New York  - The United Nations on Friday said the number of deaths in Zimbabwe had increased as new outbreaks of cholera were reported in the capital Harare and other cities.

More than 20,800 people were infected and more than 1,100 deaths were reported since September, the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in New York said.

Harare - Zimbabwe's central bank Friday issued a 10-billion- dollar banknote, as inflation drove the value of the currency to new depths, according to state radio.

A bulletin said the 10-billion-dollar note, issued simultaneously with 1-billion and 5-billion-Zimbabwe-dollar notes, "would go a long way in improving workers' access to cash."

Only a week ago new notes of up to 500 million Zimbabwe dollars in value were issued in a bid by the Reserve Bank to ease mammoth queues at banks around the country caused by acute cash shortages.

Johannesburg  - Zimbabwe is short on laughs these days, so short, in fact, that the capital Harare, the epicentre of a cholera outbreak that has felled over 1,000 Zimbabweans, is dubbed Ha-Ha-Rare.

But the sound of mirthless laughter did ring out over the city lately, when Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, by way of explanation for the cholera epidemic, told journalists that Britain had planted the cholera germ in Zimbabwe's soil before quitting the country in 1980.

The outbreak of the water-borne disease that began in August when water and sanitation systems in townships creaked to a halt, was the culmination of a 28-year "gestation" period, he claimed.

Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government said it would not arrest opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai for travelling on an expired travel document, according to state media Thursday.

Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change which won national elections in March, is in Botswana with only an expired emergency travel document (ETD) issued to him last month when he left the country, and he has said he cannot return because he does not have a valid travel document.

Johannesburg  - Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe has a new calling in South Africa ... as a fly swatter.

Harare/Johannesburg - Political tensions in Zimbabwe heightened Tuesday as President Robert Mugabe's government claimed that a "terrorist assassination attempt" had been made on a notorious top officer of the security forces.

The state-controlled daily Herald newspaper said Air Marshal Perence Shiri, commander of the Zimbabwe Air Force, was ambushed by unidentified gunmen as he was driving to his farm in the Bindura district about 80 kilometres north of Harare on Saturday night. It said he suffered a gunshot wound in the palm of his hand.