Nairobi/Lisbon/Bissau  - The African Union on Monday appointed former Angolan Foreign Minister Joao Bernardo de Miranda as special envoy to Guinea-Bissau, which was plunged into crisis by the assassination of its president in early March.

President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira was shot dead in the capital Bissau on March 2, by soldiers who blamed him for killing of army chief Batista Tagme Na Wai only hours before.

Interim President Raimundo Pereira is to remain in charge until the summer, when elections are to be organized.

Nairobi  - Sunday should have been a day of celebration for the tens of thousands of Ivorians who flocked to the Houphouet-Boigny stadium in Abidjan to see their hero, Chelsea's Didier Drogba, score twice in Ivory Coast's 5-0 route of Malawi in a World Cup qualifier.

Yet before the game had even begun, 22 football fans were dead and over 100 injured in a crush that came after a wall collapsed beneath a mass of bodies - a disaster all the more tragic for its commonality in the African game.

Johannesburg - There were good wins for Togo, Gabon, Tunisia and Burkina Faso on Saturday as African countries started their final phase of the 2010 World Cup qualifying.

In Ouagadougou goals by Mahamoudou Kere and Alain Traore gave Burkina Faso a 2-0 half-time lead against Guinea in a Group E match before Moumouni Dagano added a second from the spot eight minutes after the restart.

Johannesburg  - Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor gave Togo a perfect start to their final phase of 2010 World Cup qualifying by scoring the winner in a 1-0 against Cameroon on Saturday.

Although the group A game was Togo's home match it was switched to the Ghanaian capital of Accra as the stadium in Lome remains out of bounds after rioting occurred there two years ago.

Adebayor, whose inclusion in the starting line-up was only given the green light by Arsenal on Friday, scored in the 11th minute, to give the surprise 2006 World Cup finalist an early lead.

Luanda - Pope Benedict XVI left Africa on Monday after a week-long visit, which was marred at the outset by his controversial remarks over condoms but ended on a more positive note in Angola, where he was acclaimed by hundreds of thousands of Catholics.

Benedict lifted off from the main airport in Angola's capital Luanda shortly before 11 a. m. local time (10 GMT) after a three-day visit, during which he urged the oil-rich southern African nation to tackle high levels of corruption and inequality.

Washington, Mar 23 : A new study has found that an increase in formal schooling has led to a reduction in AIDS infections in sub-Saharan Africa.

During the early stages of the HIV pandemic in the region, the disease passed unnoticed amidst the onslaught of other infections.

But after taking a closer look at the deadly disease, scientists have found that more often males with a higher than average education were contracting the disease.