The United States has evidence of an orchestrated Iraqi attempt to spy on United Nations weapons inspectors using hidden microphones and agents, allowing Baghdad to stay one step ahead of the search for banned weapons, US sources said this week.

South African Foreign Affairs deputy minister Aziz Pahad will leave for Iraq within the next few days to urge Saddam Hussein to fully cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors to avert war.

Shares in Ericsson, the Swedish telecoms equipment maker, dropped sharply today after the company issued a gloomy outlook as it reported weaker than expected fourth-quarter profits.

There were some members of the ANC who feared a working-class political takeover of the country, according to the party’s chief strategist Joel Netshitenzhe. He was speaking at the Joe Slovo Memorial Seminar, organised by the SACP in Johannesburg.

Dramatic new finds at the Cradle of Humankind at Sterkfontein near Krugersdorp might change well- established ideas about human evolution, says one of the most prominent palaeoanthropologists. A team has been laboriously excavating the Little Foot skeleton since 1997.

Excavating in the dark Silberberg Grotto at Sterkfontein, millimetre by millimetre, year after year, to expose, identify and analyse the fragile bones of the ancient Little Foot skeleton embedded in the concrete-hard breccia is daunting work.