According to Zimbabwe state media, there have been 22-deaths, mainly of children under five, due to a measles outbreak, which two weeks ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) had called deeply frustrating, coming right after the sponsoring of a vaccination programme in the African country.

Talking to journalists, Dr. Custodia Mandlhate, Zimbabwe’s head of WHO, said the the total of 340-suspected cases this year was unacceptable, with the outbreak mainly due to those people who had not permitted their children to be vaccinated against the childhood disease.

President Robert Mugabe wants to reintroduce the Zimbabwe dollar, which was taken out of circulation four months ago after it lost nearly all its value, according to state media Friday.

Britain on Monday pledged a further 5 million pounds (8 million dollars) in transitional aid to Zimbabwe to support what Prime Minister Gordon Brown called "great signs of progress" toward "genuine recovery."

Pikai sometimes drops in at Clay's home round the corner for a bite to eat and a chat, and Pikai returns the favour by letting his neighbour collect water from his tap that seldom runs dry. The odd thing about this neighbourly sharing is that 10 months ago Pikai - not his real name - was among a mob of vigilantes of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU(PF) party flailing with sticks and heavy electric cables at Clay's back, because he was a supporter of the then opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Southern Africa is considering injecting 2 billion dollars into Zimbabwe to kick-start its economic recovery over the next 10 months, the finance minister of neighbouring South Africa, Trevor Manuel, said Thursday.

Manuel was speaking a day after finance ministers of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met in Cape Town, along with the African Development Bank, to discuss Zimbabwe's economic reconstruction and other matters.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was scheduled to discuss the global financial crisis, Zimbabwe's fragile power-sharing government and climate change with South Africa's leadership at the start of his five-nation Africa tour Wednesday.

Ban arrived in South Africa on Tuesday evening on his first visit to the African powerhouse as United Nations chief. He was met on arrival in Johannesburg by Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

The New Zealand cricket team's scheduled tour of Zimbabwe in July has been postponed until next year, it was announced on Wednesday.

Justin Vaughan, chief executive of New Zealand Cricket, said he and his Zimbabwe counterpart, Ozias Bvute, had agreed to put off the tour for 11 months after a meeting of the International Cricket Council in Johannesburg.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said last week that his government did not want the national team, the Black Caps, to go to Zimbabwe.

The New Zealand government is likely to order the national cricket team not to go to Zimbabwe for a scheduled tour in July, Prime Minister John Key indicated on Monday.

The cabinet had not yet considered the issue, he said at his weekly news conference, "but I'd be deeply sceptical about whether they would be going."

Key said he realized that he would have to stop the team going if New Zealand Cricket was to avoid heavy financial penalties from the International Cricket Council which has scheduled the visit on its future tours programme.