Mail & Guardian Online reporters and Sapa

The storm of controversy unleashed by South African Deputy Foreign Minister Fatima Hajaig's anti-Semitic comments is showing no sign of abating.

The financial storm has arrived, said Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on Tuesday in presenting his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement.

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel is among 11 Cabinet ministers and three deputy ministers who have resigned.

ANC president Jacob Zuma said on Friday that the court ruling in his favour was a victory for the justice system but had left him a ''wounded warrior''.

The Scorpions' decision to prosecute ANC leader Jacob Zuma on fraud and corruption charges was not legal, the Pietermaritzburg High Court has found.

A Somali community in Johannesburg on Thursday accused police of firing live ammunition at its members as more xenophobic attacks were reported in Gauteng and former Cabinet minister Kader Asmal questioned claims of 'third force' involvement in the attacks.

As the sun set on another bloody day of xenophobic violence in Gauteng on Monday, at least 22 people were reported dead, many more injured and 217 arrested for fierce attacks on both foreigners and local residents living in the greater Johannesburg area. Aid organisations were assisting thousands of refugees at civic centres and police stations.

A wave of xenophobic attacks spread through Johannesburg townships on Monday. Mobs beat foreigners and set some ablaze in scenes reminiscent of apartheid-era violence. A total of 22 people have now been killed in the violence directed at immigrants around Johannesburg, which began a week ago.

As a fresh wave of severe xenophobic violence gripped Johannesburg on Sunday, with five people killed in the Cleveland area, hundreds fleeing to the safety of police stations and shops in the CBD looted, President Thabo Mbeki announced that a panel had been set up to look into the attacks.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the Zimbabwe government both denied on Tuesday that they were in talks to arrange the resignation of President Robert Mugabe. At a news conference on Tuesday evening, Tsvangirai confirmed, however, for the first time personally that his party had won the elections.

African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe's organisational report, delivered on Sunday at the party's national conference in Polokwane -- was the first comprehensive admission from a party leader that the factionalism in the party was a result of a power struggle between two personalities: Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.

African National Congress (ANC) president Thabo Mbeki has hit out against party members who use lies and dishonesty to achieve their goals. Presenting his political report on the first day of the ANC's 52nd national conference in Polokwane, he said the conference had to confront ''the virus at the core of the disease''.