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South African President Jacob Zuma has apologised for fathering a child with a woman who was not his wife.

"I deeply regret the pain that I have caused to my family, the ANC (African National Congress), the alliance and South Africans in general," he said. The daughter of a World Cup chief gave birth to a baby girl last year believed to have been fathered by Mr Zuma.

Mr Zuma, aged 67, is a Zulu, a group which practises polygamy. He has three actual wives and at least 19 children.

Pressure

"I have over the past week taken time to consider and reflect on the issues relating to a relationship I had outside of wedlock," Mr Zuma said in a statement, admitting that it "has been a subject of much public discussion and debate".

ZUMA'S WIVES Thobeka Madiba-Zuma - married, January 2010 Nompumelelo Ntuli - married, January 2008 Sizakele Khumalo - married, 1973 Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma - divorced, 1998 Kate Mantsho Zuma - died, 2000

"It has put a lot of pressure on my family and my organisation, the African National Congress," the statement said.

Earlier this week, the president confirmed that he was having a relationship with Sonono Khoza - the 39-year-old daughter of World Cup official Irvin Khoza.

He said the matter was "intensely personal" and dismissed as "mischievous" criticism from activists who said his actions had undermined official HIV/Aids campaigns. Mr Zuma was praised last year when he announced major changes to the country's Aids policy, which included increasing the roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs.

But opposition parties now say his behaviour contradicts the government's stance on HIV prevention - preaching regular condom use and faithfulness to one partner. South Africa has the highest number of HIV infections in the world - more than five million people.

This is not the first time that the president's sex life has been under the spotlight. In 2006, while being acquitted of rape, Mr Zuma admitted that he had made a mistake by having unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV-positive. Like Ms Khoza, the woman was also the daughter of a family friend.

Mr Zuma has been married five times in all, most recently in January, and is also engaged to another woman. He has 19 children according to his office, but it is not clear if that includes the baby born last October.

Source: BBC News Africa

A Rwandan politician who stirred up controversy with comments on the genocide recently has been attacked by a group of men at a government office.

About 10 men set upon Victoire Ingabire and her driver as they waited for papers to register their party for next year's election.

She escaped unharmed but her driver was said to have serious injuries.

Ms Ingabire, a Hutu, was criticised last month for highlighting crimes against Hutus during the 1994 genocide.

Some 800,000 people were killed in 100 days of violence in Rwanda - most of them Tutsis, but many moderate Hutus were also massacred.

Police spokesman Supt Eric Kayiranga said Ms Ingabire had jumped the queue at the local government office in Kigali, Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported.

He said a group of local men attacked her because they were angry that a person who "negates the genocide" could be served before them.

But she dismissed the police version of events, saying there had been no-one waiting at the office.

"When we arrived, I saw the men who attacked us seated near houses which neighbour Kinyinya Sector. I greeted them from afar," she told RNA.

"They followed me hurriedly inside the sector office, grabbed my bag and continued roughing up my driver as I fled to the car and drove off."

She says she will now write to President Paul Kagame asking for protection.

Ms Ingabire, who recently returned to the country after 16 years in the Netherlands, has been an outspoken critic of the government.

Mr Kagame's Tutsi-dominated former rebels took power to end the genocide.

Source: BBC News Africa

The Nigerian man suspected of trying to blow up a US plane on Christmas Day is now co-operating and providing "useful" information, US officials say.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had stopped talking to investigators but started again "last week", officials told US media.

Mr Abdulmutallab, 23, is accused of trying to blow up a flight to Detroit with a bomb hidden in his underwear. He has denied a charge of attempting to murder 290 people.

The BBC's Steve Kingstone in Washington says that with Mr Abdulmutallab apparently talking again, officials say it is conceivable a plea bargain might be now reached.

Constitutional rights

An official quoted by Reuters news agency said: "Abdulmutallab is talking and has been talking since last week providing useful, actionable and current intelligence that we've been actively following up on."

When questioned on the subject, FBI director Robert Mueller told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the intelligence was valuable and that Mr Abdulmutallab was still being questioned.

The interrogation of Mr Abdulmutallab has caused controversy in the US. The suspect had been talking to FBI agents before he went into surgery for burns on his legs but afterwards refused to talk. Agents then read him full rights under the US constitution, guaranteeing he would not have to give incriminating evidence.

Some politicians argued he should have been treated as a military detainee. A senior law enforcement official told the BBC that some of Mr Abdulmutallab's family had visited him in the middle of last month and that that had played a role in him beginning to talk again.

In his earlier comments Mr Abdulmutallab said he had been trained by al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen, claimed responsibility for the failed bomb attack.

Mr Abdulmutallab caught the flight to Detroit from the Netherlands, after connecting from a flight from Nigeria.

Source: BBC News Africa