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GOOD national chair Matthew Cook said no ward in the City of Cape Town had been declared. He spoke when about 25% of results were counted, and called the DA claim premature. He said it undermined the work of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and showed arrogance. ANC representative Fiona Abrams also called the announcement premature.

Michael Hendrickse, the IEC provincial officer for the Western Cape, said there was nothing wrong with parties announcing their projections. The city has 118 wards, and none was officially declared at that stage.

ActionSA mayoral candidate Dereleen James said her party had won the hearts and souls of Cape Town residents. ActionSA said it was encouraged by its showing in the metro.

The DA also said its election modelling showed more than 1-million black South Africans would have voted for it in the 2026 local government elections. It said this was a first for the party.Share

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) projects the DA will take 29% of the vote in Ekurhuleni and 33% in the City of Joburg. In Tshwane it projects 31% for the DA.

In Joburg, the CSIR projects the ANC at 20% and ActionSA at 16%. In Tshwane, it projects ActionSA at 23% and the ANC at 20%. ActionSA had 9% in Tshwane in 2021.

In Ekurhuleni, the CSIR predicts the ANC will lose part of its 2021 share to ActionSA and the uMkhonto we Sizwe Party. It also says the DA will win the City of Joburg.Share

The yellow level 4 warning covers parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Other areas named are the Free State, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, North West and Northern Cape. A separate yellow level two warning covers severe thunderstorms in the central interior and western parts of the country.

Spokesperson Lehlohonolo Thobela said some damaging conditions are expected across most of the Northern Cape. He also said isolated to scattered thunderstorms could still hit the central and eastern areas.

The Weather Service urged motorists and pedestrians to take care.Share

Congressman Gregory Meeks and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrats on foreign relations committees, want more transparency from the White House. They also want the administration to negotiate with Pretoria during the 60-day notification period.

Meeks and Shaheen said the administration is putting political spectacle ahead of real diplomacy. Congressman Richard Neal, a senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said the decision is driven by grievance. He warned that it could bring economic instability.Share

At a media briefing on Thursday, IEC Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Masego Sheburi said results shown at voting stations are provisional until the commission declares them. IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo said a results slip is valid without party agents' signatures if the presiding officer signed it.

The commission received just over 800 complaints by Wednesday night, and about 106 were still open. Sheburi said most complaints were resolved. They mainly said staff at voting stations stopped party agents from watching voting and counting.

As at 9:00am on Thursday, 23,444 of the 66,073 expected results slips were scanned into the results system. Of these, 22,983 were captured, and 16,791 of those had passed independent auditing. The IEC had concluded results in 18 local municipalities.

Mamabolo said capturing was slow because the ballots in all eight metropolitan municipalities were long. The IEC also urged people to verify information that circulates online.Share

The trial will continue from 12 April to 14 May 2027, so the state can go on with its case. The seven accused face charges that include two counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Forbes and Motsoane were killed on 10 February 2023 outside the Wish restaurant on Florida Road.

KwaZulu-Natal National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara said the evidence so far covers video, vehicle tracking, ballistics and finances. The state has also put digital evidence before the court, including CCTV footage.

The state alleges that taxi boss Mfundo Gcaba paid accused Mziwandile Gwabeni R800,000 a day after the murders. It says Gwabeni then paid dividends to all but one of his co-accused. The state also says Siyanda Myeza's gun links to bullet fragments taken from Forbes' body.Share

Nkosi resigned from the South African Police Service late last month. He returned to the Pretoria North Magistrates Court after the prosecutor's decision.

The charges say Nkosi pretended to be a senior police officer from Pretoria. They also say he interfered with evidence at the Thohoyandou police station in Limpopo in 2022. These are allegations.

Police allege that a task team found illegal firearms and ammunition at his Pretoria North property. They also allege it found official police dockets and a large sum of money there.Share

The Democratic Alliance (DA) came second in Makana Local Municipality with six seats. The Makana United Civic Movement, a newcomer party, won four seats. The figures are preliminary.

Makana includes Makhanda. Resident Kwanda Zenani said she hopes the new administration will focus on services and on the cleanliness of the water.Share

President Donald Trump said Vance's remarks were good, but he defended the war. He said the US stopped Iran from having a nuclear weapon and that he would do it again. He also said the war was only one of several reasons for the defeat.

US officials said renewed combat against Iran is still under consideration. A source familiar with the deliberations said Trump plans to bomb Iran and held off because of the midterms. A US intelligence official and two other officials said new strikes would not change Tehran's negotiating position or lead to regime change.

A person familiar with the matter said Vance's comments could be seen as the start of his 2028 campaign. A White House official said most senior staff were caught off guard by the post. Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, replied to Vance on X and mocked the vice-president for being unable to walk away from the table.Share

Police spokesperson Brigadier Hlulani Mashaba said the stabbing followed an altercation between two people who allegedly belonged to the same political party. He said an earlier confrontation was resolved. The suspect then returned, confronted the second man and stabbed him in the neck before he fled.

Mashaba said police recovered a knife that they suspect was used in the attack. He said the motive is unknown and investigations continue.

EFF provincial chairperson Lawrence Mapoulo said the dead man was the party treasurer of the Flora Park branch. He said the man died at the scene after a conflict with another person. Vote counting was taking place at the school.

The suspect is expected to appear in the Polokwane magistrate's court on Friday on a murder charge.Share

An Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome diverted to Évreux in France with 151 passengers and six crew. A Ryanair flight from Dublin to Sofia, with 185 passengers, landed safely after a threat. A Wizz Air flight from Milan/Bergamo to Sofia, with 176 passengers, also landed safely.

Four Ryanair flights were affected by bomb threats on 3 November. Rome airport operator ADR said potential threats were made against two Ryanair flights, from Lisbon and Dublin, which were searched at Fiumicino airport. ADR said the alert was cleared and the airport itself was not under threat.

Francisco Lucas, the government delegate in Murcia, Spain, said a flight from Manchester to Murcia had a bomb threat alert. All people left the aircraft and security forces inspected it. A LOT Polish Airlines flight from London landed unscheduled at Warsaw-Modlin.

Polish authorities said the threat against an SAS flight from Copenhagen to Warsaw was not confirmed. A Finnair spokesperson said its plane landed as normal. Austrian Airlines said a search of its Tel Aviv to Vienna flight, which diverted to Sofia on 18 October, found no threat. The flight later continued to Vienna.Share

Erdogan said he wanted to discuss efforts to end the war with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He made the remarks after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He said his foreign minister and other officials were holding talks with both sides.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there were no concrete plans for a Putin-Erdogan conversation. He said one could be organised at short notice if necessary.Share

A party needs 13 seats for an outright majority in the 25-seat council, and none reached that number. The DA won 6 seats with 27.24% of the vote. Makana United Civic Movement, a newcomer, won 4 seats with 19.51%.

The Economic Freedom Fighters, the Patriotic Alliance, the South African Communist Party and ActionSA each won 1 seat.Share

The EFF has 5.03% of preliminary support in the metro. The Patriotic Alliance has 4.34% and the South African Communist Party has 3.67%. The Mayibuye Civic Movement has 3%, and the National Alliance has 0.2%.

Floyd Shivambu's party has 1.38% of support, and the MK Party has 1.07%, or 1,654 votes. Shivambu is a former EFF deputy president and the MK Party secretary-general.

Retief Odendaal is the DA candidate expected to become mayor if the trend holds. The ANC had three mayoral candidates, one of them Andile Lungisa. He had said the party wanted a majority to reset what he called the 2016 collapse.Share

Burnham gave his answer in an interview with The Economist. The summit will take place in Manchester in November next year. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said Washington had invited Putin to a G20 meeting in Miami in December. Rubio said this gave Putin a chance to engage with US President Donald Trump and other world leaders.Share

Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic Leader, told reporters on Wednesday that Democrats do not work for Trump but for the American people. He said the incoming House majority would focus on affordability and accountability. Jeffries is expected to become the first Black Speaker of the House.

Democrats flipped seats in deeply Republican states. Reports said they also won races in rural and southern areas that had seemed out of reach for decades. Analysis said anger over the cost of living, linked to the US-Iran war, helped them win.

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said the result is a warning to Republicans and an opportunity for Democrats. He said the party has work to do in Congress to keep the trust of voters. Reports said the result could set up two years of deadlock in Washington.

Trump made his first appearance after the election at the White House. He showed off the ballroom that is under construction there.Share

ANC provincial convenor Mike Mabuyakhulu spoke at the Electoral Commission of South Africa's Results Operations Centre in Durban. He said it was still too early to draw any conclusions from the results.

Mabuyakhulu said that once voters have spoken, the matter is settled. He said democracy means accepting whatever comes out of a democratic process.Share

Ntombfuthi Masinga, the IEC provincial electoral officer for KwaZulu-Natal, thanked voters in the province. She said the IEC had hoped turnout would pass 50%, but it was still waiting on results. She said the work was not done.

By 8:00am on Thursday the IEC had audited 12% of results. Masinga said results do not appear on the IEC dashboard until an independent firm of auditors has audited them.

Parties have until 5:00pm on Friday to lodge Section 65 objections. The IEC said results must be published in the Government Gazette seven days after voting. Elections of municipal council representatives to district councils must follow within 14 days of publication.Share

Hill-Lewis spoke to supporters outside the Western Cape results operation centre. Reports said only about a quarter of the metro's voting stations had been counted. The DA's preliminary share then stood at 52.7%. The Electoral Commission of South Africa had not confirmed the final outcome.

Later provisional results put the DA at about 61.3% and the ANC at 11.2%. Reports differ on the count at the time of his speech, with one saying less than 30% of votes were officially tallied.

Hill-Lewis said growing support in the townships drove the result, and he thanked voters there. He said the DA recorded its best-ever performance in those areas. He also said the city cut sewage spills by a third over five years.

Hill-Lewis said Cape Town could become the only major metro with an outright majority government. Reports said the result would extend the DA's control of the city, which began in 2006.Share

Sheburi said the IEC will release the results once all material objections are in. He said the law bars the commission from declaring results before the deadline for those objections.

Chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo addressed concerns about party agents who did not countersign result slips. He said this does not invalidate the official results.

Preliminary counts show 15.9 million South Africans took part in special and election day voting. The law gives the IEC seven days to declare final results.Share

At 1.22pm the DA led in Mogale City with 43%, in Lesedi with 32% and in West Rand with 30.9%. Before 2pm it had 39% in Johannesburg, 30% in Tshwane and 37% in Ekurhuleni. Across the Gauteng metros the DA had 37.2%, with more than 420,000 votes, against 19.81% for the ANC, with about 220,000 votes.

In the national count at 1.22pm the ANC led with 32.15% and the DA had 27.83%. The MK Party had 6.5%.

DA leader and Cape Town mayoral candidate Geordin Hill-Lewis said the party would win about 58% of the vote in the City of Cape Town.

DA Gauteng federal chairperson Solly Msimanga said the party would assess the results and then enter coalition talks based on principles. He said the DA would publicly state its non-negotiables so voters could hold it to account. If no deal comes, he said, it will be because other parties wanted something different from the DA.Share

Nscale is described as the most valuable AI start-up in the UK. Its plans for a listing now face more doubt after the loss of the potential Microsoft contract.Share

Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo spoke at a media briefing on Thursday. He said counting, tallying and verification of votes went on through the night. Agents for parties and independent candidates were present, along with accredited observers.

As of 9am, 16,791 captured slips (25.4%) had been independently audited. Results from 18 local municipalities (7%) were final. The Commission said seven municipalities had finished at the same point in the 2021 election.

The Commission called the election process successful. It said all voters in line at the cut-off time got to vote. It said the faster capturing came despite longer ballot papers, more contestants and higher voter turnout.

The Commission urged candidates and political role players not to spread unverified information or disinformation about results. It said this could cause tension, incite violence and lead to damage and injuries.Share

ActionSA national spokesperson Michael Beaumont said the party had taken 12 wards from the ANC in Tshwane. He said this included every ward in Atteridgeville except one. He also said ActionSA results in Mamelodi and Soshanguve were above 50%, and that the party was well set to become the second-largest in Tshwane.

Beaumont said ActionSA is contesting 105 municipalities and expects coalitions to be necessary in many of them. He said residents were responding well to the track record and leadership of Nasiphi Moya.

DA federal chairperson Solly Msimanga said the DA had gained ground in Emfuleni, Midvaal and parts of Johannesburg. He said the party had won more than 10 wards in Emfuleni. In the past, he said, it won a single ANC ward at most in a by-election. He also said the DA now had more than one million black township voters, and credited years of preparation.Share

The Department of Conservation is working with local iwi and Project Jonah to refloat the survivors. Project Jonah specialises in rescuing stranded whales.

Project Jonah said in a Facebook post that four whales were alive. It said rescuers would try to refloat them during high tide.

Rob Bargh, a Ngawi local, told Radio New Zealand the scene was horrible. He said the whales that were still alive were close to death.Share

Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said the Australian aircraft will support its waterbombing operations. The agency's chief, Kristomei Sianturi, said Indonesia is making great efforts to control the fires. He said these include waterbombing, cloud seeding and help from foreign partners.

An Indonesian waterbombing helicopter crashed on Wednesday in Central Kalimantan while it loaded water. Three crew died and several others were hurt. The transport ministry said the helicopter carried eight crew.

The large Australian air tanker can drop 15,000 litres of water per sortie. It can fly an estimated six sorties a day.

The fires are the most intense in Indonesia in 11 years. As of 2 November, more than 400,000 cases of acute respiratory infection were recorded in seven provinces.Share

The domestic intelligence service expects 500,000 to 700,000 people to join demonstrations outside Paris. Student groups back the unions. The education ministry expects 17.5% of public primary school teachers to strike.

CGT head Sophie Binet told LCI TV before the protests that people needed to turn out in big numbers. Irma de Banville, a 19-year-old student in Paris, said many people fear police violence.

The French government has defended police tactics, but said it would investigate any abuses. An official close to President Emmanuel Macron said the aim in the coming weeks is to calm the unrest and hold the presidential election, five months away, in the calmest possible conditions.Share

Inaya Sultan, 13, lost her father, a paramedic, in an Israeli strike in March. She lives at the orphanage with about 40 other girls. She said she lets herself cry a little when she is sad, but not in front of her four-year-old half-sister, Malak.

Head caretaker Fatima Jaffal, 30, said the girls returned to find Israeli troops less than a kilometre away. She said life must go on and the girls are stronger than the war. Shereen Saad, 19, studies interior design while she lives there.

Orphanage director Ali Saad said the building needs repairs and funding. He said frequent donations from UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon will stop when their mandate ends later this year.

The health ministry says Israeli strikes since March have killed more than 700 paramedics, children and women. Israel says it seized a security zone in southern Lebanon to protect its citizens. The Israeli military says it does not deliberately target civilian infrastructure, and accuses Hezbollah of placing military equipment in civilian areas. Hezbollah denies this.Share

Javits Frimpong was shot by unidentified attackers on 29 October in the Bronx, New York. He was on his way to school. Reports said no suspects have been named.

Ghana's foreign ministry issued a statement on 30 October. It called for a thorough investigation and urged New York authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

Adu Gyamfi told foreign affairs officials who went with her to the airport that she wants justice for her son. She also said she had hoped he would study to become a doctor after moving to the US.Share

Zille, the DA's candidate for mayor of Johannesburg, spoke in an interview as results came in. She said Johannesburg voters have shown they want to rescue the city.

She said the DA is not talking to any party about coalitions yet. If no party wins 50%, she said, the DA will weigh its options and take the least bad one.

Former President Thabo Mbeki said South Africa could see more hung municipalities. He pointed to growing political fragmentation.Share