UNITED NATIONS,?13 Aug 2005 ?(Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo may have to cut back on military operations or election preparations unless it gets a quick cash infusion, U.N. officials said on Friday.

The U.N. operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world body's biggest peacekeeping mission, is sounding out the 15-nation U.N. Security Council on whether it can get around the cash crunch by tapping $103 million earmarked in the budget for election support but not yet approved for spending.

A draft resolution put forward by France would clear the way for the money to be spent.

KAMPALA, 13 Aug 2005 (Reuters) - Ugandan police charged a radio journalist with sedition on Friday over remarks he made about the death of Sudan's Vice President John Garang.

President Yoweri Museveni vowed this week to shut down newspapers he said were "vultures" meddling in security issues with speculation about the July 30 crash of his presidential helicopter that killed the former rebel chief.

The arrest of KFM radio journalist Andrew Mwenda came a day after his station was taken off the air by Uganda's Broadcasting Council, which said Mwenda's programme on Wednesday night had not met minimum broadcasting standards.

"Andrew was summoned by police for questioning late this afternoon and then this evening he was detained and is being held on sedition charges," said Conrad Nkutu, managing director of Monitor Publications, the owners of KFM radio.

KAMPALA, 12 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - The Ugandan Broadcasting Council has shut down a popular radio station, K-FM, following the airing on Wednesday evening of a talk show that discussed the death of Sudanese First Vice President John Garang.

"The Broadcasting Council has discovered that the programme which was aired between 7.00pm and 8.00pm [1600-1700 GMT] offends the minimum standards enshrined in the electronic media act," the Council said in a letter to the station.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had on Wednesday afternoon threatened to shut down newspapers engaged in "speculation" over Garang's death on 30 July, in a Uganda government-owned helicopter that crashed near the Uganda-Sudan border.

"I will no longer tolerate a newspaper which is like a vulture. Any newspaper that plays around with regional security, I will not tolerate it - I will close it," he said.

JOHANNESBURG, 12 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - Stakeholders and trade unions in Zimbabwe's education sector say proposals in the new Education Amendment Bill will cause a decline in standards, and signal the end of private schools.

Representatives from the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (ZIMTA), the Association of Trust Schools (ATS) and the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) presented their submissions to parliament's portfolio committee for education, which held a public hearing on the proposed amendments on Thursday.

The changes would give the minister the power to prescribe fees and school uniforms, and determine which affiliations teachers could join. Unions said this was an infringement of freedoms guaranteed in Zimbabwe's constitution as well as by international statutes.

"If this Bill passes through parliament in its present form, half of our schools would be closed by mid-next year," said a lawyer representing the 500-member ATS.

JOHANNESBURG, 12 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appealed for urgent food aid to support more than 10 million vulnerable people in Southern Africa.

In a letter sent to at least 27 heads of states this week, Annan asked for 700,000 mt to 800,000 mt of food "to avert a catastrophe in a few months' time".

"The lean season in southern Africa traditionally starts in December and runs through to March, but many people have already exhausted their food stocks and are surviving on wild fruits", he said in the letter, stressing that the region had been battling food shortages for the past three years, and has not had the chance to recover because of endemic poverty and the impact of HIV/AIDS.

KINSHASA, 12 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - A three-man team of doctors are due in a remote diamond mining area of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday to try to identify a respiratory disease that has, so far, killed 23 miners and infected 997 others; the Maniema provincial medical inspector, Dr Kasogo Mulamba, told IRIN.

"The medical team is made of one MSF-Belgium doctor, one from Merlin and one from the government," he said on Friday.