Kampala- If the current annual increase in the number of HIV infections in Uganda go unchecked then the country's economic growth rate will be halved by 2025, medical authorities warned Thursday.

The number of people getting infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has been on the increase in the impoverished East African country, from a yearly average of
90,000 before 2002 to the current 130,000.

Kampala  - A British man, distraught after learning that his wife had left him for another man in London, threw himself into a river over the weekend and was mauled by waiting crocodiles, police officials in Uganda confirmed Monday.

Stephen Morgan, 51, left a suicide note before jumping to death into the Murchison Falls of the river Nile, about 260 kilometres from the Ugandan capital Kampala, District Police Commander Alex Twebaze said by telephone Monday evening.

Kampala  - An agreement expected to end two decades of civil war in the north of Uganda is expected to be signed November 30, now that the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has finally agreed to peace, Ugandan officials said Monday.

"(LRA leader) Joseph Kony has agreed to turn up to sign the agreement," Ugandan army spokesman Major Paddy Ankunda told a news conference.

Kampala- Uganda has protested to Germany over the arrest of a Rwandan government official accused of involvement in the assassination of a former Rwandan president, a Ugandan official said Friday.

Rose Kabuye, chief of protocol to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, was arrested in Frankfurt Sunday on a French warrant.

She is suspected of having been involved in the assassination of Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana - an act that sparked the 1994 genocide of up to 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Kampala - At least 20 people died instantly and an unknown number was rushed to hospitals after a bus with failed brakes rammed into a column of 15 commuter vehicles in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, press reports said Thursday.

Brakes in the overcrowded bus entering Kampala from upcountry failed Wednesday night as it was ascending an road escarpment, the Kampala-based Central Broadcasting Service (CBS) radio station reported.

The bus rolled down the road, sweeping aside 15 commuter taxis and several other vehicles. The number of fatalities is believed to be much higher than 20, CBS said.

Kampala - At least 20 people died after a brake failure caused an overcrowded bus to crash into a row of taxis late Wednesday in Kampala.

The brakes failed as the bus was edging up an incline. The driver lost control of the vehicle and it rolled down the road, colliding with at least 15 taxis and a few other vehicles.

The death toll could be much higher and many injured passengers were rushed to hospital, Central Broadcasting Service radio reported.