South Africa

JOHANNESBURG - The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) will not allow former President Thabo Mbeki to be charged with genocide, league president Julius Malema says. This comes after Young Communist League national secretary Buti Manamela said Mbeki and former Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had denied many HIV-positive people access to antiretroviral drugs while they were in government. Manamela made a call for the two to be charged with genocide. "We must never surrender our leaders," says Malema. "Thabo Mbeki might have made mistakes but we can never charge him. We must not charge one of our own. If we allow that, the same thing would happen to [Zimbabwe President Robert] Mugabe, and the same would happen to [President Jacob] Zuma, and the next thing you know they will come for you," Malema says. He adds it is important for the ANCYL to support Zimbabwe's Zanu-PF. Speaking to the congregation of youth organisations of Southern Africa, Malema says the youth of Zimbabwe must stabilise the country. He says that while Mugabe did many good things, he must not use them to cling to his position. "Those who have led for a long time must allow new leaders to come in," says Malema about African leaders' tendencies to cling to power.

PRETORIA - The controversy surrounding a South African singer that critics say "butchered" the national anthem ahead of a rugby Test match against France continues to grow, prompting the embassy to deny involvement. South Africa's embassy in Paris dismisses suggestions that it recommended Durban-born reggae singer Ras Dumisani to the French Rugby Union. Newspapers have lambasted Dumisani and radio shows have been inundated with angry callers, decrying his rendition of Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika ahead of the France-South Africa match in Toulouse that left many in the crowd laughing and players furious. The South African Rugby Union has written to its French counterparts over its "dismay" over the performance. South Africa's embassy in France says it has taken note of media reports that it recommended the singer to the French authorities. "The embassy . . . rejects all claims that it chose . . . the singer. This was entirely the responsibility of the hosts," it says, adding that it has also noticed that the country's flag had been hung the wrong way. The embassy says it was asked for details of South African singers based in France and gave Dumisani's agent's name but had not vouched for his credentials or competence.

Africa & the world

WASHINGTON - The need for greater global currency stability means that the world can no longer rely, as it has done since the end of the gold standard, on a currency issued by a single country, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says. IMF MD Dominique Strauss-Kahn states that a new global currency might evolve out of the Special Drawing Right (SDR), the fund's in-house unit of account. "That probably has to be a basket," Strauss-Kahn says of the eventual replacement for the US dollar. "In a globalised world, there is no domestic solution," he says. Strauss-Kahn has expressed concern that political willingness to overhaul the international monetary system will falter if, in a year's time, the visible signs of the global economic crisis fade. He says the momentum to cooperate has already eased somewhat, six months after the London summit of the Group of 20 agreed on a need for change to ensure a more stable global financial order.

ROME - Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has called for an end to the purchase of African farmland by food-importing nations at a United Nations (UN) hunger summit, describing it as "new feudalism", which could spread to Latin America as well. "Rich countries are now buying the land in Africa. They are cheating African people out of their rights. This is also going to happen in Latin America," he says. "Small farmers are being [deprived] of their own land, thanks to new feudal powers coming from outside of Africa and buying up land very cheaply," Gaddafi adds. "We should fight against this new feudalism; we should put an end to this land grab in African countries," he says.