Staff Reporter

Kim Jong Il enjoys the fine things in life. Unlike his repressed subjects, the diminutive North Korean leader has a well-developed taste for fine wines, gourmet foods and Western electronic goods. But now the United States administration has decided to take away the Dear Leader’s toys.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair made the startling claim on Wednesday that Britain and other Nato members are "winning" the war in Afghanistan despite increased Taliban activity and a sharply rising death toll. The prime minister was speaking to the press at the end of a two-day Nato summit in Latvia.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/291293/aidsday06.gif" align=left>The advances of Aids treatment in South Africa currently are groundbreaking. This must continue, expand and reach every person who needs drugs. A good starting point would be a seven-point prevention plan, to counter the seven people that become infected for every antiretroviral treatment.

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday night sought to dispel a quickly earned reputation for Islamophobia, calling for a new process of "authentic dialogue" between Christians and Muslims based on "mutual esteem and respect". For the first time in his papacy, he also expressed support for Turkey in its flagging efforts to join the European Union.

Two attacks by Darfur rebel groups left 32 civilians dead in western Sudan, the Sudanese media reported on Tuesday. There was no official confirmation of the death toll carried by the Sudanese Media Centre, an online information outlet affiliated to the government.

A young South African was on Monday fined by a local court for playing hooky from work and trying to cover it with a fake gynaecologist’s certificate attesting he was pregnant and needed a week off. A magistrate’s court in Vereeniging, near Johannesburg, fined 27-year-old Charles Sibindana R1 000 for the brazen forgery, the media reported.

A man armed with grenades and guns and accompanied by his daughter took over a junior high school for several hours in central Tehran Monday, a media correspondent on the scene said. Police initially said the man and a woman aged about 35 took over the school, but a boy released before the siege ended said a girl of about his own age — 13 — was with the man.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/291293/aidsday06.gif" align=left>Seven of the world’s biggest advertising agencies have joined forces to produce commercials for an HIV and Aids awareness campaign which will launch on World Aids Day this Friday. The set of 24 ads will be shown on MTV channels globally, as well as on the music channel’s web and mobile platforms.

Britain’s strained relations with Russia worsened on Sunday when a Cabinet minister questioned whether Vladimir Putin’s government may have been connected with the death of Alexander Litvinenko. The Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain, also said British relations with Russia were at a very tricky stage.

A surprise ceasefire between Palestinian militants in Gaza and the Israeli military appeared to hold for its opening day on Sunday, raising the first hopes for months of a return to peace negotiations. The dawn truce got off to a shaky start as some militants fired several of their crude rockets into southern Israel in the early morning.

The anti-apartheid struggle attempted to create a country free of all oppressions based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, geographical location and (dis)ability. This is the country of the Constitution. Yet the legacy of apartheid continues to be felt by the black poor, who are written out of capital, most victimised and predominantly women.

The campaign to ensure that Jacob Zuma succeeds Thabo Mbeki as president of South Africa has produced a virus that threatens the health of many of our key democratic institutions. The executive, the National Prosecuting Authority, the press and the judiciary have all fallen to the attack — and the coherence of the ruling party, itself a key to the success of our peaceful transition to constitutional democracy, has been shaken.

Palestinian militants have agreed to stop firing rockets into Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a halt to targeted killings, it emerged on Saturday night. The ceasefire could bring an end to a spate of violence that has seen the death of more than 100 Palestinians and two Israeli civilians within the past month.