South Africa

Veteran South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) journalist John Perlman has resigned, shortly after the news that Nikiwe Bikitsha, his co-presenter on SAfm’s AM Live, was leaving the public broadcaster, Business Day reported on Tuesday, citing ”SABC sources”.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has offered to step down if his party feels he has failed to deliver, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Monday. It quoted the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as saying some members of his national executive are accusing him of being a stumbling block.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) on Monday declined an invitation by Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana to the ritual slaughter of a bull at a ceremony. The SPCA will not allow the minister to bait it, said executive director Marcelle Meredith. ”For now we have no further comments. We might possibly send a media release tomorrow [Tuesday],” she said.

The National Youth Commission’s chief mandate is not to implement youth programmes, it said on Monday. ”The implementing authority does not rest with us … Ours is to facilitate an enabling environment for youth development to take place,” commission chairperson Nomi Nkondlo told a media briefing in Johannesburg.

Parts of Port Elizabeth are being plagued by an unprecedented increase in the city’s rat population, the media reported on Monday. ”There are rats the size of cats,” said John Preller, CEO of the Hill Improvement District. ”It goes all the way from the top end of Rink Street to the harbour. I have had myriad complaints from businesses catering to tourism, such as restaurants.”

The South African government has strongly denied that it intervened on Sunday to prevent discussion by the Africa Union of a report that criticises the crime rate in this country, the media reported on Monday. The report of the Africa Peer Review Mechanism on South Africa was not tabled before the AU’s heads of state as planned.

President Thabo Mbeki was on Sunday expected to attend an African Peer Review Forum during which South Africa’s country report will be presented, the Foreign Affairs Department said. The forum, in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, will also look at Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya, which had already been peer-reviewed, said spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Sunday urged President Thabo Mbeki and other African leaders not to make Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir chairperson of the African Union. ”Selecting a notorious human rights violator like Bashir will set the AU and Africa’s cause back in the most significant and negative way,” DA leader Tony Leon wrote in a statement.

AfriForum has offered the government a panel of 13 Afrikaner historians and academics to help deal with the issue of name changes, and threatened legal action if the offer is refused. The civil rights initiative, established by the trade union Solidarity, said on Sunday that it had asked Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan to consult with the panel.

Xenophobia is on the rise in South Africa where foreigners are increasingly being blamed for spiralling crime and growing unemployment, thereby damaging the country’s credentials overseas. Africa’s largest economy started welcoming foreigners of all hues after the demise of apartheid in 1994 but the public mood is turning hostile.

Generations too late to be classified as Europeans, white South Africans are fighting for the right to be seen as African amid doubts about their loyalty, fuelled by a growing white diaspora. In the 13 years since the demise of the apartheid regime, about 400 000 white people have voted with their feet and deserted the rainbow nation — usually for countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain.