It would be a mistake to dismiss Israel’s dissolution of its settlements in the Gaza Strip as an irrelevancy, as some supporters of the Palestinian cause are prone to do. There is a powerful symbolism to the spectacle of Israeli troops cracking down on recalcitrant settlers, and in the fact that the architect of the withdrawals, was a prime mover behind the settlements after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The bond was forged more than 30 years ago when Israel’s security preoccupation meshed with the visions of a messianic minority to claim the spoils of war as a God-given right. The rush to establish Jewish settlements on the newly-occupied West Bank hilltops.
The Brazilian shot dead by police on a tube train in mistake for a suicide bomber had already been overpowered by a surveillance officer before he was killed, according to secret documents revealed this week. It also emerged in the leaked documents that early allegations that he was running from police at the time of the shooting were untrue.
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About 350 small bombs exploded within an hour of each other across Bangladesh on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring more than 100 in an unprecedented attack initially linked to banned Islamic extremists. The bombs, which killed a man and a 10-year-old boy, exploded in almost all of Bangladesh’s 64 towns and cities.
Investigators converged on Wednesday on the remote Venezuelan hillside where a Colombian jetliner crashed on Tuesday, killing all 152 French tourists and eight Colombian crew on board and leaving wreckage strewn over a wide area. Experts from all three countries are taking part in the investigation.
In a feat that will have statisticians shaking their heads, a French family have twice won a national lottery — using the same numbers each time. The lucky clan, who were not identified, picked up €1,5-million (R11,9-million) in an August 3 lottery using the same selection of numbers they mark down every week.
Did it snow in Cape Town’s city centre on Wednesday? Yes, say office workers. Unlikely, says the South African Weather Service. As the city shivered under a biting north wind and squalls of driving rain, callers to a local radio station reported seeing snowflakes falling in the city centre.
The last Jewish settlers were dragged kicking and screaming out of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday as Israel moved to end 38 years of occupation of the Palestinian territory. Backed by bulldozers, Israeli forces fanned out through the Mediterranean seafront territory.
It is hard to know whether to be appalled or amused by the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) recent about-face on former deputy president Jacob Zuma, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the government says it will await a formal submission from Cosatu on Zuma.