Johannesburg - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is the "21st Century Hitler," an Anglican bishop in neighbouring South Africa said Thursday.

In a statement calling for churches to pray for Mugabe's forced removal, the Anglican Bishop of Pretoria Joe Seoka said: "Mugabe must be viewed as the 21st Century Hitler, a person seemingly without conscience or remorse, and a murderer."

Seoka blamed Zimbabwe's neighbours for protecting their "comrade in dictatorship."

Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government Thursday broke its silence over details over its controversial Operation Hakudzokwi, where security forces drove out thousands of illegal diamond diggers in the east of the country.

The state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted senior assistant police commissioner Faustino Mazango as saying the police had forced out 35,000 diamond diggers and dealers from Chiadza diamond field about 60 kilometres south of the eastern city of Mutare.

Since the beginning of the year, the field has been inundated with people searching for alluvial diamonds.

Johannesburg - The British government minister responsible for Africa, Mark Malloch Brown, was due to hold talks with South Africa's Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Thursday about the situation in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where a cholera outbreak has killed close to 800 people.

South Africa's foreign ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa confirmed that Malloch Brown would be visiting Dlamini-Zuma before later meeting Zimbabwean refugees at a church in downtown Johannesburg.

Malloch Brown's visit comes after South Africa this week ruled out taking part in any military intervention in Zimbabwe to depose President Robert Mugabe.

Geneva/Harare - The death toll in Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak shot up to 746, the United Nations reported Wednesday.

The figure released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva, which reflects the situation as of Tuesday, marks a sharp increase from the 589 that had died by the weekend.

The increase is likely due to the fact that the latest figures include 256 people who have died outside health clinics in their communities.

The total number of suspected cases has also galloped ahead to 15,572, OCHA said.

Harare - Zimbabwe's controversial central bank governor Gideon Gono claimed that outgoing United States president George W Bush had endorsed a proposal to give him a senior position in the World Bank, state media reported Wednesday.

Governor Gideon Gono also said that the purported offer was approved by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and that it was conveyed to him by James McGee, the outspoken US ambassador to Zimbabwe, the government-controlled Herald newspaper reported.

It said Gono made the remarks on Monday at a private launch of a book Gono has written, in which the claims are described in detail.

Harare  - Zimbabwe's Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu on Tuesday accused the West of causing the cholera epidemic that has claimed nearly 600 lives in order to justify military intervention in Zimbabwe.

"After squeezing and strangling the country with sanctions and contaminating it with cholera and anthrax, the West is seeking to use the window of opportunity provided by the disaster to justify military intervention," said Ndlovu. "The cholera situation is under control."

"We have enough chemicals to purify the water. We have got enough foreign currency to buy (new water) pipes," Ndlovu told a press conference.