JOHANNESBURG – The organisers of South Africa's 2010 soccer World Cup announce that tickets for matches will bear both the apartheid-era names of cities and the new ones, reflecting the nation's evolution while avoiding confusing visitors. Road signs will also bear internationally known names to make it easier for visitors as many maps and guide books still use the old names, say the World Cup organisers.

CAPE TOWN – South Africa's sacked Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, praised for her efforts to tackle HIV/Aids, claims that disagreements over how to fight the deadly virus may have led to her dismissal. Madlala-Routledge suspects that Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who has suggested fighting HIV/Aids with garlic and beetroot rather than drug treatments, might have been behind Mbeki's decision to fire her.

AFRICA

NAIROBI – Kenyan opposition leaders seek an injunction to block a press Bill, which contains a clause requiring reporters to reveal sources. Four prominent politicians, led by presidential hopeful Raila Odinga, are taking their suit to Nairobi's High Court to prevent publication of a Bill that critics say would be a return to the days of former president Daniel arap Moi when journalists were harassed and sometimes tortured.

MOGADISHU – Human Rights Watch (HRW) charges that residents of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, have suffered war crimes by Ethiopian troops, Somali government soldiers, and Islamist insurgents, in a year of hell "shamefully" ignored by the world. The group says that Ethiopia's army has indiscriminately bombarded highly populated areas, targeted and looted hospitals, and summarily executed civilians. The HRW, focusing on battles in Mogadishu since Ethiopian-Somali troops ousted militant Islamists at the end of 2006, estimates civilian deaths as ranging from 400 to more than 1 300 in the two worst bouts of fighting.

HARARE – Zimbabwe's embattled President Robert Mugabe vows that he will not change course because of Western opposition to his policies, and instructs landlords and businesses to seek State approval for all price increases. Mugabe, 83, and in power since the southern African country's independence from Britain in 1980, faces an economic crisis marked by the world's highest inflation rate of more than 4 500%.

YAOUNDE – The United Nations begins distributing food aid to some 26 000 refugees from Central African Republic who have fled to neighbouring Cameroon to escape relentless attacks by rebels and bandits. The refugees are mainly nomadic Mbororo cattle herders who have fled in waves since 2005 after their women and children were kidnapped for ransom and their livestock stolen by rebels in Central African Republic's remote north west. Central African Republic, a landlocked former French colony, which languishes at the bottom of most human development indices, has suffered decades of instability and military coups since independence in 1960.The insecurity has been heightened by the spillover of the conflicts in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur region and in Chad, where Darfur-based Chadian rebels fighting President Idriss Deby have used the Central African Republic as a staging post.

WORLD

NEW YORK – United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon announces plans to visit Sudan to expedite speedy deployment of a United Nations-African Union force for Darfur. The secretary-general's trip is expected in September, before opening of the UN General Assembly session late that month. The UN Security Council last month authorised up to 19 555 military personnel and 6 432 civilian police for Darfur, which, if deployed, would be the world's largest peacekeeping force.

JERUSALEM – Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wins re-election as head of the rightist Likud party and pledges to reclaim Israel's leadership. A year after the Likud was routed in a national election, Netanyahu has rebounded in opinion polls that have shown a steep plunge in the popularity of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who leads the centrist Kadima party. Netanyahu has signalled that he will seek to steer the Likud, Israel's main opposition party, towards a political middle ground.