Johannesburg/Harare - The magistrate who this week freed on bail Roy Bennett, the detained deputy minister-designate in Zimbabwe's three-week-old coalition government, has himself been arrested by state agents, lawyers said Friday.

Police seized Livingstone Chipadza at his home on Thursday night in the eastern city of Mutare, where Bennett was held, said Trust Maanda of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.

Chipadza is still in custody and lawyers are not being allowed to see him. Police sources say he is going to face charges of criminal abuse of office.

Washington  - The United States plans to keep sanctions in place on Zimbabwe until President Robert Mugabe ends political repression in the troubled African country, the US State Department said Thursday.

Mugabe must release political prisoners, end violence and intimidation against dissidents, and earnestly commit to share power under the agreement with opposition leaders reached earlier this year, the State Department's acting deputy spokesman, Gordon Duguid, said.

Harare  - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court said late Wednesday that a judge will issue a ruling Thursday on the case of whether senior opposition poltician Roy Bennett can be released on bail.

The court said Judge Paddington Garwe would rule on whether to allow the state to appeal against a bail ruling for Bennett, Zimbabwes deputy minister designate and a member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

State counsel Chris Mutangadura said his side had been asked "to make more submissions" in the case.

Harare - Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, in his maiden speech to parliament, said Wednesday that the country must assure rule of law and respect for human rights in order to gain aid from the international community.

"No donor country or institution is going to offer any meaningful assistance unless our new government projects a positive image," Tsvangirai said in his first speech as the new prime minister.

Harare  - Zimbabwe's High Court on Tuesday dismissed an application by the state for leave to appeal a ruling granting bail to the country's deputy minister of agriculture-designate, Roy Bennett.

Bennett's lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa told journalists that Bennett was due for release from a prison in the eastern city of Mutare after Judge Tedious Karwi's ruling.

Harare - Medical experts have forecast that a worst-case scenario in Zimbabwe's rampaging cholera epidemic could see earlier predictions double to 123,000 cases and go beyond May this year.

Just over a week ago, according to the Zimbabwean Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR), the epidemic passed Africa's worst, in Angola in 2007, when over
82,000 people were infected with the highly infectious water-borne disease and 3,204 died.

Late last year the World Health Organisation estimated that the worst-case figure could reach 60,000 cases, a level passed already in January.