Three groups of hikers, including foreign tourists, have been mugged while walking above Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, the Table Mountain National Park confirmed on Thursday. Two Dutch hikers, three Australians and two South Africans were robbed in separate incidents of cash, cellphones and jewellery.
Four people were remanded in custody by the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Thursday following a shootout in the city in which a baby was shot dead on its mother’s back. The magistrate ruled that it would not be in the interests of justice to release Fana Makhanya, Menzi Hlongwa and Phikani Ngidi on bail.
Western Cape police declined to comment on Thursday on contradictory news reports that the suspected killers of two-year-old Sonja Brown were about to be arrested, and that an autopsy showed she was not murdered. The reports were carried earlier in the day by a Cape Town newspaper and a local radio station.
South Africa’s refugee system is being abused by those seeking to legalise their stay in the country even though they fall outside the definition of a refugee, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Johnny de Lange said in Cape Town on Thursday at a meeting regarding the status and treatment of refugees.
The Ugandan army said on Thursday it killed eight armed Kenyan bandits and lost one of its own soldiers in a gun battle on the two countries’ border. Army spokesperson Major Felix Kulayigye said Pokot cattle raiders from western Kenya crossed the border and launched two attacks on Ugandan army positions on Tuesday, killing an officer.
South Africa and other African nations will insist that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe be allowed to attend a long-delayed summit between the European Union (EU) and Africa later this year. Mugabe and more than 100 other Zimbabwean officials are banned from travelling to EU nations under sanctions imposed in 2002.
Israeli troops crossed into the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing seven Palestinian militants, including six from the Islamist Hamas group that controls the territory. Israeli forces exchanged fire with gunmen in al-Maghazi refugee camp, and some militants said they fired rocket-propelled grenades at the troops.
A Belgian court sentenced a former Rwandan army major to 20 years in prison on Thursday for the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and an undetermined number of Rwandan civilians at the start of the 1994 genocide. The public prosecutor had asked for a life sentence for the accused’s role in the genocide.
Nigeria’s Archbishop Peter Akinola, the leading critic of Western liberals in a growing Anglican dispute over gay priests, insists he has no ambition to lead a breakaway church. ”That has never been on my mind,” he told London’s Times newspaper in an interview. ”We are going nowhere.”
Workers in the metal and engineering industry would strike on Monday, a trade union said. ”The metal and engineering industry must brace itself for a crippling strike from Monday, with a possible far-reaching effect on the country’s economy,” said Tim Kruger, spokesman for the United Association of South Africa.