The country has lost its focus and can no longer be considered the continent's superpower, says Mr O'Neill, who now heads Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

ECONOMIST: South Africa��s business pre-eminence is being challenged

It is now recognised that most of the ice being lost from Antarctica is going as a result of warm water eating the fringes of the continent.

BBC: Antarctic ice volume measured

"In a continent in which most of the memory of peoples is transferred orally through storytelling and can be lost, the people in Timbuktu had a written tradition that is quite rare in Africa, " he said.

CNN: , for