Cape Town

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The Democratic Alliance on Thursday accused the government of using drought aid to buy the votes of farm workers. "The ANC [African National Congress] government’s ‘drought assistance’ to farm workers who still receive salaries and haven’t lost their jobs amounts to buying votes," a DA agriculture spokesperson said.

South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has pledged to stand by the troubled Caribbean country of Haiti, which has since Thursday been under siege by armed opponents to its president, arguing that the country needs to be assisted in its quest to establish a functioning democratic system.

Doctors protesting in Cape Town on Friday against what they called the declining state of public health care were angered when they were prevented from marching to Parliament, as originally planned. The march was held to protest against, among other things, draft legislation that will prevent them from dispensing medication.

South African President Thabo Mbeki avoided fireworks in his State of the Nation speech on Friday, but gave reassurances on his government misusing a potential two-thirds majority in the next election while promising that the stability of the past 10 years will be maintained.

Political reactions on Friday streamed in to President Thabo Mbeki’s opening of Parliament and State of the Nation speech in Cape Town. Tony Leon, leader of the official opposition Democratic Alliance, said: ”He [Mbeki] did not address the real failures of crime, unemployment and HIV/Aids.”

United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa has condemned the government’s threat to fire doctors who take part in a protest march after the opening of Parliament on Friday. Holomisa said the government was displaying a complete disregard for the doctors’ democratic rights.

South African official opposition leader Tony Leon has suggested that President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation speech should signal a return to the "rainbow nation" philosophy. Mbeki is to open Parliament on Friday with the annual State of the Nation speech.

A third term of office for President Thabo Mbeki has never been posed within the African National Congress, ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe asserted on Wednesday. He was responding to a letter to Mbeki sent by Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon, seeking clarity on the matter.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=30621">DA suggests tips for Mbeki</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=30459">Mbeki won’t accept instructions</a>

The Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) intends recommending the minister of justice closes a loophole used to contest legislation that the AFU uses to assist other countries by freezing proceeds of crime hidden in South Africa. ”In many cases the international cooperation in criminal matters law is fairly ineffective,” said AFU head Willie Hofmeyr.

The Sizzlers gay massage parlour massacre, which claimed nine lives last January, was described in the Cape High Court on Monday as ”extraordinary, bizarre and weird”. Prosecutor Anthony Stephen said the fact that the incident claimed nine lives was ”in itself a record”.

The vision that drives the New Economic Programme for Africa’s Development is not unrealistic, chairperson of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) steering committee Wiseman Nkuhlu said on Sunday at the opening of the first-ever African ministerial conference on open learning and distance education.