SOUTH AFRICA

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa's Sunday Times announces that its editor and deputy managing editor could be arrested on charges of illegally possessing Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s medical records. Editor Mondli Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker are expected to appear before a magistrate in Cape Town to face charges of theft and contravention of Section 17 of the National Health Act.

JOHANNESBURG – Everything is on course for the African National Congress (ANC's) fifty second National Conference to be held in Polokwane, Limpopo, in December. A total of 3 675 voting delegates, from the nine provinces, will converge in Polokwane in December, with an additional 400 from the ANC Youth League, the Women's League, the National Executive Committee and the Provincial Executive Committees. The number of voting delegates is proportional to the provinces paid-up membership; the Eastern Cape is represented by 906 delegates, KwaZulu-Natal by 608 delegates, Limpopo has 400 delegates with the Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, the North West, the Northern Cape and the Western Cape following in that order.

AFRICA

HARARE – Zimbabwe's Information Minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, says the European Union (EU) should tell British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to "shut up" on democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe ahead of an Africa-EU summit in December. In a broadcast on Portuguese radio station Renascenca, the minister insisted that Brown has no right to lecture Zimbabwe when he himself is "running away" with power by taking over from Tony Blair without an election.

MOGADISHU – Somalia's president and prime minister stare each other down in a political standoff that may end their lengthy feud but also set the Horn of Africa government adrift, again. President Abdullahi Yusuf and his allies, including 22 ministers, are again trying to have Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi thrown out of government through a no-confidence vote, say Somali officials. Gedi, who survived one attempted no-confidence vote last year, is busy lobbying legislators and has tried to enlist the help of his Hawiye clan, who have long complained he is not their choice but who may back him against Yusuf's Darod clan. “The situation demonstrates the emergence of an underlying split in the government that threatens its very existence, and that pretty much undermines the very basis of Western policy in Somalia” says Michael Weinstein, a professor of political science at Purdue University in Indiana.

KINSHASA – The United Nations makes a last-ditch appeal to rebel Congolese soldiers to rejoin the national army after their leader ignores a government deadline to disband his forces in the east. Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila has given renegade General Laurent Nkunda an ultimatum to send his Tutsi fighters in eastern North Kivu province to army integration centres or see them forcibly disarmed.

WORLD

NEW YORK – A new fund being developed by the World Bank will pay developing countries hundreds of millions of dollars for protecting and replanting tropical forests, which store huge amounts of carbon that causes climate change. The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, announced by the World Bank, will be part of United Nations climate change negotiations in Bali in December to shape a global agreement for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The facility has already attracted interest from more than a dozen developing countries, including Indonesia, Brazil and several in Africa's Congo river basin. The bank expects to first test the mechanism in three to five countries.

BAGHDAD – The World Health Organisation says it has asked Iraqi authorities to probe media reports of several cases of Rift Valley Fever in animals. The viral disease primarily affects animals but can infect humans through the handling of blood or organs of infected animals, leading to high rates of disease and death, according to the United Nations health agency. Herders, farmers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians are deemed at higher risk through the handling of animal tissue during slaughtering, assisting with animal births, conducting veterinary procedures, or disposing of carcasses. Human outbreaks of Rift Valley Fever, first identified in 1931, have occurred over the years in Africa, mainly in Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania. Animal outbreaks in Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 2000 marked the first time the disease was detected outside the African continent.