CHARLES NQAKULA, the national chairman of the South African Communist Party and former deputy minister of home affairs, has been appointed the country’s new minister of safety and security.

PALESTINIAN leaders have agreed to exile 13 militants holed up in the Church of the Nativity, a Palestinian official said early on Tuesday, but approval of each of the 13 was needed. Two Palestinian officials entered the church to talk to the gunmen inside, the official, a Palestinian policeman in the church, told The Associated […]

WORLD leaders reacted with relief on Monday after French President Jacques Chirac trounced extreme right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen in an election that had cast a cloud over France’s image on the world stage. With almost one voice, governments in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia lauded the result as a resounding defeat for […]

A HUGE smile across his face, Mark Shuttleworth landed safely in Kazakhstan early on Sunday and said his space voyage was ”the best thing I’ve ever done.”

MORE than 550 Maoist rebels have been killed in a huge offensive by the police and army in Nepal over the past three days, a home ministry official said on Sunday. The deaths came as the security forces targetted a camp in western Nepal where around 800 guerrillas were gathered for training. ”The Maoists’ casualty […]

GERMAN fugitive Jurgen Harksen’s bail application in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court halted abruptly on Saturday, after a night of drama in which the defence team had to obtain a Cape High Court order for access to him in the Goodwood prison. Saturday’s proceedings before Magistrate Ingrid Freitag were to have started at 10am, but […]

Ravalomanana was on April 29 officially declared the winner of a December presidential election, after months of dispute with incumbent president Didier Ratsiraka who has refused to accept the result, leaving the island with two rival governments. In a sign of international recognition for Ravalomanana, the popular mayor of the capital, France and the 15-nation […]

THE Treatment Action Campaign’s (TAC) battle with the government over its antiretroviral programme is set to continue in the Constitutional Court on Monday. The 11 judges are to hear argument from counsel for the University of the Western Cape’s Community Law Centre, the Institute for Democracy in SA and Cotlands Baby Sanctuary. These organisations have […]