Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, is expected to leave office within days, parliamentarians from the ruling African National Congress party have said. Zuma, who is facing multiple charges of corruption, has been negotiating the terms of his departure with Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC leader.

Ramaphosa pulled out of public events to focus on “pressing matters” on Friday, fuelling speculation that he was making a final push to convince Zuma, 75, to step down as South Africa’s head of state before a major ANC rally on Sunday. The party, in power since the end of the repressive, racist apartheid regime in 1994, has been thrown into crisis by an increasingly chaotic transfer of power from the incumbent president to his deputy and rival. Ramaphosa told parliamentarians on Thursday he hoped to conclude talks with the president over a transition of power “in coming days … in the interests of the country”. An MP told the Guardian on condition of anonymity: “He said [the negotiations] would not drag on and that we should basically expect news any moment. No one wants this to go into next week and go on and on.”(theguardian)…[+]

California police investigating a violent white nationalist event worked with white supremacists in an effort to identify counter-protesters and sought the prosecution of activists with “anti-racist” beliefs, court documents show.

The records, which also showed officers expressing sympathy with white supremacists and trying to protect a neo-Nazi organizer’s identity, were included in a court briefing from three anti-fascist activists who were charged with felonies after protesting at a Sacramento rally. The defendants were urging a judge to dismiss their case and accused California police and prosecutors of a “cover-up and collusion with the fascists”.Defense lawyers said the case at the state capital offers the latest example of US law enforcement appearing to align with neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups while targeting anti-fascist activists and Donald Trump protesters after violent clashes.“It is shocking and really angering to see the level of collusion and the amount to which the police covered up for the Nazis,” said Yvette Felarca, a Berkeley teacher and anti-fascist organizer charged with assault and rioting after participating in the June 2016 Sacramento rally, where she said she was stabbed and bludgeoned in the head. “The people who were victimized by the Nazis were then victimized by the police and the district attorneys.”(theguardian)…[+]

The US vice-president, Mike Pence, has skipped a dinner ahead of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony where he was expected to share a table with North Korea’s head of state, in a sign of Washington’s intention to snub officials from the North at the Games. Pence briefly exchanged greetings with attendees at the dinner, including the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, but avoided Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s ceremonial head of state, who is the highest level official ever to go to the South. North Korea’s high-level diplomatic delegation, which arrived in the South on Friday, also includes Kim Jong-un’s sister. Kim Yo-jong, who became the first member of Pyongyang’s ruling dynasty to set foot in South Korea since the Korean war.(theguardian)…[+]