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If you don't understand history, you will not be able to deal with today's issues.

Thabo Mbeki

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Thabo Mbeki
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: June 18
Economist
Politician
South African Politician
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki
Able
Deal
Deals
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History
Today

More quotes by Thabo Mbeki

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The people of Zimbabwe have a responsibility to ensure that the government that they elected behaves properly.
Thabo Mbeki
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It's a big problem in South Africa up to this day: many people want to open factories, they want to invest, but then they discover that they don't have the skilled people to employ.
Thabo Mbeki
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The Communal Land Rights Bill then said, since there would be those collectives set up in terms of the other legislation, there was no need for them to set up other structures to deal with the land issues.
Thabo Mbeki
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There must be no abuse of people and they did ask that the South Africa Government should give them whatever support they needed to make sure that they have a proper legal process, proper detention, no abuse of people during interrogation and all of that. And so, we agreed.
Thabo Mbeki
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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.
Thabo Mbeki
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Our troops are in Burundi. We were requested by African countries who said, look, the United Nations is not moving on this matter, can you people deploy people, so we can move Burundi forward.
Thabo Mbeki
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South Africa was to evolve into the most pernicious example of the criminal practise of colonial and white minority domination.
Thabo Mbeki
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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.
Thabo Mbeki
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Сertainly to the extent that we talk about not just procurement in the sense of acquiring goods from the rest of the economy, even to the extent that it is possible to bring Black players in areas where we say we need to raise the capacity of these organisations to deliver services, it is a very important part.
Thabo Mbeki
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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.
Thabo Mbeki
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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.
Thabo Mbeki
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South Africa now needs skilled and educated people to say 'How do we manage and develop this democratic country?'
Thabo Mbeki
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You can't abandon people there and say, go and find a job, when you know they are not going to be able to find one, and therefore starve to death. So we have got to address that matter, but we have got to address it systematically.
Thabo Mbeki
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The problem is not a lack of understanding of what we are saying and doing the problem is difference of opinion about what to do.
Thabo Mbeki
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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.
Thabo Mbeki
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We have a series of regular meetings with South African business. Big business. Black business. Agriculture. As well, of course, with the trade unions. A whole series of meetings like that which engage issues that these South African social partners need to address.
Thabo Mbeki
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We are in the process of negotiating an agreement with the United States. We will be negotiating agreements with India and China. We are in the process of negotiating an agreement with Mercosur, South America. So there are a number of these trade agreements in the major markets of the world.
Thabo Mbeki
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A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable
Thabo Mbeki
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The engagements with the International Investment Council have developed in a very interesting way. It is, again, the point I raised at the beginning.
Thabo Mbeki
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You can see now with all the assurance that people have about the overall general management of the economy, they then ask more specific questions that we are able to answer.
Thabo Mbeki