The urgent problems to get under control are crime and Mbeki's mouth You can always count on Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafy, like some perennially alienated teenager, to say the most extreme thing available. He was at it again last week at a conference in Tunis, urging Africans to drive white people out of the continent. But there may be no need to drive the whites out.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many more are thinking of leaving or actively preparing to leave.
And it's not just whites who are leaving. Skilled black, Asian and Coloured South Africans are also lining up for immigration visas to Britain, Canada, the US or Australia, for much the same reasons. Crime, and particularly violent crime, seems utterly out of control in South Africa, and the economy is bumping along the bottom as the rand plunges ever lower against foreign countries. Two recent events underlined the speed with which the situation is deteriorating. As the boy lay there, conscious but near death, armed men threatened to kill his nurse, ordered him to be silent, and stole his television, CD player and other valuables.