Pope Benedict XVI assumes leadership at a critical time in which the world's collective wisdom and leadership including that of the religious community is most important to face up to challenges of deepening poverty and under-development afflicting many people of the world.

I must say that, in the first instance, we got the request from many African countries who said, look, you people had better host the Parliament. So, the general feeling around the Continent was that it would be better that the Parliament was based here. In part, because of what this country has done with regard to establishing a democratic system, and we have responded to that. We have said, fine.

Pope Benedict XVI assumes leadership at a critical time in which the world's collective wisdom and leadership including that of the religious community is most important to face up to challenges of deepening poverty and under-development afflicting many people of the world.

We should never become despondent because the weather is bad, nor should we turn triumphalist because the sun shines.

I think anybody who knows anything about South Africa and the South African economy would know that one of the big constraints to growth and development is skills shortages. So all of us, need to come at this thing as vigorously as is possible and, of course, the private sector has the capacity to take it on board.

A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable

You might indeed be able to provide this money that people need to start a business, but can they run a business? This new consolidated agency [National Empowerment Fund] focuses on that matter of preparing people so that they can run business successfully.