Latest articles on Defence Ministry

Foreign trawlers invading South Africa’s oceans costs the economy R60bn a year because it can’t afford to patrol and control its resources.

The defence force is looking to buy new presidential jets and planes as soon as possible, the <em>Saturday Star</em> has reported.

Watch the M&G’s video analysis of South Africa's disastrous military deployment in the Central African Republic, in our latest M&G hangout.

VIDEO Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula's controversial CAR comments, North Korea threatens nuclear action and Jo'burg Pride is no more.

Former Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has denied reports that she had abused the defence force's ultra-luxury Gulfstream jets.

Heavy fighting between rebels and government soldiers subsided in northern Sri Lanka on Thursday, a day after intense artillery battles left hundreds killed or wounded, according to officials on both sides. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam said they were planning to return the 30 bodies of government troops they captured.

Sri Lanka government troops on Wednesday captured a strip of land from Tamil Tigers after heavy fighting across the island's north left 42 rebels and a soldier dead, the Defence Ministry said. Security forces killed the guerrillas from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in separate clashes in the Mannar, Weli Oya and Jaffna districts since Tuesday evening, the ministry said.

Police and security forces went on alert across Sri Lanka on Thursday, hours after the government announced its withdrawal from a tattered ceasefire with Tamil Tiger rebels, security officials said. The already tight security in the capital was further strengthened one day after suspected rebels set off a roadside bomb that killed five and wounded 28.

Nine South African soldiers were killed on Friday in a shooting accident involving an anti-aircraft gun during a training exercise at a base in the central Bloemfontein region, the army said. "I can confirm that nine of our people have died and another 15 were injured and taken to various," a South African National Defence Force spokesperson said.

Fierce clashes erupted in Mogadishu between Ethiopian-backed Somali forces and Islamist fighters, with both sides claiming to have inflicted heavy casualties, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday. The overnight fighting was focused around the former Defence Ministry building in southern Mogadishu and resulted in a fire in Bakara market.

At least eight Yemeni soldiers were killed in a volcanic eruption on an island off the country's Red Sea coast, the government said on Monday. A Defence Ministry official said the western part of the island had "collapsed" following the eruption. Yemen's oil minister said several earthquakes felt on Sunday had triggered the eruption.