Zimbabwean police have announced a fresh ban on protests in the capital, Harare, state media reported yesterday in another attempt to end demonstrations against 92-year-old ruler Robert Mugabe.The order came hours after a coalition of opposition parties said they would stage mass rallies across the country on Saturday to push for reform before elections due in 2018.Anti-government campaign-ers vowed to defy the order and also appeal to the courts. "These are the last kicks of a dying regime and we expected no better from them," Douglas Mwonzora, spokesman for the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change, said. "They have no respect for the law but we are not going to surrender our constitutional right. We are going back to the courts to challenge this illegal ban."The high court will today hear a challenge against an earlier ban on demonstrations.The application has been lodged by 12 political parties under the National Electoral Reform Agenda and pressure groups such as the Combined Harare Residents' Association and the Democratic Restoration Assembly. Opposition parties under the Nera banner met the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on Monday but that did not yield any positive results.The commission is accused of helping the ruling Zanu-PF to rig elections.Mwonzora confirmed that 210 demonstrations were planned countrywide for this weekend.In a notice in the state-run Herald newspaper yesterday, Harare police chief Newbert Saunyama said a ban would be imposed on the "holding of public demonstrations" for one month, starting on Friday. ..