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.

BANGUI, 12 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - Prime Minister Elie Dote said on Friday the government would do all it could to help the thousands of residents affected by flood waters in parts of the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), after torrential rains battered the area last weekend.

"I have seen what happened in this area and the affected population needs help," he told reporters after inspecting Lingussa, one of the Bangui's neighbourhoods.

Despite the shortage of funds, he said, the government had to help alleviate the plight of the victims. The CAR Red Cross Society has said in its latest emergency appeal that, provisionally, 9,076 people are affected. However, with many people having sought shelter elsewhere this figure could not be
verified immediately.

August 11, 2005 (AFP) - Salva Kiir, successor to the late southern Sudanese leader John Garang, vowed to carry on his peace legacy as he arrived in Khartoum ahead of being sworn in as the country's vice president, AFP reported.?

"I'm happy to be in Khartoum after 22 years (away)," Kiir told reporters after he flew in from southern Sudan with security tight in the capital.

"Despite the fact that we have lost our hero, the man who brought peace, Dr Garang, we will continue with the same vision, with the same objective and we will implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement."

He was referring to the peace deal signed with the Khartoum government in January that ended 21 years of north-south war in Sudan, the longest running in Africa which cost two million lives.