Johannesburg  - The ruling African National Congress (ANC) was leading in South African national elections after votes were counted at 21 per cent of the polling stations, South African radio said Thursday.

The ANC was receiving 60.6 per cent of the vote, followed by the Democratic Alliance of Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille with 21.88 per cent. Coming in third was the Congress of the People (COPE), founded by disaffected ANC members last year, with 7.63 per cent of the vote.

Johannesburg  - South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said Wednesday evening that an extra 1 million ballot papers were being printed after they ran out in some places, spawning long delays, during the country's fourth democratic national and provincial elections.

With less than 15 minutes to go before voting stations were due to close, an IEC official admitted they had just ordered more ballots, but said they were being printed as a "contingency measure" and had not yet been distributed.

Deccan Chargers have managed a decent score in IPL T20 against Bangalore Royal Challengers. At a score of 184/6, Deccan Chargers have set a difficult target for Challengers.

Deccan team has been in form during season two and has managed to keep higher rankings while Royal Challengers are still struggling.

Gilchrist elected to bat after winning the toss. His team managed to keep high run rate during the 20 overs.

Cape Town (S. Africa), Apr. 22: South African off-spinner Johan Botha has said that he is not playing in the second edition of the Indian Premier League here because of his faulty bowling action.

"There were two or three teams interested in my services, but they could not offer me a contract because of this issue," Sports 24 quoted Botha, as saying.

Johannesburg - South Africans began voting Wednesday in the country's fourth general elections since the end of apartheid, following which controversial African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma is expected to become president.

A little over 23 million people are registered to vote in elections to the 400-seat National Assembly and nine provincial legislatures, 2.4 million more than in the 2004 elections.

The emergence of a new party, the Congress of the People (COPE), from a split in the ANC last year has made these the most exciting since the first euphoric multi-racial elections in 1994.

Bogota - At least eight miners died and four others were injured in the collapse of a gold mine in northwest Colombia, officials said Tuesday.

Victor Tamayo, governor of Choco province, said the mine was located in a remote, jungle region about four hours from the nearest city.

In a separate incident in the same province, the Attorney General's office confiscated 24 dredges used in illegal gold-mining operations without permits that caused environmental degradation.