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Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe says his successor must be chosen democratically and that his wife will not automatically inherit the role, a warning to feuding members of his ZANU-PF party that he is still in charge after 36 years in power.

The comments from Africa's oldest leader, now aged 92, are his clearest indication that he wants to be president for life.

In a two-hour interview with state broadcaster ZBC TV late on Thursday he said: "Why successor? I am still there. Why do you want a successor? I did not say I was a candidate to retire." Leaders were elected not appointed, he said.

"In a democratic party, you don't want leaders appointed that way to lead the party. They have to be appointed properly by the people, at a gathering of the people, at a congress."

Mugabe said he was not behind his wife Grace's quick rise within ZANU-PF, which has led to reports that she has plans to succeed her husband.

"Others say the president wants to leave the throne for his wife. Where have you ever seen that, even in our own culture, where a wife inherits from her husband?" Mugabe said

He will be 99 if he wins and completes that term, his last under a new constitution. He also told ZBC TV he wanted to live to 100, that he was fit and still did daily morning exercises.

Zimbabweans follow his health with keen interest and some fear the government could be paralyzed and the country riven by instability if he dies without resolving the succession issue.

"I am happy because I am about to reach the age I want. You know the age I want to reach - 100 years. So only eight years remain," Mugabe said.

Fighting over leadership of a post-Mugabe ZANU-PF has intensified since late 2014, when Mugabe accused his deputy, Joice Mujuru, of plotting to oust him and fired her. Mujuru launched a new political party this week.

Mugabe said Mujuru's party was doomed to fail and that ZANU-PF was still intact. The in-fighting was "peripheral", he said.

Critics blame Mugabe for many of the Zimbabwe's problems.

They say his policies, including the seizures and redistribution of white-owned commercial farms, drove one of Africa's most promising economies into an 8-year recession and almost halved output.

In the same interview, Mugabe said his government would take possession of all diamond operations, a week after his mines minister ordered a halt to mining in the Marange diamond fields.

(Reuters)

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South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius cannot challenge his conviction for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a spokesman for the prosecuting authorities said on Thursday.

"We can confirm that Oscar Pistorius' leave to appeal has been denied," National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Luvuyo Mfaku told Reuters.

 

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A white Alabama police officer faces murder charges for the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man, authorities said on Wednesday.

Montgomery police officer Aaron "A.C." Smith, 23, is free on $150,000 bond after investigators found "probable cause" that he broke the law when he shot and killed Gregory Gunn last Thursday, Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey said.

The case now goes to a grand jury, he said.

Police killings of African-Americans, many of them unarmed, have sparked repeated protests over excessive use of force in the past few years.

An attorney for Smith told a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper that the officer had stopped Gunn and started to search him "for his own safety" when Gunn broke from him and ran, according to an interview posted on the reporter's Twitter feed.

The attorney, Mickey McDermott, told the newspaper that Smith tried six times to use non-lethal force, including using his Taser and baton, to subdue Gunn, but that Gunn picked up a weapon and Smith had to use deadly force "as he was trained."

McDermott could not be reached by Reuters on Wednesday.

In remarks to reporters earlier Wednesday, Montgomery Police Chief Ernest Finley declined to confirm initial reports that Gunn had brandished a stick-like weapon.

"It's possible," Finley said. "At the end of the day, we're going to wait for the entire report from the DA's office or the SBI (State Bureau of Investigation)."

Mayor Todd Strange said he was not aware if there is any video of the incident.

Strange said the police department, composed of about 500 officers and 45 percent black, has made big strides in community relations over the years and will continue to reach out to citizens in the wake of the shooting.

"We have bridges to build again, but let's don't tear down what we have done," Strange said.

In front of the family home in Montgomery, a woman identified as Gunn's mother spoke to reporters.

"God is still in charge. And heaven knows what happened," she said in a video posted by the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper. "Man may not know. Only one that did it and one that got done to. But heaven knows."

(Reuters)

 

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At least 24 people, many of them children, died and dozens were missing in Angola after a flash-flood swept through a market in the southern city of Lubango, state media said on Thursday.

The Angop news agency said flood-waters from the Capitao river, swollen by nearly 24 hours of torrential rain in the area, washed through the market, where many young Angolans congregated to wash cars and bicycles.

More than 30 people were believed to be missing, Angop said.

As with much of southern Africa, southern Angola has been suffering one of its worst droughts in memory caused by a strong El Nino weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean.

 

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