Staff Reporter

Initial reaction to Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel’s annual Budget speech has been favourable. Manuel had some good news for taxpayers on Wednesday in his 2004/05 Budget, although the R4-billion in personal-income tax relief did not match the whopping R13,3-billion he dished out in 2003/04.

The government has allocated R2,1-billion over a three-year period for the "comprehensive" response to HIV/Aids, including provision for anti-retroviral treatment programmes by provinces through a conditional grant, according to the Budget released by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel on Wednesday.

In his Budget speech in Parliament on Wednesday, Minister of Finance Manuel said that the exchange rate of the rand is not under control of the government. "The United States elections in November will create all manner of uncertainty, so I would rather not speculate on the exchange rate," Manuel said.

Men eager to marry virgins in Chief Naboth Makoni’s eastern border town in Zimbabwe must produce documented proof of their HIV-negative status as part of Makoni’s controversial anti-Aids campaign. His unorthodox initiative has drawn the ire of women’s rights activists and health care workers, to name but a few.

South African Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Ronnie Kasrils has demanded that the Israeli government reverse "all unilateral actions [against the Palestinians] including the separation wall". Kasrils arrived in the Middle East on February 13 after receiving an invitation from Palestinian Agriculture Minister Rawhi Fattouh.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=31351">Israeli president defends barrier</a>

The South African Convergence Bill drafters must focus on criticisms raised by industry stakeholders or face the flight of the sector abroad, says Pravesh Singh, an information technology law specialist at Jan S de Villiers.

My daughter has just started in grade nought. That has not stopped her from causing chaos all over the known world. All this week other parents (and grandparents, for that matter, because many of them are the ones who insist on taking the wee darlings to school) have been looking at me strangely. Here’s why.

The gatekeeper to the town of St Marc wears a black balaclava with full military fatigues and carries his rifle as high as the Caribbean midday sun. Behind him is a town emptied by fear — a place where people whisper in the darkness of their own homes with the curtains drawn against the crackle of gunfire.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=31192">Food and medical crisis looms</a>

It really is time we were rid of the exercise in the vainglorious called the opening of Parliament. Apart from obvious reasons, like the steadily mounting costs of the affair, there are many other grounds for abandoning what has become a toe-curling embarrassment.

In recent months Johannesburg drivers have noticed a new phenomenon: blind people begging at traffic lights and major intersections. They are almost exclusively Zimbabwean, and their influx to the city has been sudden.

The Retail Motor Industry (RMI) on Wednesday warned that it is taking up the cudgels of its members to fight what it calls "abuse of the enormous powers" incorporated in the Customs Act, which it charges has unfairly been crippling small and medium-sized businesses in the automotive industry.

The presidential inauguration is expected to cost in the region of R60-million, which is in line with the costs of previous inaugurations, the South African government divulged on Thursday. The budget for the 10 years of democracy celebrations would be R80-million over two years.

"Pirate software fans, ahoy. Remember the laughable campaigns about home taping killing local music? Yeah, right. The truth is something else entirely." And Bush, Blair, Mugabe, chemistry students, the Minister of Education, Mel Gibson and Condoleezza Rice also fall under the knife of Ian Fraser.

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The 2004 national and provincial general election will be held on April 14, President Thabo Mbeki announced on Monday. In a statement to the National Assembly, Mbeki said the date had been decided in consultation with the Independent Electoral Commission and the nine provincial premiers.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=30910">Opposition welcomes election date</a>

Mathew Gondo was made homeless at the height of Zimbabwe’s chaotic land-reform programme, which began in 2000. He was a foreman at Tate’s Farm, about 120km north of the capital, Harare. His employer fled following the violent farm invasions by pro-government war veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle.