JOHANNESBURG - Gauteng MEC for Community Safety Firoz Cachalia announces that 61% of all Gauteng policing precincts recorded a decrease in the total amount of violent crimes between July and December 2007, compared to the same period the previous year. However, business robberies and truck hijacking rose but at a substantially lower rate than the previous year. From July to December 2007, a total of 34,036 arrests were made for all violent contact crimes in the province - this is an overall increase of 10% compared to the same period in 2006.

AFRICA

NAIROBI - President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga sign a coalition government pact. The agreement is intended to bring to a close two months of bloodshed and political upheaval following a disputed election on December 27. The violence devastated Kenya's tourist industry, its biggest foreign exchange earner which was worth nearly $1 billion last year, and the national currency, the shilling, only recovered after the deal was struck. (IMAGE: ODINGA AND KIBAKI)

HARARE - Presidential hopeful Simba Makoni accuses Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe of buying votes ahead of the March 29 election and says intimidation will not stop his supporters voting. Makoni has been reported saying to a rally of about 3,000 people, "We know there are government employees who woke up to see huge sums of money in their accounts which did not appear on their pay slips." Makoni is standing as an independent after being expelled from ZANU-PF, although his campaign is attracting support from various senior government officials including ZANU-PF senior politburo official, Dumiso Dabengwa.

KAMPALA - A study of HIV/Aids in Uganda reveals that hiring local health workers to help people stick to a strict regimen of drugs cuts the number of AIDS deaths by more than 90 percent. Drug cocktails called highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, can keep people healthy for years even if they never eradicate the AIDS virus, which infects more than 20-million people in Africa.

TRIPOLI - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi calls for a sweeping reform of government, saying most of Libya's cabinet system should be dismantled as it has failed to manage the North African country's windfall oil earnings. Gaddafi tells the General People's Congress or parliament that big projects are behind schedule and ordinary people should therefore devise a new way of sharing out oil revenues themselves. Gaddafi has repeatedly urged the cabinet, known as the General People's Committee, to increase Libyans' average incomes to European levels, citing the OPEC-member country's riches.

KIGALI - A Belgian journalist jailed for inciting Rwanda's 1994 genocide is handed over to police from Italy, where he will serve the rest of his sentence. Georges Ruggiu, 50, is the only non-Rwandan convicted by an international court in Tanzania that is trying the architects of the slaughter. The court sentenced him to 12 years imprisonment in June 2000. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says that the transfer follows an agreement between the United Nations and the Italian government, and a recent ruling by a Rome court that allows ICTR sentences to be enforced in Italy.

WORLD

MOSCOW - Russia's next president Dmitry Medvedev pledges to uphold Vladimir Putin's policies following a big election win that critics say has been stage-managed to allow the outgoing Kremlin leader to keep his grip on power. Medvedev, 42, who will be the youngest Russian leader since Tsar Nicholas II when he is sworn in on May 7, has asked former KGB spy Putin to be his prime minister. Putin, 55, was prevented by term limits from running for re-election. (IMAGE: MEDVEDEV)

WASHINGTON - Kenyan Muslims throw their weight behind ethnic Somali elders staging a protest against the way a photo of a robed Barack Obama has pulled their people into the race for the White House. The picture, which first appeared on a US Internet site, showed the presidential hopeful in a white headdress and traditional Somali attire during a 2006 visit to Wajir in Kenya's remote northeast. The Illinois senator is battling a whispering campaign by fringe elements who wrongly say he is Muslim. (IMAGE: OBAMA)