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• Speaking at an African National Congress fundraising dinner in Bloemfontein, South African President Thabo Mbeki makes his first "public apology" for the country's power problems. "Eskom was right and government was wrong," Mbeki said, following an indication that government was asked earlier to invest more in electricity to keep up with the country's growth.
• German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s comments to a European Union-Africa summit that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is "damaging the image of Africa" by trampling on human rights, receive a sharp response from Zimbabwean Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu in Zimbabwe's State-owned newspaper The Herald, referring to her as a "fascist" and "Nazi remnant".
• In a keynote address at Wits University on International Human Rights Day, ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma says that HIV/Aids and crime should have been treated as national emergencies and that if people were living in fear, then the fundamental rights of safety and security were being abused.
Also making headlines:
• The Agriculture and Land Affairs Department's assertion that all is well at the Land Bank is queried by the Democratic Alliance.
• Archbishop Desmond Tutu accuses the United States and Britain of pursuing policies like those of South Africa's apartheid-era government by detaining terrorism suspects without trial.
• The Treatment Action Campaign chooses not to take sides in the battle for the ANC leadership between the party's President Thabo Mbeki or its Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
This bulletin has been compiled with the assistance of Reuters and Sapa.
Also available on the Polity website are a number of recommended reports and documents that provide for interesting reading, including:
• The African Peer Review Mechanism Country Review report for the Republic of South Africa.
• Food price trends, a report from the National Agricultural Marketing Council which examines food price trends in South Africa over a 12 month period and;
• “Schools that work” a pilot study on a sample of schools in the middle quintiles that have succeeded in achieving good Senior Certificate results.
Also freely downloadable on the site are several new pieces of South African legislation and a collection of important addresses made by South African government leaders and other leading figures from around the African continent.
That’s a roundup of this week’s activities on Creamer Media’s polity.org.za.
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