Behaviour that undermines the image of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) will not be tolerated, the SANDF said on Wednesday in response to allegations of misconduct by soldiers abroad. Four SANDF officers on a peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are under investigation for misconduct.
Former Labour Party leader and later African National Congress MP Reverend Allan Hendrickse died suddenly on Wednesday afternoon, his family confirmed. Hendrickse’s son, Peter, also an ANC MP, said his father suffered a fatal heart attack at the Port Elizabeth airport at about 2pm on Wednesday.
Israeli troops pulled away from the West Bank town of Jericho on Wednesday, furling their national flag and dismantling a roadblock, but the formal handover to Palestinian security control was delayed at the last minute because of a dispute over the signing of documents, officials said.
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.
The Constitutional Court reserved judgement on Wednesday on the Department of Health’s application relating to disputed medicine-pricing regulations, without ruling immediately on which regulations are currently in force. The department had asked the court for leave to appeal a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that declared its new regulations invalid.
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.
The information and communications technology (ICT) charter’s working group chairperson, advocate Dali Mpofu, on Wednesday dismissed rumours that the camp is in crisis, instead arguing that nothing has changed. "There is no crisis. We are not restarting the whole process of drawing up the charter again; that is ridiculous," he said.
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.