Rome - Italy's conservative government approved Tuesday the deployment of 500 troops in a mafia-infested area near the southern city of Naples where six African immigrants were gunned down last week.

On Monday, police arrested a 29-year-old man - a convicted member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan version of the mafia - in connection with last Thursday's killings in Castel Volturno.

The attack shocked Italy and Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, speaking following a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, said the state had promptly replied to the "massacre."

"First we dispatched an extra 400 police, now we have taken the decision to deploy the troops," he said.

Johannesburg - South Africa's Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was the first member of ousted President Thabo Mbeki's cabinet to confirm her resignation Tuesday.

Mlambo-Ngcuka's spokesman said she had handed in her resignation to Mbeki.

Her resignation comes two days after Mbeki stepped down as president just months before his second and last five-year term was due to run out.

New York - Not a single country in Africa is on track to meet the United Nations' poverty goals by 2015, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday while issuing a plea for more foreign aid.

Ban, opening a one-day conference on African development at UN headquarters, said about 72 billion dollars per year was needed for Africa to reach the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of poverty-reduction targets first set up eight years ago.

Johannesburg - South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma on Monday tipped ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe to become acting president after Thabo Mbeki tendered his resignation on Sunday.

"I am convinced, if given that responsibility, he would be equal to the task," Zuma told a press conference in Johannesburg, with Motlanthe at his side.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the ANC's top decision- making body pressured Mbeki into resignation at the weekend, Zuma said the party would only name its candidate for caretaker president "at an appropriate moment" in parliament, which elects the president.

Johannesburg  - South Africa's archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu on Monday said he

Johannesburg  - South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma on Monday tipped ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe to become acting president after Thabo Mbeki tendered his resignation on Sunday.

"I am convinced, if given that responsibility, he would be equal to the task," Zuma told a press conference in Johannesburg, with Motlanthe at his side.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the ANC pressured Mbeki into resignation at the weekend, Zuma said the party would only name its candidate for caretaker president "at an appropriate moment" in parliament.

If nominated, Motlanthe's ratification by the ANC-dominated National Assembly is seen as a foregone conclusion.