Fridae

Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Gadhafi told a conference of African leaders in Mozambique that Africans who are "straight" need not fear AIDS as the disease affects only homosexuals, reports the Associated Press.

In his address to 40 African heads of state at the closing session of the eight-day annual African Union conference, he said through a translator, "AIDS, AIDS, AIDS. We hear about nothing else. This is terrorism. This is psychological warfare. AIDS is a peaceful virus. If you stay clean there is no problem," Gaddafi said in an impromptu 45-minute speech - which was supposed to have been a short thank-you address at the end of the summit.

At one point several of the leaders in the audience began to laugh with incredulity while the rest listened in shock.

He also described HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as "a peaceful virus, not an aggressive virus."

"If you are straight you have nothing to fear from Aids," he added.

Of the 42 million people worldwide infected with HIV, 29 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations.

At the same address, Gadhafi said that they should also not "worry about tsetse flies and mosquitoes" - which carry malaria and sleeping sickness - saying they were "God's armies" protecting Africa from its enemies, apparently foreigners. "If they come here, they will get malaria and sleeping sickness," he said.

Malaria kills five million Africans a year, while sleeping sickness - also known as African trypanosomiasis - kills more than 25,000 people in Africa a year. Some 300,000 people in Africa are thought to have the disease which is fatal unless treated. Symptoms begin with a low-grade fever, pain in the joints and itchy skin. Eventually, the parasites carrying the disease enter the brain, causing severe pain and death.

Two years ago the Libyan leader blamed the United States for "manufacturing" the AIDS virus.

The speech came as US President Geoege Bush was in Nigeria, wrapping up a five-day tour of Africa with a pledge that America would help combat AIDS in the continent and promoting his proposal to spend up to US$15 billion over the next five years to help fight AIDS there and in the Caribbean.