JOHANNESBURG - South African President Nelson Mandela will on Wednesday meet members of a judicial team investigating an alleged coup plot before deciding his next step.

GENEVA - Some 180 Somalis apparently fleeing economic problems in their home country are believed to have drowned off Yemen at the weekend.

BONN - The German Air Force said its aircraft was the main cause of a crash with a U.S. army plane off the coast of southern Africa last September which killed all 33 people.

CAPE TOWN - A former anti-apartheid activist told South Africa`s truth commission that he was tortured by the same five policemen who are applying for amnesty for their role in the death of black leader Steve Biko over 20 years ago.

WASHINGTON - The United States said Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts were in "dire straits" as its senior Middle East peace envoy headed home without having broken the logjam between the parties.

VIENNA - Oil cartel OPEC bowed to a crippling price slump and approved its first output cuts in a decade under a landmark pact with other exporters.

YEREVAN - Armenian PM and acting president Robert Kocharyan looked well on his way to victory in the presidential run-off after a vote marred by claims of irregularities.

LONDON - Members of a top British soccer team, Leeds United, narrowly escaped disaster when their plane crash-landed shortly after take-off from an airport north of London.

BLANTYRE - Malawi President Bakili Muluzi shuffled his cabinet, cutting six posts.

HARARE - Riot police sealed Harare`s University of Zimbabwe to stop students marching into the city centre to press demands for higher grants.

UNITED NATIONS - Russia raised objections to parts of a proposed Security Council resolution imposing an arms embargo on Yugoslavia as a means of achieving a peaceful solution to the crisis over troubled Kosovo.

PHNOM PENH - Cambodia`s deposed co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh spent his first full day back home locked in talks with Japanese and Southeast Asian diplomats to prop up the fragile peace process.

KARACHI, Pakistan - At least two people were killed and 20 wounded in two explosions in the Pakistani port of Karachi.

WASHINGTON - An unidentified chemical produced by pregnant women appears to help block infection by the HIV virus that causes AIDS.

WASHINGTON - A new kind of vaccine that uses genetic material from the malaria parasite might offer the best hope yet of fighting the disease.

JERUSALEM - An American Jewish woman aged 102 has taken the plunge and immigrated to Israel.

BOGOTA - The Colombian army scaled back military operations as aid agencies scoured a mountainous region east of Bogota in search of guerrillas who took four Americans and an Italian hostage a week ago.

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. chief weapons inspector Richard Butler told the Security Council Iraq needed to be forthcoming on its chemical weapons projects and he would organize another technical meeting on the deadly nerve agent VX.

BUENOS AIRES - The alleged ringleader of a notorious German kidnapping was awaiting extradition in an Argentine jail following his arrest after police wiretappers heard him planning a trip to a Rolling Stones concert.