Wednesday, July 09, 2003

New Lords of Africa by Saskia Sassen 09 Jul 03 Warlords. They have a bad name but not all they do is bad. Their basic premise is that a good gun is better than a good law. Then there is the horsetrading: you give me oil, I will get you aid for Aids treatment; horsetrading can work when bureaucrats fail. Some warlords are grubby, others are imperial: as in Liberia, the warlord can descend from the heavens and declare it's time for the old order to go. Then there is the domestic warlord: the cowboy or the caudillo, always riding something - a horse, a tank - to an unknown destination. Although warlordism is not new, it has had to adjust to new settings, like international treaties and whatnot. And it has had to become far more complex and indirect in its horsetrading. Bush is becoming a warlord who can handle it all. Two cases come to mind. One is the current visit to Africa, where Bush wants access to oil and the installation of U.S. military bases and troops to make the region secure against terrorism. The second is the Bush administration's handling of the World Trade Organisation Doha declaration giving poor countries the right to override pharmaceutical patents in public health emergencies. [Guardian/UK] 7:05:21 AM  Google It!

Is Niger the Smoking Gun? Blair Under Fire as White House Rejects British Intelligence Claiming Iraq Tried to Buy Uranium by Ben Russell and Andrew Buncombe 09 Jul 03 The White House has dealt a devastating blow to Tony Blair by rejecting as flawed British claims that Saddam Hussein attempted to buy uranium from Africa to restart his nuclear weapons programme. The Bush administration was in full retreat yesterday with officials admitting that the allegation should not have been included in President George Bush's State of the Union address. The American admission represented the first serious split between London and Washington over the case against Saddam and exploded into a full-scale row in Westminster as Mr Blair told senior MPs that the Government was standing by its story. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour backbenchers demanded that Mr Blair release the intelligence behind the allegation to an independent inquiry. [Independent/UK] 6:29:07 AM  Google It!

Slow Ratification of Peace And Security Council from Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique 04 Jul 03 The first day of the African Union (AU) summit in Maputo was marked by discussions in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Ambassadors) on implementing the AU protocol to set up an African Peace and Security Council. Ana Nemba, Mozambique's permanent representative at the AU, told reporters that although 39 member states have signed the protocol only seven - Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa - have ratified it. The Council cannot be established until there are 26 ratifications. The Council is intended to seek solutions to conflicts, and to suggest conflict prevention measures. It is, in short, an African solution to an African problem - but there seems little chance that it will be set up at this summit. Nemba said that another five countries have expressed an interest in depositing the instruments of ratification during the summit. She would not say who they are, but from other sources, AIM understands that two of them are Angola and Lesotho. [allAfrica.com] 6:17:13 AM  Google It!