Vienna  - In the race to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei at the helm of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Japanese ambassador Yukiya Amano has secured a clear lead over South African diplomat Abdul Samad Minty, according to diplomats in Vienna.

Both contenders indicated in interviews with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that if elected, they planned to look beyond the Iran nuclear issue and focus on the effects of the expected global rise in nuclear power use.

Johannesburg - The date for South Africa's general elections has been set at April 22, President Kgalema Motlanthe announced Tuesday.

South Africans will be called to vote in their fourth national and provincial elections since the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.

Motlanthe told the National Assembly in Cape Town he had agreed on the date with the Independent Electoral Commission.

"With this coming election, the maturisation of our democracy receives yet another shot in the arm," Motlanthe said.

Johannesburg - The new head of the United Nations AIDS agency on Tuesday called for global spending on HIV/AIDS programmes to be nearly doubled, but acknowledged that securing 25 billion dollars in the current economic climate would "not be easy."

Speaking in Khayelitsha, a sprawling township outside Cape Town, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said: "We cannot let the economic crisis paralyze us.

"We cannot let down the 4 million people on treatment and millions more in need today."

Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's opposition number two, Tendai Biti, will take up a post of government minister later this week, sources with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said Monday, rejecting reports he had decided to boycott the power-sharing deal.

"He's going to be in cabinet. It's going to happen, 100 per cent," a senior official in the party told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Johannesburg - South African President Kgalema Motlanthe warned Friday that the global financial crisis posed a serious threat to jobs in Africa's largest economy, where manufacturing and mining have shed thousands of jobs in recent months.

Delivering the president's annual State of the Nation speech at the opening of parliament in Cape Town, Motlanthe warned South Africans against underestimating the local fallout of recession in leading markets.

"The global economic meltdown does pose serious dangers for our economy, in terms of job losses and the quality of life of our people," he said.

Johannesburg - Cuban President Raul Castro on Thursday kicked off a state visit to oil-rich Angola, a longtime ally of the Communist island, where he was due to hold talks with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

Angola's state press agency Angop reported that Castro, 77, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel Castro as president last year, was to receive the official welcome given heads of state at the presidential palace in Luanda.

Castro, 77, was due to give a speech at the official opening of talks with dos Santos, before later addressing an extraordinary session of the National Assembly.