A number of African countries came to us and said, we request that South Africa should not field a candidate, because so many other African countries wanted to, and, in any case, South Africa would continue to play a role in terms of building the African Union, and so on. And they actually said, please don't field a candidate, and we didn't. As I have said, it is not because we didn't have people who are competent to serve in these positions.

Haiti was a French colony, but in 1804, the slaves rose up and defeated the French and formed the Republic. For the last 200 years, Haiti has had a very unfortunate history.

We are quite convinced, and we say this to the Palestinians, that violence is not going to solve the problem of Israel and the Middle East. We say that to the Israelis. We say it to the Palestinians.

I would regret it if I'd failed at school and university, because if I had, I would have lacked the levels of education necessary to making a serious contribution to building South Africa.

Does HIV cause AIDS? Can a virus cause a syndrome? How? It can't, because a syndrome is a group of diseases resulting from acquired immune deficiency.

We can't treat the matter of black economic empowerment as just the redistribution of existing wealth. It really has to focus on new investment, on growth, on development of employment and so on and so on.

We need to increase the capacity; we need to improve performance so that we are more effective at lending that kind of support.