Jacob Zuma

The whistle has blown, the time has come! We're taking Jacob Zuma to the Union Buildings. -- As rays of sunshine broke through after the morning's stormy downpour, the dignitaries at Jacob Zuma's inauguration Saturday in Pretoria leaped to their feet, danced, cheered and ululated as he was sworn in as the president of South Africa. At the top of their lungs, they sang about Zuma's ascent to the Union Buildings, South Africa's presidential residence and seat of government.

African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma withdrew Wednesday from a charity fundraising banquet honoring former boxer Mike Tyson after being criticized by South African women's groups. Reporters arriving at the event were handed a statement from organizers saying Zuma "had been called away on urgent ANC business." The banquet featured an auction of Tyson items to benefit children's organizations. Women's groups had called on Zuma to withdraw from the event.

As a defense attorney in one of the world's crime capitals, Sanele Mtshazo said his greatest asset was police bungling: In nearly every case, there was botched evidence or missing fingerprint, ballistics or DNA reports. Often he ruefully watched someone he had defended walk free, and thought, "That one should have gone to jail." Once, it was a man he thought had raped a child.

Jacob Zuma has a problem: He scares some people. The leader of the ruling African National Congress, now in line to become South Africa's next president, faces unresolved corruption allegations, never tested in court. He has advocated virginity tests, opposed gay marriage and supported reinstating the death penalty. The country's leading financial journal, the Financial Mail, famously headlined his political rise with the words "Be Afraid."

South African Jonathan Shapiro received the 2007 Courage in Cartooning Award this month from the Cartoonists Rights Network (full disclosure: I'm on the board). Shapiro, who goes by the nom de plume Zapiro, is being sued by former South African Deputy President (and wannabe future president) Jacob Zuma. Zuma lost his post in 1995 amid an arms-deal scandal and was later tried on rape charges. Zapiro's cartoons about the trial prompted the lawsuit. Zapiro responded the only way he knew how ...

When the man who would be South Africa's next president appeared on the front page of a national daily wearing a black cowboy hat with a red hammer and sickle, it did not signal any headline-grabbing shift to communism. But it did raise the question, who is Jacob Zuma?

South African President Thabo Mbeki received a stinging rebuff Sunday from supporters of his bitter rival, Jacob Zuma, in the lead-up to a crucial leadership vote at the national conference of the ruling African National Congress. Moments after Mbeki's speech, his last chance to win over support, thousands of delegates signaled their disapproval by standing up and singing Zuma's trademark song, "Umshini Wami," which loosely translates as "Bring Me My Machine (Gun)."

Populist Jacob Zuma overcame allegations of corruption and rape to win the leadership of South Africa's governing party Tuesday, putting the candidate of the country's poor and angry townships on course to become the next president. The vote represents a dramatic shift for South Africa, where Nelson Mandela and his successor, the elegant and intellectual President Thabo Mbeki, presided over an era of remarkable political and economic stability after the end of apartheid in 1994.

When 44 million South Africans woke up Wednesday to news that a few thousand ruling party delegates had chosen the country's likely next president, some were exultant and others were positively alarmed. But to many, Jacob Zuma remains an enigma. Zuma has a reputation for offering vague populist slogans in place of substantive policies and for ducking reporters' questions with a diplomatic smile.

A top prosecutor said Thursday that South Africa's controversial new president-in-waiting, Jacob Zuma, could be charged with corruption within weeks, an action that could threaten Zuma's bid to take over the country's leadership.