FACTBOX-Big issues for South Africa

(Reuters) - South Africa's ruling African National Congress will choose a new leader during a December 16-20 congress, amid some of the worst factional feuding in its history.

Here are some details of South Africa's main issues.

* CRIME:

-- South Africa has some of the highest rates of murder and rape in the world. Opposition groups and the media have accused the government of failing to curb crime.

-- The government has said it will boost spending and improve the criminal justice system to combat violent crime to try to make the streets safe before the country hosts the 2010 soccer World Cup.

* POVERTY:

-- The government wants to lift growth to an average of more than 6 percent by 2010 to try to cut widespread poverty and high unemployment.

-- The South African Institute for Race Relations, a thinktank, recently came under criticism by the government for saying the number of South Africans living on less than $1 per day climbed to 3.6 million from 1.9 million between 1996 and 2001. However, the research showed that after 2002 this number declined because social grants increased by 300 percent between 2001 and 2006.

* CORRUPTION:

-- The latest African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) report on good governance in South Africa identified crime, graft and xenophobia as potential pitfalls for the continent's biggest economy. It put official corruption among the biggest problems.

-- Another report in late 2006 by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation said well-connected people, including members of the new black elite, were using ties to the government to get rich.

* AIDS:

-- Some 5.5 million people (or about 12 percent of a population of 47 million) have HIV. There are 500,000 new infections every year, including 100,000 children, and each year 400,000 people die from the virus, UNICEF said last month.

-- Officials, including President Thabo Mbeki, have upset AIDS activists by questioning accepted science about HIV. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has promoted beetroot, garlic and other foods as a treatment of HIV/AIDS.

* LAND:

-- Disproportionate ownership of land by the white minority is an emotive issue. Land reform has become a hot issue because of the seizures of white farms in neighboring Zimbabwe and its catastrophic effect on that country's economy.

-- Mbeki's government has vowed to put a third of all arable land in black hands by 2014, but more than 90 percent is still owned by the white minority.

* ENERGY:

-- State-owned electricity utility Eskom, the world's lowest-cost producer, has been criticized for power shortages.

-- Eskom, which generates the majority of South Africa's power, has applied to the energy regulator for an 18 percent rise in energy prices in 2008 and a 17 percent rise in 2009, to help pay for new power generation capacity.

(Writing by David Cutler; additional writing by Nagesh Narayana, London Editorial Reference Unit)