The was a big question mark over whether Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri is overstepping her powers by determining a new process in selecting the 51% stakeholder in the second national operator, says official opposition MP Dene Smuts.

Alien plants, fish and shellfish introduced into Africa are spreading unchecked and exterminating local species in lakes, rivers and wetlands, a report published yesterday said.

The seven astronauts aboard the doomed space shuttle Columbia are likely to have known they were going to die for between 60 and 90 seconds before the craft broke apart, Nasa officials said yesterday.

Colin Powell yesterday used satellite photographs, tapes of intercepted conversations and newly opened CIA files to make the United States case against Iraq in a determined attempt to win over international opinion.

North Korea is entitled to launch a pre-emptive strike against the US rather than wait until the American military have finished with Iraq, the North’s foreign ministry told the Guardian yesterday.

A Wits University student, who is believed to be armed with a gun, was holding a female member of the university’s staff hostage in an office on the campus near central Johannesburg on Wednesday, police said.

France’s South African-born Test prop Pieter De Villiers has tested positive for cocaine and ecstasy, l’Equipe sports daily reported on Wednesday.