We are not being arrogant or complacent when we are said that our country, as a united nation, has never in its entire history, enjoyed such a confluence of encouraging possibilities.
That is one of the reasons why we have raised this matter about the need to focus quite sharply on the function of local government, but also on the resourcing of local government. Because it may very well be that we say to local government, you have got to run an indigent policy.
I think the Internet is absolutely extraordinary. It's very, very useful and I think one of the things we've got to do is make sure that the African continent gets on to that information super highway.
That surely must be a concern to anyone who decides this drug must be given to stop transmissions, again from mother to child, which is extremely costly and must be taken into account.
In Africa you have space...there a profound sense of space here, space and sky
A democratic government in South Africa is not a threat to white people.
You have to make sure that [grants] reach people by virtue of their Identity Documents.
We were asked to host the Pan African Parliament and we agreed to this.
If you sit in a position where decisions that you take would have a serious effect on people, you can't ignore a lot of experience around the world which says this drug has these negative effects.
We are very keen to see that nobody gets ill-treated or abused.
That it is not enough to catch a criminal and get them convicted and so on, because the victim remains with the consequences of the crime. Something needs to be done. Let's complete that process, interact with civil society about this, so that we will specify what is it that we do in the context of that Charter that would then make this positive impact on people who might have been affected by crime.
We will continue to count on your unwavering support and commitment to working with leaders of our continent in bringing about the desired renaissance of Africa.
We are continuously looking at the question of increasing the capacity of Home Affairs and that is why Home Affairs introduced mobile units, to be able to reach people. The matter of the establishment of the Social Security Agency was to deal with the matter of the more efficient distribution of these grants, the reductions in the levels of corruption and greater sensitivity. You are dealing with vulnerable people, like the elderly, who you needed to find a way of addressing, so that people don't have to be waiting in the sun in the queue, and so on.
It's very worrying at this time in the world that any point of view should be prohibited, that's banned, there are heretics that should be burned at the stake.
I am sure it is in the medical textbooks, there are many things that cause immune deficiency and you will find therefore in the South African HIV and AIDS programme, that it will say that part of what we have got to do is to make sure that our health infrastructure, our health system is able to deal adequately with all of the illnesses that are a consequence of AIDS.
I was very fortunate to be able to go to school and university, because many people our age couldn't complete school. This gift of education must be used in whatever ways we can to uplift the people.
The matter of people being attracted to other countries is a permanent problem in my view, it doesn't only face South Africa. A whole lot of countries in the world are faced with this problem.
You can't abandon people there and say, go and find a job, when you know they are not going to be able to find one, and therefore starve to death. So we have got to address that matter, but we have got to address it systematically.
What is the worst, is that you will have the meltdown of Zimbabwe that the IMF is talking about. And indeed what you will have is growing unemployment in Zimbabwe, growing impoverishment among the people, growing social conflict. And I think that is the worst sort of outcome, that collapse of Zimbabwe certainly would have a much, much worse effect on the region than mere image.
Certainly the Government has tried to handle the matter of our relations with the rest of the Continent in a very sensitive manner.
It's a big problem in South Africa up to this day: many people want to open factories, they want to invest, but then they discover that they don't have the skilled people to employ.
Of course we run a very open economy, and therefore what happens in the rest of the world, in economic terms, obviously has an impact on us.
At the same time, you have got these traditional councils. And the challenge is how to make sure that they function together [with municipal councils], smoothly, and that is part of what this legislation is trying to address.
We are improving the entirety of the system. You have got to make the grants available.
We would continue to handle our relations with the rest of the Continent with that kind of sensitivity.
