Kampala- The trial of a former Ugandan health minister, his two deputies and a presidential aide accused of embezzling millions of dollars of international aid got under way in Kampala Friday.

Former health minister and army general Jim Muhwezi and his co-accused are charged with misappropriating two million dollars from funds provided by the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI).

The three health officials are also implicated in another case involving the theft of up to 45 million dollars from the Global Fund, which was created to finance the fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Kampala - At least 20 people died and 13 were injured when a bus plunged into the swollen waters of a river in northern Uganda, police officials said Wednesday.

The bus, which was carrying 35 passengers, swerved off a bridge over the River Aswa, north of the region's main town of Gulu, on Tuesday night.

"The bus was loaded with people when it fell into the river," Deputy Police Spokesman Samson Lubega told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Nairobi - Joseph Kony, the leader of Uganda's notorious rebel Lord's Resistance Army, will only sign a final peace deal on Sunday if an international warrant for his arrest is dropped, the group's spokesman said Friday.

"It is possible he (Kony) will sign, but he wants the International Criminal Court (ICC) to drop its arrest warrant before he signs," LRA spokesman David Matsanga told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Kony is on Sunday scheduled to meet United Nations special envoy Joaquim Chissano, former president of Mozambique, and the Vice President of Southern Sudan, Riek Machar on the border between Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the LRA is holed up.

Kampala - An estimated 34,000 inmates in Uganda's prisons and remand centers may starve to death if government does not quickly release an equivalent of about 10 million dollars to buy them food, an independent newspaper reported Tuesday, quoting legislators.

"With this budget line, we are going to see prisoners starving and others going naked without uniforms," The Daily Monitor quoted a member of parliament Theodore Ssekikubo as telling a committee of parliament Monday.

Kampala  - Hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians in Uganda are reluct