Cape Town

President Thabo Mbeki’s role in the United Nations oil-for-food programme is to be questioned by the Democratic Alliance. ”President Thabo Mbeki must explain how he allowed South Africa’s diplomatic support to be bought by the government of the blood-thirsty, and now deposed, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein,” the DA said on Friday.

President Thabo Mbeki has appealed to all parties to ensure their candidates for the upcoming municipal elections have the interests of their communities at heart and not self-interest. Replying to questions in the National Assembly on Thursday, he said there appeared to be intense competition among people wanting to be elected by their parties as candidates for the elections.

President Thabo Mbeki has dismissed speculation South Africa might follow Zimbabwe’s example in dealing with land reform. Replying to questions in the National Assembly on Thursday, he said the government was committed to respect the Constitution regarding its approach to land reform, restitution and redistribution.

About R67,2-million not spent on HIV/Aids projects may be given to international organisations, Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said at Parliament on Thursday. ”As a minister of health I wouldn’t be proud of that statement,” she told reporters at a pre-Aids Day briefing.

The Cabinet says the suspension of three top intelligence officials was not related to party politics and did not represent ”some settling of scores in relation to party-political issues”, according to a statement by government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe after the regular Cabinet meeting held in Cape Town on Wednesday.

The African National Congress needs to find a ”far more dignified” way of dealing with the succession issue, business magnate and former party heavyweight Tokyo Sexwale said on Monday. ”What we are seeing with the [Jacob] Zuma/Thabo Mbeki debacle is less than dignified,” he told an Institute for Justice and Reconciliation symposium in Cape Town.

The undertaking business will controversially call for the HIV status of the dead to be recorded on death certificates, the United Funeral Association of SA (Ufasa) said on Monday. ”The government must recognise what the health threat is to the industry,” Ufasa’s founder member Johan Rousseau said.

Wildlife experts and government officials from South Africa and Cameroon wrapped up talks on Friday on the future of four rare gorillas claimed by both countries. The Western Lowland gorillas were smuggled out of Nigeria through South Africa and to Malaysia’s Taiping Zoo about three years ago.

International experience showed judicial education was an effective way of supporting transformation, the University of Cape Town’s Law, Race and Gender Research Institute said in a submission to the judges’ probe into racism and sexism.

President Thabo Mbeki himself is to blame for the destructive power struggle that is going on in the ruling African National Congress, says official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. He says South Africa is facing a potential constitutional crisis because of the struggle for power within the ANC itself.

For all the achievements of the past decade, the struggle for a free media continues, the African National Congress said on Friday. The country marked Media Freedom Day this week, and the challenge is to build a robust, free and diverse media at a time when the market, not the state, is posing the greatest threat to media freedom, the party said.

Africa’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, South Africa, this week unveiled plans for a research and development strategy to address climate change at a national conference in Midrand. However, some local scientists were unimpressed with the conference.

The African National Congress ruling party has welcomed the resolution of a race row that erupted in the Cape High Court in the past two weeks. In a statement on Thursday, parliamentary caucus spokesperson Mpho Lekgoro said the caucus had confidence in the judiciary’s ability to deal with the matter competently.

A ceasefire was declared in the Hlophe race war on Wednesday when Chief Justice Pius Langa said that none of the protagonists wants any further action to be taken. Langa made the announcement in a statement issued at the end of a three-day meeting of the Judicial Service Commission in Cape Town.

Improved financial management and an increase in tourism revenue has seen the Robben Island Museum move into the black over the past financial year, MPs heard on Tuesday. ”We have, over three years, turned a loss of R8-million [in 2002/03] to a profit of R7,3-million,” museum chief financial officer Nash Masekwameng told Parliament’s arts and culture portfolio committee.