Fiery Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille clashed with the lawyer of former ID Western Cape leader Lennit Max when Max’s disciplinary hearing resumed on Wednesday. She repeatedly told the lawyer, Leon van Rensburg, to ”keep quiet” as he cross-examined her, and told him she was laughing at his ”silly remarks”.
A group of suspected mercenaries in a Zimbabwean jail might have to wait until Monday for the outcome of an application to appeal the men’s deportation to South Africa. Their lawyer, Alwyn Griebenow, said Zimbabwe’s chief justice reserved judgement on the matter, which was heard on Wednesday morning.
Danish intelligence services on Tuesday said they have launched a full-blown advertising campaign to recruit spies capable of digging up information on international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The Scandinavian country is looking for ways to expand its own ability to gather sensitive information.
European soothsayers have thrown their weight behind United Nations prosecutors in their stand-off with the Croatian government over fugitive war crimes suspect Ante Gotovina, saying he is hiding in or near Croatian territory, a report said on Wednesday. Five clairvoyants were consulted by the <i>Globus</i> weekly.
Burundi’s last remaining rebel group fired six mortar bombs at the capital overnight, hitting the area around the presidential palace but causing no casualties, the army said on Wednesday. Army spokesperson Major Adolphe Munirakiza said the National Liberation Forces bombarded the Kiriri district with 60mm mortars at around 11pm.
A diamond mine collapsed in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo and killed up to 40 people, authorities said on Wednesday, adding the news had taken weeks to emerge from the remote area. Governor Clement Kanku said he had scant details because of the remote location of the mine, in Kampangala, a town about 135km southeast of Tshikapa, on the border with Angola.
A Mozambican immigrant was trampled to death by an elephant while trying to cross through the Kruger Park into South Africa. The woman — whose age is not known — was crossing with four others through the northernmost section of the park near Punda Maria, said park spokesperson Raymond Travers
Bernard Ebbers, the maverick former boss of WorldCom, was on Tuesday found guilty of taking a lead role in the largest fraud in corporate history and could now face the rest of his life in prison. The conviction is a landmark result for United States prosecutors seeking to restore confidence in corporate America.
Victor Hugo, Molière, Marie Curie and Charles de Gaulle are still in there fighting. But Alexandre Dumas, Jean-Paul Sartre and Belmondo and even Napoleon are sadly out of the running. Nearly three years after the BBC’s hit Great Britons series, the French, not without some rather Gallic misgivings, have been asked to choose Le plus grand Français de tous les temps, or The greatest Frenchman ever.
A new Holocaust museum, designed to affirm Israel’s claim to be the principal keeper and interpreter of survivors’ memories, opened in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Fifteen presidents and prime ministers joined survivors at the dedication of the stark prism-shaped concrete structure cutting through the Mount of Remembrance.