Brian Pottinger, CEO of Johnnic Communications (Africa), takes a strong interest in the video CDs sold on the streets of Lagos. As well he should, being head of the South African media company’s foray into other parts of Africa. "Just two days after the international release of <i>The Passion of the Christ</i>, the street vendors in Lagos were selling pirate copies," says Pottinger.

South Korea told United States officials it has no plans to launch ”large-scale” economic cooperation with North Korea before the dispute over the communist state’s nuclear weapons programme is resolved, the country’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

Benedict Vilakazi has been suspended as Orlando Pirates’ captain after he appeared on a rape charge in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s court on Tuesday, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported. The Bafana Bafana player was granted bail of R10 000.

Art historians had always detected the style of Leonardo da Vinci in the mysterious painting Adoration of the Christ Child, which is regarded as a gem of the Renaissance. But there was never any proof. Now a fingerprint discovered in the original paint may finally solve the puzzle.

Even six months later, their traces remain in the thick snow: the tent strings laced to a tree, the makeshift tap made from a bottle, the rubbish heap. It was here, deep in the woods near the village of Psedakh in Ingushetia, that 32 gunmen gathered in August last year for up to seven days before they took 1 227 people hostage at Beslan’s Middle School One.