Can follow World Aids Day The South African President, Nelson Mandela, has appealed for an end to thesilence surrounding AIDS, which he said was allowing the virus to infect one- thousand-five-hundred people in South Africa every day.

President Mandela declared: "It is the silence that hangs over our cemeteries when we bury loved ones knowing they died of AIDS, but not speaking of it".

Mr Mandela was speaking in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal an area with one of the country's worst AIDS problemsat the start of a multi million dollar government campaign to spread awareness about the virus.

A United Nations report published on Monday anticpates that more than a quarter of the population of South Africa will have contracted the HIV virus by the year two thousand and ten.

Mr Mandela's remarks follow a recommendation by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that governments should cut their defence budgets by a small percentage so that they can spend more on health care, AIDS research and education.