He is the man who wants to split away the richer north from the rest but since he can't find any linguistic

He is the man who wants to split away the richer north from the rest, but since he can't find any linguistic or ethnic borders for the proposed independent nation of "Padania", it has been delineated in socio-economic terms, which might or might not take it almost as far south as Rome. Italy seems to be suffering from a collective sense of humour failure over Umberto Bossi. "That's why Pretoria should become the capital," insists Ms Lambrecht "It is the reality of the new South Africa.". Pretoria changed Jan Smuts Drive to Nelson Mandela Road, but Britain probably boasts more Mandela Roads than South Africa.Such is life after an extraordinary negotiated peace; no war trials, no outright victor or vanquished and the old and new forced to live side by side. A giant sculpture of a hand reaching through broken bars - already nicknamed Nelson's Hand - was commissioned for Pretoria earlier this year, but is now on hold.Near Pretoria is Verwoerdburg, named after the architect of apartheid, which recently changed its name to Centurion, with no fuss. Nor is he the only one in the new South Africa to have changed his mind: the PCI is chaired by Peter Maluleka, ANC head of the Greater Pretoria Metropolitan Council, who once wanted to burn the whole place down.But then the ANC, unlike eastern Europe or neighbouring Zimbabwe, has shown little zeal for the renaming or destruction of old symbols Monuments to the struggle have yet to appear. Last year he saw the new legislature being sited on the hill in front.

And he is reported to have told the visiting Prince Edward that his favourite spot would be the golf course next door.At least all the sites are in Pretoria, say the city's supporters. Meeting South Africa's Olympic medallists in his office, he said he fancied a new parliament being built on land behind the Union Buildings. Henry Morgenthau, the US Treasury Secretary, had drawn up a plan for the "pastoralisation" of Germany, stripping Europe's greatest industrial power of its industry.By early 1946 the honeymoon was over. The Russians were taking more than their share, tightening their grip over eastern Europe and spreading their creed to countries that by rights should have been beyond their reach.

Switzerland, one of the pillars of global capitalism, was meanwhile trading happily with the new enemy, buying large quantities of Siberian gold to feed the Soviet economy's hunger for hard currency.The West panicked. As the Cold War began to grip the continent, the Morgenthau plan was shelved in May 1946, German reparations were suspended and the rebuilding of the German economy began in the western zones of occupation, while the Russians continued to dismantle the east. Germany was to become a Western economic power with the aid of the Marshall Plan, and eventually a military force, too: Nato's first line of defence against the creeping Communist amoeba. Also in May 1946, Britain, France and the US abruptly settled with Switzerland."The Allies knew that the Swiss wanted to keep the money," says Gian Trepp, the Swiss author of a book exposing links between the banks and the Nazis "In France and Italy you had a strong Communist party. The Allies did not want to alienate Switzerland." Ridiculous as it may sound now, the West worried that the country that reluctantly gave a home to Lenin until 1917 was in danger of being seduced by Communist Russia.