Harare, Johannesburg  - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has congratulated US president-elect Barack Obama on his election, saying he is prepared to work with the new US government to improve relations between Washington and Harare, the state-owned Herald reported Friday.

Relations between Zimbabwe and US have been strained over the past eight years as Washington and other Western powers accuse Mugabe of being responsible for Zimbabwe's political and economic meltdown.

Harare - Two leading Zimbabwean pro-democracy activists were released Thursday on bail after 21 days in prison.

Jenni Williams (46) and Magodonga Mahlangu (35), leaders of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise group, have been held in a prison in the western city of Bulawayo since October 16, when they were arrested for protesting restrictions by President Robert Mugabe on the distribution of food relief by some agencies.

Harare  - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government promised it would repay an international donor organisation 6.5 million US dollars that was meant for the country's anti-malaria campaign but disappeared, a local newspaper reported Thursday.

The money was part of a 103-million-dollar grant from the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, 28.5 million dollars of which was destined for the health ministry for prevention and treatment of malaria.

Harare- President Robert Mugabe's regime has promised it will repay an international donor organization 6.5 million US dollars that was meant for the country's anti-malaria campaign but which has mysteriously disappeared.

The money was part of a 103-million-dollar grant from the Geneva- based Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, 28.5 million dollars of which was destined to the Health Ministry for prevention and treatment of malaria, the often fatal mosquito-borne disease that affects nearly 3 million Zimbabweans.

Harare - Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Wednesday termed Barack Obama's ascension to the US presidency as a victory for the struggle for democracy in Africa.

"For those of us who are still in the trenches, fighting for change and democracy across the entire African continent, this is our victory," the party of longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said in a statement on Obama's win.

The desire for change that swept Obama past the post was also the motor behind the MDC's fight against the "dictatorship" and "neo-fascism" of aging President Robert Mugabe, the party said.

Harare/Johannesburg - Most of the patients lay limp as corpses, on the ground in the open, some of them with their drip bags of saline solution suspended from tree branches. All 28 of them had been brought in during the day.

Flies hovered over a nearby overflowing garbage bin and there was a pool of vomit, almost certainly brimming with the cholera pathogen, near the entrance to the cholera isolation area.