The African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League is to discuss claims that the new National Intelligence Agency (NIA) boss, Manala Manzini, allegedly abused his wife. A senior league official also told the Mail & Guardian that ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe and the presidency were aware of the allegations.

Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi allegedly tipped off his friend, Glenn Agliotti, about a British drugs probe involving him. The allegation, in a statement by former Agliotti associate Clinton Nassif, sheds new light on the defeating the ends of justice charge the Scorpions wanted to bring against Selebi.

President Thabo Mbeki’s attack on the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the fight-back campaign by Jackie Selebi are threatening to derail the Scorpions’ investigation of the police national commissioner and his alleged links with organised crime.

The Spear of the Nation — Umkhonto weSizwe — is emerging as a potent weapon in the battle for the hearts and minds of delegates to the ANC’s national conference in December. And the backing of MK veterans could be the ace up Jacob Zuma’s sleeve in his bid for the party presidency.

Further fragmentation of the opposition is inevitable with more than 10 new political parties about to be unveiled over the next 15 days of the annual floor-crossing window. Analysts believe the parties will only fragment the opposition further, rather than reduce the ANC’s dominance in Parliament.

Since the news of her firing on Wednesday night went public, many voices, including the ANC Women’s League in the Northern Cape, Cosatu, the SACP, the Treatment Action Campaign, Independent Democrat leader Patricia de Lillie, the DA and private individuals have come out supporting her, querying the motives for her dismissal.

The Mail & Guardian has identified a notorious international fugitive as part of Glenn Agliotti’s former circle of intimates — adding a new twist to the probe of Agliotti’s relationship with police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi. Antonio Lamas, as he was then known, joined the group around Agliotti in the late 1990s.

The story of Cuban fugitive Nelson Pablo Yester-Garrido has all the elements of a spy thriller, including spies, submarines, fast cars, Russian mobsters, arrests, escapes and a strip club. Yester-Garrido, now 47, was arrested in 2002 in Johannesburg by police acting on an Interpol warrant.

Trade union federation Cosatu believes the “Special Browse Mole Consolidated Report”, implicating Jacob Zuma in a plot to overthrow President Thabo Mbeki, was engineered by National Directorate of Public Prosecutions (Scorpions) operatives as part of a conspiracy to stymie Zuma’s presidential ambitions.