Johannesburg - In the second case of alleged smuggling by South Africa Airways (SAA) staff in under a month, 15 crew members were arrested in London's Heathrow airport Monday for possession of contraband goods, reports said in South Africa.

A spokeswoman for SAA told the South African Press Association (SAPA) that the 15 detainees - 12 cabin crew and three cockpit crew - were arrested off flight SA234 from Johannesburg after the illegal goods were found in the crew bus. The report did not specify the nature of the goods.

Johannesburg/Brisbane, Feb. 12: South African vice-captain Ashwell Prince has expressed his bitter disappointment over being left out of the side for the first two Tests against Australia, while Oz skipper Ricky Ponting has expressed surprise over his omission.

Middle-order batsman Prince made a strong case for selection with 900 Test runs at 64.28 in 2008, but missed South Africa''s historic 2-1 triumph in Australia because of a broken thumb.

Johannesburg - The date for South Africa's general elections has been set at April 22, President Kgalema Motlanthe announced Tuesday.

South Africans will be called to vote in their fourth national and provincial elections since the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.

Motlanthe told the National Assembly in Cape Town he had agreed on the date with the Independent Electoral Commission.

"With this coming election, the maturisation of our democracy receives yet another shot in the arm," Motlanthe said.

Johannesburg - Leading Zimbabwean opposition figure Tendai Biti will become the country's finance minister before the week is out, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced Tuesday.

Biti, a lawyer by training and a vocal critic of President Robert Mugabe, will be sworn in as minister on Friday, along with some 30 other ministers from the MDC and Mugabe's Zanu-PF that will form a unity government.

Johannesburg - The new head of the United Nations AIDS agency on Tuesday called for global spending on HIV/AIDS programmes to be nearly doubled, but acknowledged that securing 25 billion dollars in the current economic climate would "not be easy."

Speaking in Khayelitsha, a sprawling township outside Cape Town, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said: "We cannot let the economic crisis paralyze us.

"We cannot let down the 4 million people on treatment and millions more in need today."

Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's opposition number two, Tendai Biti, will take up a post of government minister later this week, sources with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said Monday, rejecting reports he had decided to boycott the power-sharing deal.

"He's going to be in cabinet. It's going to happen, 100 per cent," a senior official in the party told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.