SOUTH AFRICA

JOHANNESBURG – A new study, by the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa , claims that Aids is having a politically costly effect on a number of fledgling democracies in Africa. "There are a number of worrying revelations in this study," says Kondwani Chirambo, editor of the study. The study, titled 'The Political Costs of Aids in Africa', found that in Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, deaths from undisclosed diseases among Members of Parliament below the age of 55 was the main cause of vacancies in national Parliaments over the past 15 years.

CAPE TOWN - The Democratic Alliance announces that it will write to the Speaker of the National Assembly to halt the legislative process under way to disband the Scorpions, following Johannesburg businessperson, Hugh Glenister’s application to the Pretoria High Court to stop the process, arguing that the disbanding of the unit could "not be rationally connected to a legitimate governmental purpose." The party argues that the legislative process should not be allowed to continue while the matter is being challenged legally.

CAPE TOWN – Archbishop Desmond Tutu extends support to Tibet and says that China should stop vilifying the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama. Since early this year, Tibetans in central Asia have staged protests targeting the Olympic games to be held in China later in the year. They are demanding independence and recognition of Tibet as an independent State.

AFRICA

NAIROBI – Forty aid agencies urge the world to focus attention on Somalia's "catastrophic" humanitarian crisis where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from war, drought and food shortages. Their statement, issued by Oxfam International, confirms that Somalia now has one-million internal refugees, their numbers swelled by an exodus of 20 000 a month from Mogadishu, where Islamist insurgents are fighting the Ethiopian-backed government.

MAPUTO – Mozambicuan Education and Culture Minister Aires Aly confirms that more than one-sixth of Mozambique's 9 000 teachers are dying of HIV/Aids each year, lowering the quality of education and jeopardising future development. Health officials say more than 16% of the 20-million Mozambicans between the ages of 14 and 49 - generally the most economically productive - are infected with HIV/Aids, and an estimated 500 new infections occur each day.

ABUJA – It is revealed by an investigative panel that former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration paid nonexistent companies over $50-million meant to finance a revamp of the moribund power sector. Nigeria's Parliament set up a committee earlier this year to investigate money spent on the energy sector between 1999 and 2007, funds which have done little to end constant nationwide blackouts. Nigeria, the world's eighth-biggest oil exporter, has a fraction of the domestic energy capacity it needs and is plagued by blackouts that can last anything from hours to months. The country’s generating capacity has remained stagnant at 3000 MW.


WORLD

MOSCOW – Russian president-elect Dmitry Medvedev says he is open to repairing relations with Britain that have been brought to a post-Cold War low by a row over the murder of a Kremlin critic. Moscow and London have traded angry rhetoric, expelled eachother's diplomats and curtailed cooperation between their intelligence services following Moscow's refusal to extradite a suspect in the 2006 murder in London of Alexander Litvinenko.

WASHINGTON – Democrat Hillary Clinton charges that the Iraq war may end up costing Americans $1-Trillion and further strain the country’s economy, thereby making her case for a prompt US troop pullout from a war "we cannot win". She says the war has sapped US military and economic strength, damaged US national security, taken the lives of nearly 4 000 Americans and left thousands wounded.

WASHINGTON – The US government begins a major overhaul of its effort to produce an Aids vaccine, stressing a return to basic scientific research after the failure of a key clinical trial last year. Government officials, at an HIV/Aids summit, with research scientists, pledge to prioritise spending on lab work and animal tests rather than expensive, and thus far disappointing, large-scale vaccine trials on humans.