SOUTH AFRICA: Four police officers assigned to a security team protecting the country’s deputy president will be charged with assault and other offences after being caught on video kicking and stomping on at least two men pulled over in their cars on a highway, police said on Wednesday.

The four officers facing criminal charges have also been served with letters notifying them that police intend to suspend them from their jobs.

SOUTH SUDAN: President Salva Kiir of South Sudan announced today the country’s long-delayed elections will be held next year as planned.

Mr Kiir said he would run for re-election after having been president since 2011, the first since the country gained independence.

No other candidate has declared their candidacy but First Vice-President Riek Machar is also expected to run.

FRANCE: France’s highest court has rejected a request by the International Movement for Reparations and two other groups seeking reparations for slavery in a case that originated on the French Caribbean island of Martinique.

The court’s decision today said that no individual produced evidence showing they had “suffered individually” any damage from the crimes that their ancestors had been subjected to.

Slavery was abolished in France in 1848 after shipping more than one million Africans to colonies in the Americas. 

IRAN: The United States navy accused Iran of trying to seize two oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz earlier today, firing shots at one of them.

It said that in both cases, the Iranian naval vessels backed off after the US navy responded, and that both commercial ships continued their voyages.

There was no immediate Iranian comment.