Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Africa News blog:
Overdose of trouble in West Africa
That political stability is vital for investment and development goes without saying, but it seems as though too much instability can be bad for criminal enterprises too.
The cocaine cartels that used West Africa, and Guinea-Bissau in particular, as a conduit to Europe were long accused of worsening the chaos in one of the region’s poorest and most troubled states by buying off some factions of the security forces and political leaders.
But if so, things may have gone too far.
In less than a year, Guinea-Bissau has lost President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira (dead), the head of the army (dead), the head of the navy (fled), a former defence minister (dead) and a candidate to replace the slain president in the June 28 election (dead). And those are just some of the figures at the top.
Whichever of Guinea-Bissau’s leaders might have been involved in the drugs trade and which were trying to fight it, the removal of such a swathe of the leadership appears for now at least to have knocked the traffickers off balance too.
Leaders unite over financial crisis, but is it enough?
European leaders have finally got their act together. After weeks of looking divided over how to tackle the global financial crisis, they agreed on joint measures at emergency talks in Paris.
Their meeting followed talks in Washington at the weekend involving G7 finance ministers and officials from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank at which governments pledged to support the financial system. U.S. President George W. Bush said he was confident the world’s major economies could overcome the challenges.
Is Africa run better than before?
“People look at headlines from two or three countries and forget there are 55 countries in Africa and in most of them life is normal.”
That is what Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born telecoms entrepreneur and one of Africa’s best known business leaders, told Reuters at the launch of the 2008 Index of African Governance by his foundation.
