The overthrow of Madagascar’s leader may have had nothing to do with events elsewhere in Africa, but after four violent changes of power within eight months the question is bound to arise as to whether the continent is returning to old ways.

Three years without coups between 2005 and last year had appeared to some, including foreign investors, to have indicated a fundamental change from the first turbulent decades after independence. This spate of violent overthrows could now be another reason for investors to tread more warily again, particularly as Africa feels the impact of the global financial crisis.

"Although I don't think these instances of instability in Africa are related to each other or part of a pattern, I think there's no doubt external constituents and businesspeople around the world will assume there is a pattern," said Tom Cargill, Africa Programme Coordinator at London thinktank Chatham House.

The fact that coup makers have succeeded without being forced to step down or even face major censure could also embolden those who might be tempted to take power in bigger countries, where falling growth is encouraging disaffection.

"Look at ... other African countries, so-called pivotal states: Nigeria is in a terrible state, so is Egypt, so is Kenya, all these so-called big countries," said Hussein Solomon, a political science professor at the University of Pretoria.

Although there can be a tendency to group very diverse African states together, the picture is far from uniform - Ghana's presidential election two months ago was one of Africa's closest, but avoided major violence, reassuring investors despite an acute fiscal crisis.

But social pressures are growing across Africa as a result of the world economic crisis.

The dramatic U-turn by rich countries as they bail out or buy up failing industries is also prompting a reassessment of the model sold to Africa by Western donors since the Cold War -- a combination of market capitalism and multiparty democracy.

Cargill said factors were both the financial crisis and the rise of one-party state China, an increasingly important source of investment and trade for Africa.

"I think in future the whole idea of the democratic capitalist system will be tested and questioned, and there will be some who take advantage of its being questioned for their own private ends to launch their own bids for power," he said.

That debate is already taking place at the African Union, whose rules ban unconstitutional seizures of power but whose chairman for the next year, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, opposes what he says are foreign democratic structures imposed on Africa.

The AU has told Madagascar that any seizure of power by unconstitutional means would be considered a coup d'etat, punishable by AU sanctions or suspension.

But that sits uneasily with Gaddafi's rebuke last week of Mauritania's first democratically elected leader, largely confined to his village after being deposed in a coup last year.

"He must accept the fact,” said Gaddafi, who seized power in 1969 “He is not the first head of state to be overthrown.”

Is Africa returning to the old ways or did it never really leave them behind? Will a reassessment of the financial model pushed by Western donors also mean a new look at the multiparty democracy?

Libya's often controversial leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has finally won the top seat at the African Union and promised to accelerate his drive for a United States of Africa, but it seems doubtful that even his presence in the rotating chairmanship will do anything to overcome the reluctance of many African nations to accelerate moves towards a federal government.

Gaddafi, a showman whose fiery, often rambling speeches, sometimes unconventional behaviour and colourful robes are always a scene stealer at international gatherings, has been pushing for a pan-regional govenrment for years. But like his previous, three-decade drive to to promote Arab unity, it has not aroused much enthusiasm in many quarters. All the AU's 53 states have said they agree in principle but estimates for how long this will take vary from nine years to 35.

Gaddafi was installed as chairman on Monday, the first time he has headed the AU or its discredited predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity although his aides say he has rejected the role twice before, preferring to work as a backroom reformer. He vowed in his inaugural speech to push forward with his pet project and said if there was not a majority opposed at the next summit in July, this would mean the idea was approved - somewhat discordant with the AU's traditional way of making decisions by consensus. AU leaders were berated by Gaddafi at a three-day summit in Ghana in 2007 for not agreeing to immediate union but braved his scorn and did not reach a deal. Regional economic power South Africa, with its considerable clout, leads the group of reluctant nations.

Delegates in Addis Ababa said privately that they felt duty bound to discuss the idea on the first day of this summit on Monday because Gaddafi is now an older statesman of the organisation and has poured money into some parts of the continent. But if anything, this meeting slowed down the process further. It agreed to change the AU Commission into a vague authority whose additional powers are not clear, and even that won't be launched until the next summit. Outgoing AU chairman Jakaya Kikwete, the Tanzanian president, said on the one hand that the authority would have more power but on the other that member states are not willing to give up their sovereignty.

There are also those within the AU who are uneasy about Gaddafi's prominence, given his previous alleged bankrolling of terrorism, for which he was ostracised by the West up until 2003. Then he was brought in from the cold after taking responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people and abandoning the search for weapons of mass destruction. Human rights groups also accuse his security forces of arbitrary arrest of political opponents and torture.

But whatever your views of Gaddafi, he remains a consummate showman. For years his caravan of hundreds of bodyguards, including a special all-woman unit, and his insistence on sleeping in a tent at AU summits --often in the grounds of luxury hotels--caused pandemonium among press photographers and cameramen.

At the AU summit this year, he flew a group of around 30 customary African leaders to Addis and managed, despite the objections of security men, to bring seven them into the conference hall for his inauguration as chairman. Their gorgeous robes and royal regalia rivalled Gaddafi's own typically eye-catching golden robes and cap. One of the group, a "king' from Benin, hailed the Libyan leader as a "King of Kings", generating one of the most used photographs of the summit.

Is Gaddafi good for Africa or should other leaders ignore him? What do you think?

He may have died in a car crash last month whilst drunk, but Austrian rightist Joerg Haider is not gone.

Haider, who was enmeshed in nearly every part of Austrian political life, is now being hailed for his efforts to help two Austrian hostages being held in the Sahara months before his death.

According to a newly-published e-mail, Haider asked the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in March for help in freeing Andrea Kloiber and Wolfgang Ebner, who disappeared in February while on holiday in Tunisia. They are believed to have been held by al Qaeda’s North African wing.

The hostages were released last week, several months after Haider wrote to his close friend Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. The Austrian Foreign Ministry said Libya only helped in initial negotiations but not the eventual release.

Whether Haider’s contribution was decisive or not, the news has only added to his image as a “hero of the people”.

The daily Oesterreich, which printed extracts from the e-mail, has already published a DVD of Haider’s life and romantic images of him dressed in traditional Austrian costume, looking out over the mountains of Carinthia, where he was provincial governor. Some 25,000 people attended his memorial service in Klagenfurt last month.

Many did not seem to think his divisive anti-immigrant rhetoric was much of an issue and were fiercely loyal towards Haider, one of Austria’s few internationally recognised figures.

Even Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, a Social Democrat who openly opposed many of Haider’s views, has admitted that his opponent had enormous ability to reach out to people.

Posted by Andrei Makhovsky and Salah Sarrar

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko and Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi found they had plenty in common when they met in
Minsk this week.

Both their  countries have started to come in from the cold after years of
international isolation and sanctions that were imposed on their
countries because of their policies.

They also share a vision of a multi-polar world to
counterbalance U.S. influence.

But despite their efforts to improve ties with the West,
they could not avoid a dig at Washington.

“We both see as a key issue that the world must be
multi-polar. We already know what a unipolar world leads to,” Lukashenko said.

Gaddafi, who pitched his tent at one of Lukashenko’s
residences outside Minsk after visiting Russia, said that in their discussions of international issues “our views coincide”.

Mutual praise was not in short supply at Monday’s talks.

Western punitive measures have been lifted on Tripoli while
the European Union is committed to intensified talks with
Belarus and has suspended a visa ban on Lukashenko.

Libya has emerged from the sanctions imposed in connection with the 1988 destruction of a U.S. commercial airliner that killed 270 people in Scotland
and the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin disco that killed three people.

It has since abandoned weapons of mass destruction
and declared an end to confrontation with Washington, leading to a visit in September by U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice.

Belarus may not be as far down the road to full
normalisation of ties with the West but it has started out on
that road, while remaining mindful of its traditional ties with
Russia, on whom it depends for energy supplies.

Lukashenko was long accused of hounding Belarus’s
opposition, muzzling the press and rigging elections. He has
called for better ties with the West after a row with
traditional ally Russia last year over energy prices.

The EU eased sanctions after Belarus released detainees
deemed political prisoners in August and held a parliamentary
election which Western observers said was an improvement over
earlier contests but still short of acceptable standards.

“We are happy to see your victories in the international
arena. We know how difficult it was to withstand international
sanctions illegally imposed on your people,” Lukashenko said.

Gaddafi, who went on to Ukraine after Belarus, said: “Libya has travelled down a difficult path when international sanctions were imposed on it … and it was at that time that Belarus extended the hand of friendship.”

Once called the “mad dog of the Middle East” by President Ronald Reagan, Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi will meet U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week.

Senior State Department official David Welch told reporters he had met Gaddafi — “a person of personality and experience” — several times. 

“We don’t refer to Colonel Gaddafi in those terms today,” said Welch when asked about Reagan’s derogatory reference. 

He anticipated Rice, America’s most senior diplomat, was “quite capable” of meeting with Gaddafi and looking after U.S. interests. 

“She is anticipating this one with great interest,” he said of the upcoming Tripoli encounter. 

No word on whether the meeting — the first between Libya and a U.S. secretary of state since 1953 — will take place in one of Gaddafi’s tents.