Synaptic package manager not working
 

Hello. I tried installing wine and while doing so there was a power failure. Now i cannot install/update any software either from add/remove or synaptic tool. The error i get is
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/dpkg/status
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.
trying a few sudo commands in terminal helped me identify it as a syntax error in status line 1. But how to correct that? I cannot edit the status or status-old file whatsoever due to some permission problems although i am very much the owner.
using ubuntu 8.10
Please help. God bless you

I'm a fairly recent convert to Debian, having spent most of the last twelve years on .rpm based distros, so please take my advice with caution.

In reading your post, I note that synaptic is having trouble with the status list of available packages.
So, a two-step solution may help, using dpkg (the low-level packagement application that Synaptic calls on to do it's magic).

First, rebuild the list of available packages. Open a terminal, and, as root,
Then repair the broken status file.
Note that the *available* and *status* files I've listed are from my Debian 6.0 installation. You should use the Ubuntu paths to those files.

I hope this works for you.