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(Geneva) - The Red Cross said it will on Wednesday start distributing emergency food supplies across Zimbabwe to reach about 24 000 vulnerable people in the poverty-stricken country.

Trucks will leave warehouses in the cities of Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare later on Wednesday with 383 metric tons of food aid to provide almost 24 000 people with enough maize, beans and cooking oil for a month, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement.

The IFRC operates a food security operation worth 27,7-million Swiss francs ($26,8-million) in Zimbabwe destined to help a total of 260 100 people each month.

"This is a critical period for these communities," said Peter Lundberg, head of the IFRC's delegation in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

"They have already faced months without enough food and, for many families, the situation has deteriorated drastically in recent weeks," he added.

Zimbabwe's economy has been on a downturn for a decade with high unemployment and food shortages in a country where at least 80% of the population live below the poverty line and inflation is estimated at more than 11-million percent.

(Johannesburg) - The African National Congress (ANC) Youth League's attack on the party's deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, tells us two things. First, the ANC is more seriously divided than anyone imagined even after the Polokwane punch-up.

Second, the Jacob Zuma camp is working itself into a reckless frenzy as it realises its man's legal position is becoming more fragile.

The attack on Motlanthe was astonishing not only for its presumptuousness, with a bunch of youngsters having the gall to denounce the second most senior figure in the party for trying to discipline them, but also because they are all supposedly in the same Zuma camp. 

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(Johannesburg) - The Beijing Olympics has had "an unexpected side effect", which is being felt locally in the form of serious shortages of generic medicines, Business Day reported on Friday.

Generic drugs supplies worldwide were affected when China decided to halt chemicals production in and around Beijing temporarily before the Olympics, the report read.

Stephen Saad, chief executive of Aspen Pharmacare, Africa?s biggest generic drug maker, said the situation had been worsened by rising prices of fuel and commodities such as starch, used in making many generic drugs.

These had led to the trebling of prices in some instances, which local drug manufacturers had to absorb.

The fixed exit price, which is set by government, did not take into consideration fluctuations in input costs.

This has led to some smaller pharmaceutical companies, supplying generic and original brand-name drugs, opting to discontinue ranges.

Sandoz SA said earlier this year that it had stopped making two drugs, an antibiotic and an allergy medication, as they were "no longer viable".

These factors had left South African pharmacists scrambling for medicine stocks including bronchodilators, antidepressants, diuretics, penicillin and even vitamin C, the report read.

This was a grave problem for the health department, which was promoting generics in order to make medicines cheaper for consumers.