South Africa

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Wednesday that police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi had not been arrested as rumoured. ”Where we are now and as we speak, there is no arrest by the Scorpions of the police commissioner today [Wednesday],” said NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on Tuesday refused to endorse Thabo Mbeki or Jacob Zuma for leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), but hinted it would be more comfortable with Zuma at the helm. The TAC said it hoped the winner would usher in ”serious change”.

Angry commuters set fire to two trains in Pretoria after severe storms disrupted rail services. Train services in Pretoria were brought to a standstill after the signalling system broke down and a back-up system was struck by lightning, rail operator Metrorail said.

Cape Town firefighters have brought under control a fire that broke out in an industrial building in Salt River early on Tuesday. Johan Minnie of the city’s disaster management said the fire, which started in the building before spreading to a nearby train station, had finally been contained by late afternoon.

The African National Congress (ANC) on Tuesday laid down some house rules aimed at preventing factionalism ahead of its national conference, at which its new leadership structure is to be elected. The warning comes after heated debate over whether President Thabo Mbeki should continue for another term, or whether party deputy Jacob Zuma should succeed him.

A crack police team killed 11 would-be robbers and wounded one when it thwarted a cash-in-transit heist on the R101 near the Carousel casino in Limpopo on Tuesday. National police spokesperson Director Phuti Setati said members of the task force had received a tip-off that the men were going to rob a Coin security van at about 11.40am.

”Sexist” remarks made by Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi about women’s equity were misunderstood, the trade-union federation said on Tuesday. ”It was for some reason interpreted as an attack on women and this we totally reject,” said Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has chosen not to take sides in the battle for the African National Congress (ANC) leadership between the President Thabo Mbeki or party deputy president Jacob Zuma. ”We will seek to work with whoever is democratically elected,” said TAC secretary Mark Heywood on Tuesday.

Two private detectives claim they know who killed Stellenbosch student Inge Lotz, the Cape Argus reported on Tuesday. The two had laid charges of intimidation and obstruction of justice against two police officers who they claim knew the details and did nothing about it.

The majority of South Africans prefer to have African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Jacob Zuma as their next national president, a recent TNS survey has found. Conducted on 3 000 adults between September and October, the survey saw Zuma emerge as frontrunner to succeed Thabo Mbeki when he steps down in 2009.

Zwelinzima Vavi was ”a bit reckless” in the comments he made about women’s equity, said African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe on Tuesday. ”History will judge him. I would expect a leader of his stature to be more circumspect,” Motlanthe said on Talk Radio 702.

The African National Congress (ANC) said on Monday it had suspended an activist for launching a legal battle to postpone the party’s leadership conference. Votani Majola has asked the country’s Supreme Court of Appeal to grant his request to have the ANC’s December 16 to 20 congress delayed for six months.

The boy was thrown into the fire and left to die by Janjaweed fighters in Sudan’s bedevilled Darfur province. But 12-year-old Rachid Dahiye Zakaria survived. Then, badly disfigured, he walked for days to a refugee camp across the border in Chad with his sole remaining relatives — a grandmother and a sister.