Tributes and messages of condolence streamed in on Wednesday afternoon after former KwaZulu-Natal social welfare minister Prince Gideon Zulu (72) died on Tuesday evening following a long illness. United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa hailed Zulu as a ”fierce warrior … who showed humility and warmth”.
Three days of torrential rain destroyed more than 1 000 homes, most of them mud huts, and unearthed 50 tombs in a rural section of Burundi, officials said Wednesday. The downpour started on Sunday and washed away 900 homes in Mpanda and 200 in Kinyinya, according to administrators in the region.
HIV/Aids organisations in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, have warned people to be on the lookout for individuals selling fake antiretrovirals (ARVs).
The physical toll of the new and extended Super 14 has hit the Springboks hard, with three players seemingly out for some time, and the news would not have brought comfort to Jake White as the training camp in Bloemfontein got under way in Bloemfontein on Wednesday.
German security authorities believe 21 World Cup matches are at high risk of terrorist attack, Stern magazine reported on Wednesday. The assessment, compiled by Germany’s Federal Crime Office, known as the BKA, said Islamic extremists posed a particular danger, according to the magazine.
Foreign visitors to the World Cup should avoid some areas around Berlin because of the risk of racist attack, a former German government spokesperson said on Wednesday. ”There are small and mid-sized towns in Brandenburg and elsewhere where I would advise anyone with a different skin colour not to go,” Uwe-Karsten Heye told Deutschlandradio Kultur.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) will decide this weekend whether to take part in an African National Congress probe into a hoax e-mail scam. Senior figures in the ruling party were smeared by the e-mails, in an apparent succession battle for the presidency.
Cats coach Frans Ludeke was on Wednesday relieved of his duties as Lions coach for this season’s Currie Cup. South Africa Under-19 coach and Ludeke’s assistant at the Lions, Eugene Eloff, was announced as the man to take the Lions’ hot seat at a press briefing held in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
About 620 000 people were evacuated from southern China on Wednesday as Typhoon Chanchu, the strongest storm to date to hit the region at this time of year, churned towards the coastal province of Guangdong. The province also ordered more than 58 000 fishing boats and other vessels to return to their home ports.
Thousands of residents fled Liberia’s second-largest commercial city of Ganta after hundreds of young men from the Mano ethnic group attacked homes of the rival Mandingos early on Wednesday, an Agence France-Presse reporter in the town witnessed.