Anc

JOHANNESBURG -- A prominent South African mining entrepreneur, African National Congress supporter, and cultural philanthropist, Brett Kebble, whose business dealings had come under scrutiny, was found shot to death Tuesday night in Johannesburg. Police opened a murder investigation into Kebble's death, according to a statement posted yesterday on a website devoted to Kebble's grant program for South African artists. Kebble, 41, was found shot several times in his car on a highway overpass, the South African Press Association quoted police as saying.

A lawyer for South Africa's president broke down in tears Thursday as he tried to convince three judges that the display of a portrait that depicts the president's genitals is unlawful. The three South Gauteng High Court judges called a recess after the emotional display. President Jacob Zuma is asking the High Court to issue an order that display of the now-defaced painting violates his constitutional right to dignity. The gallery and the artist counter that freedom of expression, also protected by the constitution, is at stake.

WASHINGTON - The House, saying it was correcting a longstanding injustice, voted yesterday to drop apartheid-era travel restrictions and terrorist designations given Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress people who fought white minority rule. "Despite recognizing two decades ago that America's place was on the side of those oppressed by apartheid, Congress has never resolved the inconsistency in our immigration code that treats many of those who actively opposed apartheid in South Africa as terrorists and criminals," said Representative Howard Berman, a California Democrat...

JOHANNESBURG - The leader of the African National Congress youth wing vowed yesterday to fight a five-year suspension that a governing party disciplinary committee handed down after ruling the 30-year-old who helped bring the president to power has been a divisive force. Julius Malema's determination to contest findings that he had sown intolerance and disunity was no surprise. But many South Africans were surprised that the ANC had finally confronted him after months of seeing his defiance and insults tolerated.

CAPE TOWN -- Raymond Mhlaba, an African National Congress veteran who was sentenced with Nelson Mandela to life imprisonment in 1964 for trying to overthrow South Africa's apartheid regime, has died at age 85, the government said Monday. "Oom Ray," as he was widely known, died of cancer Sunday at a hospital in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth. "His death robs us of yet another hero -- a member of a splendid, unforgettable generation," said President Thabo Mbeki, who ordered all flags to fly at half-staff.

JOHANNESBURG - Frans “Ting-Ting’’ Masango, a former guerrilla activist once sentenced to death for treason against the apartheid government, has died, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party said yesterday. He was 51. Mr. Masango died in Pretoria Friday after battling diabetes, the party said. “We dip our revolutionary banner in honor of this distinguished cadre and a selfless combatant who sacrificed immensely to the democratic order we live in today,’’ the ANC said.

JOHANNESBURG — Kader Asmal, a prominent member of South Africa’s governing African National Congress who pressed his party to keep its democratic promises, died yesterday, the ANC said. He was 76. In a statement, the party said Mr. Asmal died in a Cape Town hospital. No cause of death was given. Mr. Asmal led antiapartheid protests as a high school student in rural eastern South Africa. He later left for Britain and Ireland, where he continued antiapartheid activism, and studied and taught law. He returned to South Africa in...

JOHANNESBURG — Albertina Sisulu lamented what apartheid did to her family, but lived to see her children become leaders in a democratic South Africa. The veteran of the antiapartheid movement died Thursday at the age of 92. African National Congress spokesman Brian Sokutu said Mrs. Sisulu “dedicated all her life to the ANC and to the defeat of apartheid and ushering in of constitutional democracy in South Africa.’’ Her husband, Walter Sisulu, who died in 2003, spent 25 years in custody on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela,...

A lawyer for South Africa's president broke down in tears Thursday as he tried to convince three judges that the display of a portrait that depicts the president's genitals is unlawful. The three South Gauteng High Court judges called a recess after the emotional display. President Jacob Zuma is asking the High Court to issue an order that display of the now-defaced painting violates his constitutional right to dignity. The gallery and the artist counter that freedom of expression, also protected by the constitution, is at stake.

South Africa in the mid-1980s was a land of relentless violence and conflict. As a foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg in those years, I moved from one burning black township to the next, and then on to the huge, tense funeral marches to bury the fallen. Amid states of emergency, crackdowns by the white-minority rulers, and battles among black factions, it often felt like no outcome was possible other than all-out war between whites and the exiled African National Congress.

The African National Congress decides whether to quash or push disciplinary charges against its firebrand youth leader whose case is pitting radicals against moderates in South Africa's ruling party. Julius Malema and five other ANC Youth League leaders are accused of violating the party constitution and sowing dissension by undermining President Jacob Zuma and calling for the overthrow the leader of neighboring Botswana. The party's youth wing also is threatening to oust Zuma from the party leadership if he does not support its demands to nationalize mines and seize white farms.

JOHANNESBURG — Kader Asmal, a prominent member of South Africa’s governing African National Congress who pressed his party to keep its democratic promises, died yesterday, the ANC said. He was 76. In a statement, the party said Mr. Asmal died in a Cape Town hospital. No cause of death was given. Mr. Asmal led antiapartheid protests as a high school student in rural eastern South Africa. He later left for Britain and Ireland, where he continued antiapartheid activism, and studied and taught law. He returned to South Africa in 1990 and participated in...

JOHANNESBURG — Albertina Sisulu lamented what apartheid did to her family, but lived to see her children become leaders in a democratic South Africa. The veteran of the antiapartheid movement died Thursday at the age of 92. African National Congress spokesman Brian Sokutu said Mrs. Sisulu “dedicated all her life to the ANC and to the defeat of apartheid and ushering in of constitutional democracy in South Africa.’’ Her husband, Walter Sisulu, who died in 2003, spent 25 years in custody on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela,...

JOHANNESBURG — It was an elaborate charade: a white South African family in a comfortable brick house on the northern edge of Johannesburg, a black farm worker in the tiny servant’s quarters out back. The farm worker was Nelson Mandela, hiding out in the 1960s soon after he founded the armed wing of the African National Congress. Arthur Goldreich, key to the ruse as head of the white family, died Tuesday in Tel Aviv, Mandela’s office said yesterday. Mr. Goldreich was 82. Mr. Goldreich and his family pretended to be the owners of a farm on the outskirts of...

JOHANNESBURG — A court convicted the governing party’s youth leader of hate speech yesterday after he said the woman who once accused South Africa’s president of rape had had a “nice time’’ because she stayed the night and asked for taxi money. A gender justice group took Julius Malema, president of the African National Congress youth league, to the Johannesburg Equality Court after he made the comment to students in January 2009. Jacob Zuma was acquitted of rape in 2006 after he insisted that the sex was consensual and went on to become president...

South Africa in the mid-1980s was a land of relentless violence and conflict. As a foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg in those years, I moved from one burning black township to the next, and then on to the huge, tense funeral marches to bury the fallen. Amid states of emergency, crackdowns by the white-minority rulers, and battles among black factions, it often felt like no outcome was possible other than all-out war between whites and the exiled African National Congress.

JOHANNESBURG -- Hilda Bernstein, an anti apartheid activist and author whose husband was tried for treason alongside Nelson Mandela, has died. She was 91. Mrs. Bernstein died of heart failure at her home in Cape Town on Friday night, her son Keith said. "The liberation movement mourns a tireless political activist whose lifelong commitment to the cause of the South African people will continue as an inspiration for generations to come," the ruling African National Congress said in a statement.

South African President Jacob Zuma and his African National Congress sought a court order Tuesday to have a painting depicting the president's genitals removed from an art gallery but two men took matters into their own hands by defacing the portrait with gobs of paint. The case pits freedom of expression against the right to dignity, both guaranteed by South Africa's constitution. The painting by Brett Murray went on display in a Johannesburg gallery this month and came to the ANC's attention a week later, after local media reported it had been sold.

JOHANNESBURG - Frans “Ting-Ting’’ Masango, a former guerrilla activist once sentenced to death for treason against the apartheid government, has died, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party said yesterday. He was 51. Mr. Masango died in Pretoria Friday after battling diabetes, the party said. “We dip our revolutionary banner in honor of this distinguished cadre and a selfless combatant who sacrificed immensely to the democratic order we live in today,’’ the ANC said.

PRETORIA - South Africa's long-dominant ANC won overwhelmingly in parliamentary elections, but did not retain the two-thirds' majority it won with ease in the last elections, according to the final tally announced yesterday. The victory puts party leader Jacob Zuma in line for the presidency, but without the seats in the 400-member parliament to enact major budgetary plans or legislation unchallenged. A split in the ANC and questions about Zuma's fitness to govern after sex and corruption scandals were contributing factors.