Harare - Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak has rapidly spread to nearly all of the country's 10 provinces, a government minister said Friday.

Health minister David Parirenyatwa was quoted in the state-run daily Herald as saying that nine provinces had reported the presence of the deadly and highly infectious diarrheal disease. The crowded township of Budiriro in Harare, the capital, was established as the epicentre of the epidemic.

Harare/Johannesburg - Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said Thursday that he and former United States president Jimmy Carter planned to forge ahead with a visit to Zimbabwe at the weekend, despite their visit being rebuffed by President Robert Mugabe's regime.

Annan, Carter and Mozambican social activist Graca Machel, members of The Elders group of leading activists and ex-world leaders, are planning to spend Saturday and Sunday in Zimbabwe "to meet those working on the ground to better assess the extent of the crisis and how assistance can be improved," Annan said.

Harare/Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's health services, once regarded among the best in Africa, are "in a state of collapse" with its main hospitals closed and a cholera epidemic raging, a leading medical body said Wednesday.

The country's four main hospitals, in the capital Harare and the western city of Bulawayo, were "virtually closed," while smaller district hospitals and municipal clinics "are barely functioning or closed," the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) said.

"Sick people in need of attention are being turned away."

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 more dead in a fast-spreading cholera outbreak.

The protest took place at Parirenyatwa general hospital where around 200 doctors and nurses, from that hospital and Harare General hospital, held a demonstration to demand better pay and equipment.

Harare - A month after he suspended the payment system, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono has decided to permit bank transfers to ease demand for cash, state media reported Thursday.

Zimbabwe is experiencing an acute shortage of cash, among other basics, including food and fuel. The situation has forced people to resort to use plastic money for transactions.

Harare  - A summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) due to take place in Zimbabwe has been postponed for the second time this year, fuelling speculation the cash-strapped country cannot afford to host it.

The 13th summit of the 19-nation COMESA, which had been scheduled to take place from November 25 to December 8 in the resort town of Victoria Falls has been postponed to next year, Zimbabwe's government announced in a statement dated Wednesday.