PRETORIA – A South African court rejects a bid by controversial politician Jacob Zuma to block the State from investigating his business activities in Britain. National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Tlali Tlali says " The decision by the court puts us on a very firm footing to resume our investigation so we're very satisfied with that ruling." In June, a South African court granted the state permission to obtain documents from Mauritius in connection with the arms case. President Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma as Deputy President of the country after he was implicated in the corruption trial of his former financial aide, Schabir Shaik, involving an arms procurement scandal in 1999.

JOHANNESBURG – Speaking at the opening of a two-day Magistrates' Conference in Johannesburg deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke says that, "The biggest threat to the judiciary's independence could come from within the judiciary itself by those who failed to uphold ethics." The conference, which is the first of its kind, looks at issues pertaining to magistrates, ranging from their appointments, to accountability, training requirements, ethics, institutional governance and enhancing the efficiency of the lower courts.

AFRICA

KINSHASA – Health workers launch an emergency operation to fight an outbreak of the deadly Ebola haemorhagic fever in Southern Congo, airlifting supplies, setting up isolation tents and disinfecting contaminated areas. Test results from international laboratories have confirmed at least five cases of Ebola, in the Kasai Occidental province, where authorities have reported more than 160 deaths among 352 sick people over four months. No vaccine or treatment exists that can cure Ebola fever.

KHARTOUM – Sudan calls for the arrest of the head of global rights watchdog Amnesty International, accusing it of spreading lies that several men accused of plotting a coup were tortured. Amnesty International's report claims that eight men arrested on accustations of trying to overthrow the government were beaten, suspended by their wrists and tortured in Khartoum's Kobar prison. The State-controlled Sudanese Media Centre's reports claim that the Sudanese Justice Ministry has asked Interpol for an arrest warrant for the female "manager" of Amnesty. Other local media interpreted that to mean Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan.

KAMPALA – Uganda's government is to introduce compulsory education in a remote north-east region to try to give children an alternative to a life of violence and cattle rustling. Warriors toting assault rifles have long plagued Karamoja, an impoverished semiarid area bordering Kenya and south Sudan that is notorious for looting, ambushes and livestock raids. The authorities estimate that only 28% of children in the region currently attend any school at all, and only 12% actually complete primary education.

ACCRA – African Union (AU) president Ghana insists that all African Heads of State, including Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, will attend a long-delayed European Union (EU)/Africa summit in Portugal later this year. Mugabe and more than 100 other Zimbabwean officials are banned from travelling to EU nations under sanctions imposed in 2002, a restriction that threatens to derail the EU/Africa summit scheduled to take place in Lisbon in December. The AU says that it would be unfair not to invite Mugabe despite widespread criticism in Europe over alleged human rights abuses and the possibility that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown would not attend.

WORLD

VIENNA – Sixteen nations sign a US-initiated pact to help meet soaring world energy demand over coming decades by developing nuclear technology less prone to diversion into atomic bomb-making. Eleven nations joined the five nuclear fuel-producing powers, the US, Russia, China, France and Japan, forming the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) in a statement of principles at a ministerial ceremony. GNEP aims to launch proliferation-resistant nuclear reactors supplied by a global fuel bank meant to discourage nations from building sensitive fuel enrichment facilities on their own soil.