Ewen Macaskill

There’s nothing fancy about being a spy – in fact, one intelligence document warns that candidates should not be recruited if their motive is glamour.

SA’s intelligence service relied on a spy close to Russia to find out details about its own government’s involvement in a $100-million satellite deal.

The report suggests South Africa is seeking closer ties with Russia on integration of the Condor project with another system being developed.

Scientists have created a lie detector that records the involuntarily, guilty fidgeting of liars.

The "war on terror" has failed to eliminate or reduce terrorism despite trillions being spent on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and operations elsewhere.

Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro says he’d join the protests he is trying to suppress, were they not right-wing ploys.

The NSA shares intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, states a document from Edward Snowden.

Edward Snowden has gone into hiding in Hong Kong after blowing the whistle on a top-secret US spying programme.

Republicans feel snubbed by the US president’s combative inauguration speech. Ewen MacAskill reports.

United States President Barack Obama has mounted the biggest challenge in two decades to the US’s deeply ingrained gun culture.

Republican senators have opened the way for a new showdown with United States President Barack Obama.

Mitt Romney has raised Republican hopes of an election comeback with a spirited and aggressive performance in the first televised presidential debate.

Mitt Romney’s battered presidential bid has been hit by a secretly recorded video in which he sets out views on the Israel-Palestine issue.

The United States has vowed to avenge the consulate attack that killed its ambassador and would work alongside the Libyan government.

Barack Obama has underscored the bond between the US and Libya, but vowed to hunt down those behind the possibly premeditated killing of the US envoy.