China surely must be interested in a more stable, non-antagonistic relationship with the African continent precisely because of its own needs. And therefore would have to say in our own interests, as China, it is necessary that we participate in the process of the development of the African continent.

I don't know why you should isolate women in this regard. If you have a traditional leader who says 'I am the sole exclusive ruler, I am the autocrat', it will affect everybody in the area, whether they are men or women. The challenge that South Africa faces, and it is not a new challenge, a whole range of African countries have faced this challenge, is that where you have institutional traditional leadership, which in our country is protected by the Constitution, how does that institution function side by side with a democratic system?

I am quite convinced that we need to increase the resources that go to municipalities if we want the municipalities to do the things the Constitution and the law say they must do. It can't be avoided.

We would take the same position as the majority of the world about this, including this issue where Prime Minister [Ariel] Sharon made a commitment to pull Israeli troops out of Gaza.

You can say to this unemployed family, people are indigent, that they must pay for water and this and that and refuse removal and so on. They have no money. We may very well say that, but does the municipality have the capacity to do it? So, that's why we said that we need to have a thorough look at the functioning of local government and that will include the financing. So that this poor person does indeed access that water.

There is a very long list of parties in this year's election, some of the parties I have never heard of.

I have absolutely no problem with the press criticising policies and the things that we do, the things that we say.