Rush to take Trump offer

MELTDOWN: 20,000 QUERIES TO SA CHAMBER IN US BRINGS DOWN SYSTEM

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A deluge of more than 20,000 queries crashed the e-mail server of the South African Chamber of Commerce in the United States after President Donald Trump said he would prioritize white South Africans in a refugee programme, the chamber said on Monday.

Trump and Pretoria are locked in a diplomatic row over a land expropriation Act that Washington says will lead to the takeover of white-owned farms.

Trump, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, said on Friday the law signed in January would "enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners' agricultural property without compensation".

It allows the government, as a matter of public interest, to decide on expropriations without compensation - but only in exceptional circumstances.

The Afrikaners are descendants of European colonists, mainly of Dutch extraction, and are mainly engaged in farming in South Africa.