SOUTH AFRICA

PRETORIA - Deputy Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, says South Africa needs to move away from combating international migration and towards managing it. Speaking at a roundtable discussion with immigrants and refugees on human rights issues, Gigaba insists that the public needs to be educated on issues regarding migration, and that local and provincial government should co-operate with national government on the issue. The Minister also calls on the police to be "very firm" when dealing with those who attack and destroy property belonging to immigrants.

JOHANNESBURG - About six armed men in police uniforms convince security guards at Johannesburg's High Court to let them pass. Once inside the building, the men disconnect surveillance and alarm systems, tie up the guards in the toilets, and break into a safe and leave with sensitive court documents. Included in the stolen documents are papers concerning an alleged prima facie investigation into Metro Police chief Robert McBride.

JOHANNESBURG -South Africa's powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) warns that riots owing to soaring food prices should not be ruled out in South Africa. Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven says the union wants the entire food chain to be investigated, of special interest are the cases where rising costs are not due to the global food crisis but to price fixing and-collusion. Protests organised by the union will also focus on companies that have been found guilty of price-fixing in Competition Commission rulings.

JOHANNESBURG - South African ruling party leader Jacob Zuma widens his disagreement with President Thabo Mbeki over Zimbabwe, saying anxiety is increasing by the day over a postelection deadlock there. Zuma makes his toughest comments yet on the delay in issuing election results in Zimbabwe as members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council and the African Union meet in New York where they are debating Zimbabwe, Sudan and Somalia. Mbeki, increasingly isolated in his softly-softly approach to Zimbabwe and his insistence there is no crisis there, is chairing the meeting at the UN headquarters as rotating Security Council president.

AFRICA

KHARTOUM - Darfur rebels and Sudanese armed forces clash in West Darfur in a renewal of fighting in the volatile Sudan/Chad border area, with both sides claiming that they have inflicted heavy casualties. The violence erupts as activists around the world prepare to mark five years of war in Darfur with protests to highlight the plight of more than one-million children caught in the conflict.

NAIROBI - Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki names a power-sharing Cabinet making his rival Raila Odinga Prime Minister, ending a deadlock that has threatened the country's economic rebound from a bloody postelection crisis. The naming of a coalition Cabinet is the key to a deal to solve the East African nation's postelection unrest in which more than 1 200 people have died and 300 000 have been uprooted in what is believed to be the country's darkest episode since independence in 1963.

WORLD

NEW YORK - A report from a United Nations and World Bank sponsored group says that food trade liberalisation in developing countries can hurt attempts to alleviate poverty and damage the environment. Sixty governments, including Brazil, China, France and India, have approved the report. The US, Australia and Canada are due to submit reservations later this week while Britain has not yet officially responded. Governments are deeply concerned at the impact of rising food prices and the effect they are having on the world's poor. Top finance and development officials from around the world are calling for urgent steps to stem rising food prices, warning that social unrest will spread unless the cost of basic staples is contained.

ROME - Silvio Berlusconi wins his third Italian election with a bigger-than-expected swing to the centre right, but the media magnate says it will not be easy to solve the country's deep economic problems. After two years in opposition, Berlusconi is expected to return to Rome from his home in northern Italy, although for procedural reasons he is unlikely to be appointed Prime Minister before early May. A strong mandate should enable Berlusconi to push reforms through parliament, but many Italians are disillusioned with politics and doubt any government can quickly cure the ills of the European Union's fourth-largest economy.