Five African nations pledged on Thursday to send peacekeepers to a mission in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region that was approved this week by the United Nations Security Council, a top African Union official said. Said Djinnit, the AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, said member states had responded positively during talks.
British police were criticised on Thursday over the mistaken killing of an innocent Brazilian man in the wake of the 2005 London bombings, although the head of Scotland Yard himself escaped censure. The long-awaited report found ”serious weaknesses” in police management, and in particular said a top officer misled his boss and the public.
A 27-year-old man who admits he cannot control his sexual urges will spend 12 years behind bars for raping his 10-year-old cousin. The man from Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg, told the Vereeniging Circuit Court he committed the crime because of too much pornography.
More than 700 complaints about behaviour, competency and attitude were lodged against public servants via the National Anti-Corruption Hotline (NACH) in 2005/06. The Public Service Commission said on Thursday that 389 complaints were lodged against staff at national departments and 353 at provincial departments.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has pulled out from Ethiopia’s restive Ogaden region following a government order, but still hopes to return, a spokesperson said on Thursday. Authorities in Ethiopia’s Somali regional state last week gave the Red Cross seven days’ notice to leave, accusing it of consorting with rebels.
The African National Congress’s (ANC) version of affirmative action was based on ”racial categorising”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said in Parliament on Thursday. DA safety and security spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard criticised the ruling party’s ”refusal to define how exactly it would determine someone’s race”.
New car sales rose to 32Â 199 units last month from 30Â 825 in June, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa said on Thursday. It said in a statement this represented an improvement of 4,5%. Year-on-year sales were, however, down by 13,8%. In July last year, 37Â 366 new cars were sold.
Two men convicted of murdering a top Iranian judge in 2005 were hanged in public in central Tehran on Thursday, the first such public executions in the Iranian capital in five years. The men were executed for the murder of Hassan Moghaddas, a hardline deputy prosecutor and head of the ”guidance” court in Tehran
The trial of Andrew Jordaan, the man accused of murdering seven-year-old Sheldean Human, will commence in the Pretoria High Court in March next year. Jordaan appeared briefly in court on Thursday, but was not asked to plead to charges of murder, abduction, rape and the illegal possession of dagga.
It would be dangerous for the government to stay out of the South African economy, taking into account the country’s history, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said on Thursday. Speaking at the launch of the National Industrial Policy Framework, Mpahlwa said the plan would help the government address some of the legacies in the economy.