friday, said he wasn’t concerned by the absence of the military chiefs. He said it was not a snub, but an effort “to reflect the new Zimbabwe.”

At a celebration rally attended by some 15,000 supporters later in the day, Tsvangirai pledged to reopen schools that are closed because teachers can’t afford bus fare and to fight a cholera epidemic blamed on the cash-strapped government’s neglect of hospitals and sanitation.

He drew the biggest cheers when he said all government workers — from teachers to soldiers — would be paid in hard currency starting next month to shield them from the world’s highest inflation rate. He did not say how the government would afford that.

People in the crowd threw Zimbabwe dollars like confetti, expressing their contempt for the nearly worthless currency.

The country’s economic collapse — for which Tsvangirai holds Mugabe responsible — has left millions of Zimbabwean dependent on international food aid.

Ian Stephens, a Harare businessman, said it was too early to celebrate the new government.

“It depends on how cooperative Mugabe is and whether he can be trusted,” Stephens said. “Mugabe no longer has absolute power and that could be the turning point.”

Sampson Ibrahim, a street vendor, joined a crowd that watched the ceremony on a TV in the window of an electronics store in downtown Harare.

“I am happy because I expect prices to go down,” Ibrahim said. “They’ve got to get the schools and the hospitals working again.”

Mugabe declared during the ceremony that he is offering “my hand of friendship and solidarity to work with (Tsvangirai’s party) for the service of Zimbabwe.”

“The road to this arrangement has not been easy,” the president said later. “It has been a long and tedious road. But we hope and trust that we have put ourselves to a commitment of making this country work again.”

Leaders of neighboring nations pushed for the governing coalition, saying that once Mugabe and Tsvangirai joined in a unity administration they would overcome mutual mistrust and work together for the good of Zimbabwe.

Mugabe, whose 85th birthday is Feb. 21, has in the recent past treated the 56-year-old Tsvangirai as a junior partner at best.

Tsvangirai won the most votes in the first round of the presidential election last March, but withdrew from a June runoff with Mugabe because of widespread attacks on opposition supporters.

Even though Mugabe clung to the presidency, Tsvangirai’s decade-old Movement for Democratic Change broke ZANU-PF’s lock on parliament in the March election for the first time since independence.

A power-sharing deal was reached in September but it was stalemated for months because the factions couldn’t reach agreement on allotting Cabinet posts. Tsvangirai finally agreed Jan. 30 to join the government and resolve any remaining disputes later.

The coalition agreement calls for the government to make reviving the economy its priority. Even if the factions can put aside their differences, they cannot do much without foreign help. The United States has made clear the money won’t flow if Mugabe tries to sideline Tsvangirai.

Botswana’s government, among the most critical of Mugabe, welcomed Tsvangirai’s swearing-in. It hopes Zimbabwe’s unity administration “will work and help to alleviate suffering of the people of Zimbabwe,” said Clifford Maribe, spokesman for Botswana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The unity government’s agenda includes preparing for new elections, expected in a year or two. Media restrictions will have to be lifted and other steps taken to ensure voting is free and fair after ballots in recent years were marred by violence, intimidation and manipulation blamed on Mugabe’s party.

Tsvangirai called Wednesday for political detainees to be released. Human rights groups say tortured detainees are on the verge of dying in jail.

From Celia W. Dugger at The New York Times:

After months of resisting intense pressure from leaders across southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, announced Friday that he would do as they have insisted and join a power-sharing government as prime minister with his longtime nemesis, President Robert Mugabe.

The opposition party’s decision to join the government was made unanimously at a meeting of its leadership in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. It will usher in a new phase in the opposition’s decade-long struggle against 84-year-old Mr. Mugabe and his almost 30-year grip on power — a grip he tightened after claiming victory in a bloody, discredited presidential run-off election against Mr. Tsvangirai in June.

“There was jubilation and ululation, singing and dancing,” said party spokeswoman Thabitha Khumalo, describing the reaction of party leaders to the decision to join the government.

Click here for the full post.

In crumbling, largely Christian Zimbabwe, where a cholera epidemic has killed more than 1,100 people, Christmas is just another day of suffering.

“There is nothing for us to celebrate. Christmas is a story of hunger,” said Monica Rugare. “It is just another day of poverty, the way we are living today.”

The country’s Christmas tradition of city dwellers heading to the countryside with gifts of food and clothing for their relatives isn’t possible this year. Annual church carol services have been subdued, if they were held at all.

On Tuesday, children found a bit of cheer playing in the stinking water gushing from a broken sewer in the impoverished Harare neighborhood of Braeside.

Ten-year-old Kudzai Urere, ignoring the warnings from cholera-conscious adults as she leaped about in the murky water, said her mother had gone to search for food and would not be home until nightfall.

When she did return, she would be lucky to bring home vegetables, not toys or candy.

In this country of glaring inequities, there are some who do have the leisure and cash for pastimes like golf, even if they can’t escape the stench of chaos.

The sewage flowing down the streets of Braeside emptied into a stream already swollen by heavy seasonal rains. The foul-smelling water ran through a nearby golf course where a few players moved gingerly around it on the fifth fairway Tuesday.

Zimbabwe’s chaos is opportunity for some. Stories abound of President Robert Mugabe’s generals selling the state’s diamonds. Another scarce, government-controlled commodity is hard currency. Those close to Mugabe can buy U.S. dollars at the low government rate and sell them on the black market for a hefty profit.

Other Zimbabweans bring in food and other goods from neighboring countries and sell them for U.S. dollars, or have access to hard currency because they work for foreign companies or have relatives abroad.

But for most Zimbabweans, the economic collapse of what was once a regional bread basket and food exporter has left millions dependent on international handouts.

The cholera outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people since August is blamed on the collapse of water and sewage facilities bereft of purification chemicals or spare parts. The waterborne disease should be easy to prevent and treat, but not in a country where medical supplies are scarce and all state hospitals have closed because they can’t pay staff enough to cover the commute to work.

Doctors Without Borders listed Zimbabwe’s health crisis and continuing economic collapse among its “Top 10 Humanitarian Crises of 2008,” noting in a report released this week that life expectancy has plummeted to just 34 years of age, according to U.N figures. Because of the crisis, some 2 million people infected with the AIDS virus have been forced to skip meals or cannot afford bus fare to clinics for treatment, it said.

Critics blame Mugabe’s policies, including an often-violent campaign, beginning in 2000, to seize white-owned farms and hand them over to veterans of his guerrilla war against white minority rule. Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years, blames Western sanctions, though the European Union and U.S. have targeted only Mugabe and dozens of his clique with frozen bank accounts and travel bans.

With inflation running at more than 231 million percent, the central bank has licensed shops and businesses to trade in hard currency for the sale of imported goods and farm supplies.

Innocent Zuwa, a small farmer outside Harare, said he was unable to plant any crops in the current wet season — he has no hard currency to buy seed and fertilizer. “There’s nothing for me to plant. Many others I know are in the same situation in this turmoil we are in,” he said.

At the hard currency stores Tuesday, there were no takers for a children’s bicycle priced at $350, or a stereo system going for $650. The stores didn’t even bother with the holiday decorations that have graced Harare in previous years.

The state forestry commission, meanwhile, reported 720,000 acres of woodlands were felled for firewood to heat homes and for cooking amid persistent electrical power outages over the past two years.

The Zimbabwe Teachers Association brought more bad news.

It said schools across the country lost up to 70 percent of “learning time” in the last quarter of this year after teachers’ pay fell below the cost of their transportation to school. Attendance by pupils fell to below half those enrolled.

The teachers’ organization said the education system, once the envy of southern Africa, was crippled by the economic crisis and a deadlock over a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and prime minister designate Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

An estimated 30,000 teachers left government service since disputed elections in March, it said.

“If the environment does not change in coming days schools are unlikely to reopen next term,” the teachers group said in a statement.

Tutu told BBC radio that he hopes African Union members can be persuaded to issue Mugabe an ultimatum, threatening to intervene if he continues clings to power in the ailing nation.

Asked if Mugabe should be removed by force, Tutu said there should “certainly be the threat of it.” He said Mugabe should also be warned that he could face prosecution at the International Criminal Court for his violent suppression of opponents.

He said that he’s ashamed that his native South Africa has so far blocked attempts to oust Mugabe. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki mediated a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s opposition in September, but the agreement has stalled over how to divide Cabinet posts.

A cholera epidemic has killed more than 1,100 people since August and Zimbabwe remains mired in an economic and humanitarian crisis.

“I have to say that I am deeply, deeply distressed that we should be found not on the side of the ones who are suffering,” Tutu told the BBC.

“We have betrayed our legacy, how much more suffering is going to make us say, ‘No, we have given Mr. Mugabe enough time’,” he said.

Tutu said that he is ashamed of South Africa’s handling of the Zimbabwe issue at the U.N. Security Council, where China and Russia in July vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution that proposed worldwide sanctions against Mugabe and 13 officials.

The United States and Britain have said they can no longer support a power-sharing arrangement that keeps Mugabe as Zimbabwe’s president. Mugabe has said London and Washington are stupid to think he shouldn’t be part of a unity government.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Wednesday that Mugabe must leave office, and urged South Africa to instigate his removal.

The United States can no longer support a proposed Zimbabwean power-sharing deal that would leave Robert Mugabe, “a man who’s lost it,” as president, the top American envoy for Africa said Sunday.

Jendayi E. Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, made the announcement in South Africa after spending the last several days explaining the shift in the American position to regional leaders.

The new stance will put pressure on Zimbabwe’s neighbors, South Africa in particular, to abandon its support for Mr. Mugabe. But South Africa said its position was unchanged.

The United States, Ms. Frazer said, has become convinced that Mr. Mugabe is incapable of sharing power. She cited political moves he has made since September without consulting the opposition, reports that his government has continued to harass and arrest opposition and human rights activists, and the continued deterioration of Zimbabwe’s humanitarian and economic situation.

Particularly worrying, she said, is the rapid spread of cholera, an easily treatable and preventable disease that has killed at least 1,000 Zimbabweans since August.

Accusations by the Mugabe government that the West deliberately started the cholera epidemic are an indication that Mr. Mugabe is “a man who’s lost it, who’s losing his mind, who’s out of touch with reality,” she said.

If Zimbabwe’s neighbors were to unite and “go to Mugabe and tell him to go, I do think he would go,” she said.

But South Africa said Sunday that the only way forward was the agreement under which Mr. Mugabe would remain president and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would take a new prime minister’s post. “Our position has not changed,” said Thabo Masebe, a spokesman for South Africa’s president, Kgalema Motlanthe.

South Africa is the region’s diplomatic leader. Its former president Thabo Mbeki mediated the power-sharing agreement in September and has worked since then to break an impasse over how to divide cabinet posts.

When the power-sharing agreement was announced, the United State gave it crucial support, offering to lift sanctions and help Zimbabwe renegotiate relations with international lenders if the deal was implemented.

“We’re not prepared to do any of that now,” Ms. Frazer said Sunday.

President Robert Mugabe claims the cholera crisis that has killed nearly 800 people in Zimbabwe is contained, and his spokesman said his much-criticized remark that there was no cholera was misunderstood, state media reported Friday.

Mugabe’s comments Thursday drew strong criticism from the United States and Britain; the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe said it showed “how out of touch he is with the reality” in Zimbabwe.

Friday’s Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamaba as saying Mugabe had been sarcastic and wanted to make the point that the crisis was contained.

The World Health Organization, though, said Friday that the death toll from the waterborne disease had risen to 792 and that the number of cases had increased to 16,700.

“I don’t think that the cholera outbreak is under control,” WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said.

Cholera has spread rapidly in the southern African nation because of its crumbling health care system and lack of clean water. Zimbabwe had among the best health care systems in sub-Saharan Africa before the country’s economic meltdown.

Now most hospitals have been forced to close their doors as they can no longer afford drugs, equipment or wages for their staff, and some of the sick seeking treatment are being transported by wheelbarrow. Officials are also unable to afford spare parts and chemicals for water systems.

Zimbabwe’s decline began in 2000, when Mugabe began an often violent campaign to seize white-owned farms and give them to blacks; most of the land ended up in the hands of his cronies, and production has dropped. Now, hungry Zimbabweans scrounge for corn kernels spilled from trucks carrying the harvest to market in a nation that once exported food.

On Friday, the opposition accused Mugabe of being disingenuous for his “careless and reckless” remarks about the cholera crisis.

“The epidemic is still with us and is spreading fast,” Henry Madzorera, health spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change, said in a statement.

Aid agencies have warned that the outbreak could worsen with the onset of the rainy season and the disease already has spread to Zimbabwe’s neighbors.

South African authorities have declared the cholera-hit border region with Zimbabwe a disaster area. About 664 people have been treated for the disease and at least eight people have died in South Africa.

Mugabe has ruled his country since its 1980 independence from Britain and has refused to leave office following disputed elections in March. U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have called recently for the 84-year-old leader to step down.

On Friday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband blamed Mugabe for causing “death and destruction on a grand scale” and said that cholera remains a “very significant problem” in the country.

“There is a tragedy in Zimbabwe and it’s a manmade tragedy and the man whose made it is the head of the government, and he’s immiserated his own people, he’s caused death and destruction on a grand scale,” Miliband told Associated Press Television News.

Speaking on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Brussels, Miliband said Mugabe’s “rogue government” was getting in the way of international efforts to provide humanitarian aid for the country to fight the cholera outbreak.

On Thursday, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe told reporters at the State Department that the cholera problem is getting worse.

“The situation is truly grim,” James McGee said. “One man and his cronies — Robert Mugabe — are holding this country hostage.”

Mugabe’s aides have responded to the calls for his ousting by accusing the West of trying to use the cholera crisis as an excuse to topple the government.

A power-sharing deal worked out in September with the opposition has been deadlocked over how to divide up Cabinet posts. The political impasse has paralyzed public services, including health and education, amid a deepening economic collapse and runaway inflation.

The world consensus suggests that the iron-fisted leader has grown harmful as a political agent, and unrealistic about the solutions for disease, and sovereignty. Mugabe, now 84 years old, has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from British Rule in 1980. The opposition leaders who oppose him are typically exiled, or threatened with police action in their homes, and at civil gatherings. 

He has repeated the declaration that he has no plans to step down, going as far as saying that “only God who appointed me will remove me.” Both Condoleezza Rice and President Bush joined the chorus of leaders who have denounced Mugabe’s scare tactics and irresponsible rule. Gordon Brown, prime minister of Britain, and French president Nicolas Sarkozy have also spoken disparaging words about the Zimbabwean leader. 

Mugabe forestalled several negotiations with the Movement for Democratic Change after a hotly contested election, in which their leader secured enough votes to sink Mugabe’s Parliament. A presidential runoff ensued, and Morgan Tsvangirai (of MDC) withdrew pending threats to his followers before the race. Jestina Mukoko, of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, has also been detained against her will by Zimbabwe police. Amnesty International has issued a call for her release.

Throughout the struggle, Mugabe has been famously obstinate about relinquishing what has been his quarter century throne. He agreed to a power-sharing deal with the MDC, but has been purposely sluggish in its execution. However, the U.N., along with more powerful Western nations who could provide medical relief for the spiking cholera epidemic, hold the key to the ouster of the dictator.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that it is “well past time” for Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to leave office as evidenced by the nation’s calamitous cholera epidemic and health care crisis.

Rice said the country experienced “a sham election,” followed by a sham sharing of power. Speaking in the Danish capital Friday, she said the current outbreak of cholera in the country should be a sign to the international community that it is time to stand up to Mugabe.

“If this is not evidence to the international community to stand up for what is right, I don’t know what would be. And frankly the nations of the region have to do it,” she said. The nations in southern Africa have the most to lose and need to take the lead, she said.

Zimbabwe declared a national emergency over a cholera epidemic and the collapse of its health care system, and state media reported Thursday the government is seeking more international help to pay for food and drugs to combat the crisis.

“It’s well past time for Robert Mugabe to leave, that’s now obvious,” she said. “There has been a sham election, there was a sham power-sharing. We are now seeing the humanitarian toll.”

Rice said “we are seeing not only the political and economic toll that is being taken on the people of Zimbabwe but the toll in the humanitarian dimension as the cholera epidemic has broken out. It is time for the international nations to push Mr. Mugabe out.”

She said the United States “will always do anything and everything it can to help innocent people who are suffering. We are not going to deny assistance to people who are in need because of Mugabe.”

The U.S. Agency for International Development has said it would provide an additional $600,000 to help combat the cholera outbreak. This assistance is in addition to the $4 million water, sanitation, and hygiene emergency program USAID is already implementing in Zimbabwe.

The failure of the southern African nation’s health care system is one of the most devastating effects of the country’s overall economic collapse.

Facing the highest inflation in the world, Zimbabweans are struggling just to eat and find clean drinking water. The United Nations says the number of suspected cholera cases in Zimbabwe since August has climbed above 12,600, with 570 deaths, because of a lack of water treatment and broken sewage pipes. Besides shortages of food and other basics, even cash is scarce.

Cholera is an infectious intestinal disease that is contracted by consuming contaminated food or water. Its symptoms include severe diarrhea.

Rice’s comments on Zimbabwe came during an appearance with Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Rice is making a tour of various cities overseas as her tour in the job of secretary of state comes to a close.

Rice expressed “deep regret” for the deaths of two Danish soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan on Thursday, adding that nothing of value is won without sacrifice. “Afghanistan must never be allowed again to be a safe haven for terrorists,” Rice said. She said a review being done by the Bush administration and its NATO allies of the mission in Afghanistan is nearly complete.

“It is under way. It is, very frankly, almost completed,” she said. “It is being reviewed by the principals of the National Security Council and it is going to be discussed with our friends. And at that point I expect that some elements of it will be made public in some way.”

Some have called for more troops in Afghanistan, a sentiment backed Friday by Danish leader Fogh Rasmussen.

“We have to make sure that the mission will be a success,” he said. We must prevail and we need more troops.”

Zimbabwe has declared a national emergency over a cholera epidemic and health care system collapse, and is seeking more international help to pay for food, drugs and hospital equipment, the state-run newspaper said Thursday.

“Our central hospitals are literally not functioning,” Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa said Wednesday at a meeting of government and international aid officials, according to The Herald newspaper.

The health minister declared the state of emergency at the meeting, and appealed for money to pay for food, drugs, hospital equipment and salaries for doctors and nurses.

“Our staff is demotivated and we need your support to ensure that they start coming to work and our health system is revived,” he was quoted as saying.

A cholera epidemic blamed on lack of water treatment and broken sewage pipes has killed more than 500 people across the country, the United Nations said.

Without help, the situation could get much worse, said Walter Mzembi, the deputy water minister who also attended Wednesday’s meeting. He said the ministry has only enough chemicals to treat water nationally for 12 more weeks.

U.N. agencies, embassies and aid groups at the meeting pledged to help, The Herald said.

The European Commission said it would provide more than $12 million for drugs and clean water, and the International Red Cross said it would release more funds to help deal with cholera.

“We need to pool our resources together and see how best we can respond to this emergency,” Agostinho Zacarias, the U.N. Development Program director in Zimbabwe, was quoted as saying.

Zimbabwe is suffering from the world’s highest inflation, and Zimbabweans face daily shortages of food and other basic goods.

The government, meanwhile, has been paralyzed since disputed March elections, with President Robert Mugabe and the opposition wrangling over a power-sharing deal.

Despite the threat of arrest, Zimbabweans have increasingly been willing to protest for more government response to the worsening crisis. Riot police on Wednesday charged a group of protesting doctors and nurses and broke up other demonstrations. Several activists were reportedly detained, apparently to keep them from rallying protesters.

In neighboring South Africa, where increasing numbers of Zimbabweans are seeking cholera treatment, the crisis was being discussed at the highest levels.

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe planned to convene a Cabinet meeting “to consider ways in which South Africa could work with other countries in the region, donor organizations and (aid groups) to address the urgent need for food and other humanitarian needs,” government spokesman Themba Maseko said Thursday.

Earlier this week, South African officials said the bacteria that causes cholera had been found in South African waters in the Limpopo River, which forms part of the country’s border with Zimbabwe.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Monday the crisis in Zimbabwe appears “much worse than anything we ever imagined” after the government there blocked his weekend humanitarian visit.

Carter, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and child advocate Graca Machel called for southern African leaders to halt the “deep suffering” in Zimbabwe, where the U.N. says more than 5 million people face imminent starvation.

The president of neighboring South Africa, meanwhile, warned Zimbabwe “may implode and collapse,” as he announced a new round of talks to try to resolve the political impasse.

His comments, some of the strongest yet by South Africa, come as a cholera epidemic has killed hundreds of Zimbabweans and spilled across the border into South Africa. Officials say Zimbabwe’s political and economic collapse caused the outbreak.

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and the leader of the country’s ruling party, Jacob Zuma, expressed grave concern at Zimbabwe’s deepening humanitarian crisis after meeting with Carter, Annan and Machel.

Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nqobizitha Mlilo said militants linked to Mugabe’s party were seen in the area before Wednesday night’s firebomb attack on the home of one party activist. Mlilo said the activist and three colleagues were killed, an unusually high one-day toll.

Mugabe “is behaving like a warlord,” Mlilo said. “This violence must stop.”

Attempts to reach Zimbabwean police for confirmation of the firebombing were not immediately successful.

The opposition claims Tsvangirai won the country’s presidential elections, but official results said a runoff, to be held in just over a week, was needed because there was no outright majority win.

South African President Thabo Mbeki held talks with Tsvangirai on Wednesday and later with Mugabe amid increasing international concern that the June 27 runoff will not be free and fair. Mbeki, who has steadfastly refused to publicly rebuke Mugabe, left late Wednesday without speaking to reporters. His spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment Thursday.

Mugabe spokesman George Charamba was quoted in Thursday’s edition of the state newspaper The Herald as saying Mbeki came merely to review election preparations.

Mbeki says confrontation with Mugabe could backfire. But Mbeki’s decision to spend his 66th birthday with the 84-year-old Zimbabwean autocrat underlined the immense pressure he is under at home and abroad. Mbeki is being urged to take a tougher stance or show that his quiet tactics can work to persuade Mugabe to stop the violence before the election.

Tsvangirai has called on Mbeki to step down as mediator, accusing him of bias toward Mugabe.

Mlilo expressed little confidence that Mbeki’s visit would make a difference, noting “four people died that very day” the South African visited.

“Mugabe doesn’t seem to care what the international community thinks,” Mlilo said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded action Wednesday.

“It is time for leaders of Africa to say to President Mugabe that the people of Zimbabwe deserve a free and fair election,” she said after a meeting in Washington with Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga — one of the few African leaders who has criticized Mugabe.

“You cannot intimidate opponents, you cannot put opponents in jail, you cannot threaten them with jail on charges of treason and expect to be respected in the international community,” Rice said.

Most observers praised the conduct of the first round — although not the delay in releasing official results. But there are growing fears that Mugabe will steal the second round through violence and ballot rigging.

In addition to the violence, Tsvangirai’s party has seen rallies banned and campaign stops blocked by police, and its No. 2, Tendai Biti, has been arrested on charges of treason. The opposition says the charges are politically motivated.