The United Nations has joined Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government in appealing for more than $700 million in humanitarian aid for the ruined country.

But while Western countries may show willing when it comes to emergency aid, they are still reluctant to give money to the government between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, his old rival.

First, they say, there must be broader political reforms and a clearer demonstration of respect for human rights.

The Western countries have long been at odds with Mugabe, accusing him of ruining Zimbabwe after the seizure of white-owned farms, of widespread human rights abuses and of making a mockery of elections last year that were widely condemned outside Zimbabwe.

But if those countries don’t come up with the finance that the government needs, some believe there is a danger it could undermine prospects for change rather than strengthening them.

"My advice is for the international community to engage Zimbabwe as the opposite of this will only benefit hardliners," Tsvangirai told a visiting French minister last week.

The unity government has said it won more than $1 billion in promised credit lines from African banks for private firms, but says it needs more than $8 billion for reconstruction.

Should Western countries aid the government now, or is it too soon?

You can have your say on the survey below. Your comments are welcome too.

Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has seen off other challenges in almost 20 years in power and there is no sign that he is going to give in to the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Some supporters of the court's move hope it will eventually persuade Sudan's politicians to hand over their leader in a palace coup, end the festering conflict in Darfur and do more to repair relations with the West.

But many signs point in the other direction, turning Bashir further towards allies such as Russia and China as he strengthens his hold on power.

Some believe the court’s decision could worsen the fighting in Darfur because rebel movements will be emboldened and because Khartoum will feel that there is no longer any point in trying to pander to the West.

There are also concerns over what it could mean for the 2005 peace deal that ended the two-decade north-south war - although officials from the semi-autonomous south have been quick to say, in public at least, that they are standing behind Bashir.

While Bashir remains in power, the arrest warrant means the West has lost one of its strongest negotiating cards with Sudan -- the offer to normalise relations.

The new U.S. administration could still offer Sudan the carrot of removing the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. But early statements from President Barack Obama and his team suggest they plan a tougher stance on Sudan.

Some of the 30 African countries who signed the founding statute of the International Criminal Court may start reconsidering their involvement. Many states already feel the court's investigations to date have unfairly targeted the continent.

And there is no sign that Bashir will be arrested. Despite the call from the ICC for all countries to implement the warrant, he plans to go to an upcoming Arab summit in Qatar and intends to join future African summits. While Qatar has not signed up to the statute, if Bashir were to get away with visiting a country that has done so it might seriously challenge the court’s authority.

Was it right for the court to issue the warrant against Bashir? Will it improve the situation in Sudan or make it worse? Could it end up undermining the court? What do you think?

Earlier this month, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argued that Africa needs Western countries to cut long term aid that has brought dependency, distorted economies and fuelled bureaucracy and corruption. The comments on the blog posting suggested that many readers agreed. In a response, Savio Carvalho, Uganda country director for aid agency Oxfam GB, says that aid can help the continent escape poverty - if done in the right way:

In early January, I travelled to war-ravaged northern Uganda to a dusty village in Pobura and Kal parish in Kitgum District. We were there to see the completion of a 16km dirt road constructed by the community with support from Oxfam under an EU-funded programme.

The road is bringing benefits in the form of access to markets, education and health care. Some parents say their daughters feel safer walking to school on the road instead of through the bushes. Many families have used the wages earned from construction work to pay for school fees and medical treatment. This is the impact of aid.

Having lived and worked in east Africa, I have witnessed the positive effects of aid. But done badly, it can be very limiting and even has the potential to create more harm. To avoid this, it must be provided within an enabling environment in which it is used as a catalyst for change and not as an end in itself. Governments must show leadership through an accountable system.

For individuals, access to resources – including aid - is like an investment. Aid can build up poor people’s assets, support good governance and enhance skills and capacities to bring about transformation. But it can become a bane when it makes communities dependent, lazy and hopeless. Governments, aid agencies and the United Nations need to ensure the delivery of aid is well planned and coordinated, leading to higher self-reliance among poor communities.

Aid is also beneficial when trade is fair. There are several examples in Africa, like the case of coffee farmers in Uganda, where aid has been used effectively to improve the overall quality of the coffee seeds, thereby giving farmers better prices for their produce. When they have access to markets at home and abroad, they generate income which is ploughed back into increased output, better access to health and education, and overall improvement in the quality of their lives. To make this happen, developed countries need to stop procrastinating and put in place fair trade practices.

Aid works well if governments are accountable – in other words, when they are responsible and encourage active citizenship. On this continent, civil society is still weak and needs to be nourished. But stopping aid will not resolve frustrations about poor governance, which is partly a result of weak public scrutiny. Aid should be used to help fight corruption and promote accountability through active input from ordinary people.

As I have argued here, receiving aid is not just an act of charity. It should be understood as the right of poor communities to a life of dignity. As stated in international conventions, people have a right to good health, food, water and education. We all need to ensure the planet’s resources are equitably distributed. As Mahatma Gandhi said, you must be the change you want to see in the world.

So what do you think? Which argument is most convincing?

A new book on corruption in Kenya is considered so explosive there that copies are only being sold under the counter in Nairobi by some book sellers too nervous to display them openly.

"Within these pages, we stand eyeball to eyeball with corruption. The book is an ironclad tell-all that mercilessly bares all to the light," said the local Sunday Nation newspaper in a review of Michela Wrong's book. "It feels dangerous to just read, let alone write."

Just published, "It's Our Turn to Eat" tells the story of Kenyan anti-corruption whistleblower John Githongo, who uncovered details of one of the country's biggest scandals, the $750 million Anglo Leasing affair involving inflated security contracts.

At the heart of the book is a portrayal of an ethnic clique intent on enriching itself and holding on to power - a picture familiar to many other African states.

We are told that, as Githongo's investigation deepens, the circle of suspects widens to include many senior officials, members of the Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's biggest, to which Githongo and President Mwai Kibaki belong. When he made his findings public in 2006, Githongo was vilified by critics for betraying his tribe in exposing "Africa's Watergate".

"The title of the book is an appeal Githongo's colleagues made to him: 'It's our turn to eat, John. Don't rock the boat'," said former British envoy, Edward Clay, who once equated the Kenyan government's tolerance of grand corruption to vomiting on the shoes of the donors who provide aid. "For the corrupters it is a sweat provoker," he said at the book's launch in London.

Wrong's book is being serialised in Kenya's biggest newspapers, The Nation and The Standard, at a time when the government is again tainted by scandal.

Since Kibaki's disputed re-election set off tribal-based clashes that killed at least 1,300 people last year, a unity government bringing in leaders from other ethnic groups including the Luo and Kalenjin, as well as Kikuyu, has been accused of foul play over everything from the sale of a hotel to fuel and maize supplies.
   
Even for a nation used to hearing about corrupt practices, the scandal involving the mismanagement of maize reserves has stoked anger at a time 10 million Kenyans face starvation.

"People are really mad because politicians used a system devised to bring down maize flour prices to enrich themselves," said one Kenyan professional in Nairobi. "The flour is still expensive, inflation is up and drought is threatening lives. People are baying for blood."

For many kenyans, it seems Kibaki's promise to end graft, the pledge that first brought him to power in 2002, sounds as hollow as ever.

So, what can be done?

Wrong argues that the key to fighting graft in Africa does not lie in fresh legislation or new institutions.
   
In Kenya, as in many other countries, the anti-corruption body is "part of the grand corrupters' game, providing them with another bureaucratic wall behind which to shield, another scapegoat to blame for lack of progress," she says.

"Rather than dreaming up sexy-sounding short cuts, donors should be pouring their money into the boring old institutions African regimes have deliberately starved of cash over the
years: the police force, the judicial system and civil service".

Donors, she said, "would do better to target the Western companies, lawyers' chambers and banks which make it possible for crooked African leaders to spirit hundreds of millions of dollars out of the continent each year."

Do you think that would help? Do Githongo and other whistleblowers make a difference?

How times change. Somalia’s new Islamist president has been feted in Ethiopia, whose army drove him from power two years ago - with Washington’s backing - when he headed a sharia courts movement.

Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was greeted with a standing ovation from African Union leaders at a summit in Ethiopia, which pulled the last of its troops out of Somalia last month, leaving the government in control of little beyond parts of Mogadishu. The hardline Islamist al Shabaab militia control much of the rest of southern Somalia.

Somalia was far from being a prominent front in former President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror”, but the reverse Washington suffered there appears to be among its most dramatic. Meanwhile, the past two years have brought at least another 17,400 civilian dead in Somalia and more anarchy that has fuelled a wave of piracy.

Ahmed’s former administration was marked out by both the United States and Ethiopia as being little different to Afghanistan’s Taliban. Hardline members of the group were accused of links to al Qaeda. Now he is widely described by the international community as a “moderate” and he himself has welcomed the new U.S. stance as positive.

"One can say that the U.S. position towards Somalia has become honest," he told the Egyptian newspaper el-Shorouk. "In the framework of the Djibouti negotiations, America has become a force which supports peace."

But Somalia’s new president, chosen by parliamentary vote at the weekend, must now face the al Shabaab militia who grew out of the armed wing of the sharia courts
movement but later split with him. Al Shabaab have vowed to fight and highlighted his support from “non-believers”.

To try to bolster Ahmed, Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete, the African Union chairman, called for U.N. troops to join the 3,500-strong AU peacekeeping force in Somalia. Right now, they cannot do much more than to try to defend themselves.

But some analysts and Ahmed's aides believe that creating a U.N. force would be counterproductive because it could be seen as Western interference and encourage those who fought the invading Ethiopian troops to pursue their struggle.

Getting Somalia's clans behind the government will be another big task, a challenge previous leaders have failed to meet during 18 years of conflict.

What is the chance that Ahmed’s election as president will be able to bring peace to Somalia? What should Africa and the rest of the world do to try to make sure that happens? What do you think?

The Somali pirates who released a Saudi supertanker got a $3 million reward, according to their associates. Good money in one of the world’s poorest and most war-blighted corners.

But the waters off Somalia are getting ever more crowded with foreign ships trying to stop the pirates. As well as potentially making life more difficult for the hijackers, it has become a real illustration of the much talked about global power shift from West to East in terms of military might as well as economic strength.

This raises a question as to whether this will lead to close cooperation, rivalry or something altogether more unpredictable.

This week the United States said it planned to launch a specific anti-piracy force, an offshoot of a coalition naval force already in the region since the start of the U.S. “War on Terror” in Afghanistan in 2001.

It wasn’t clear just what this would mean in practical terms since U.S. ships were already part of the forces trying to stop the modern day buccaneers, equipped with speedboats and rocket-propelled grenades. It was also unclear which countries would be joining the U.S.-led force rather than operating under their own mandates.

The U.S. announcement came two days after Chinese ships started an anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden. This is the first time Chinese warships have sailed to Africa, barring goodwill visits, since Ming Dynasty eunuch Admiral Zheng commanded an armada 600 years ago.

As my colleague Sanjeev Miglani wrote last month, the Chinese deployment was being scrutinised by the strategic community from New Delhi to Washington.

The Chinese had actually been catching up to other Asian countries. India already had ships in the region. So did Malaysia, whose navy foiled at least one pirate attack this month. Reasserting its might, Russia had sent a warship after the big surge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen. The European Union has a mission there.

For Asian countries there is good reason to send warships. This is the main trade route to markets in Europe and their ships have been seized. Attacks on shipping push up insurance rates and force some vessels to use more fuel on the longer, safer route around Africa instead of taking the Suez Canal.

But there certainly appears to be evidence too to back up the U.S. National Intelligence Council’s “Global Trends 2025” report late last year that highlighted the relative decline in Washington’s long term influence in the face of the rise of China and India.

As well as being a chance for the world’s old and new powers to show their strength in terms of numbers, the anti-piracy operations off Somalia could prove something of a test of effectiveness.

While the hardware the navies have will always outclass that of the pirates, the new powers may have an advantage in more robust rules of engagement. That might lead to mistakes, however. In November, India trumpted its success in sinking a pirate “mother ship”. It later turned out that a Thai ship carrying fishing equipment had been sunk while it was being hijacked. Most of the crew were reported lost.

There is a lot of sea to cover, one of the reasons why naval forces have had so much difficulty in stopping the hijackings, but the presence of so many navies in the same area at the same time must raise questions over how well they are going to work together.

Will this become a model for cooperation in a new world order? Or are there dangers? Might this also end up being a display of how little either East or West can do in the face of attacks by armed groups from a failed state with which nobody from outside seems prepared to come to grips? What do you think?

(Picture: Commanding officer of a U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser monitors the pirated ship off Somalia REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Handout)
(Picture: Forces from French naval vessel “Jean de Vienne”, seen in this January 4, 2009 photo, capture 19 Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. REUTERS/French Navy/handout)

Fifteen years ago this month, Guinea’s late ruler Lansana Conte made clear what form democracy would take under his rule.

We answered a summons to a late night news conference to hear the result of his first multiparty election, speeding through silent streets where armoured vehicles waited in the shadows. The interior minister announced that ballots from the east, the opposition’s stronghold, had been cancelled because of irregularities. Conte had therefore won 50.93 percent of the vote. There was no need for a run-off because he had an absolute majority.

The show was over.

We rushed off to file our stories at the press centre, set up helpfully by a government under pressure to show the world it was ready for fair elections. The press centre was gone, the lines cut. In the morning, fighter jets swept over Conakry in case the message had not been clear already.

There were more elections, there was occasional turmoil on the streets, sometimes bloodshed. At one point Conte was almost overthrown, but he managed to hold on until his death from illness on Monday.

In a matter of hours, the army - Conte’s real constituency – made clear he would be succeeded by one of his own instead of any of the civilian politicians who prospered under the system over which he kept such strong control.

Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, the head of the junta, was the first soldier to announce the coup on state radio. A Guinean website said the choice was made by drawing lots. Camara’s promises - heard many before times in Africa - are to fight corruption, to hold elections in a set period – in this case two years - and not to stand himself.

Thousands of Guineans have come out to cheer, hoping for a clean break from the Conte era. But thousands once cheered Conte as a reformer. His 1984 coup followed the death of Sekou Toure, the independence era leader who became paranoid, cruel and isolated during more than a quarter century in power.

It is interesting to compare Guinea and Ghana, the first former European colonies in West Africa to win independence - Ghana in 1957 and Guinea in 1958.

In recent years, Ghana seems to have escaped its own cycle of coups and counter coups that brought ruin for decades. On Sunday, it will hold a presidential election run-off after a first round that set an example to the continent. The two candidates both appear to have a genuine chance of winning. Investment has been flowing in and living standards have, overall, been rising.

Look at the World Bank data and the winner is very clear. In the decade between 1997 and 2007, Guinea’s per capita income, in current U.S. dollars, dropped from $500 to $400. Ghana’s has risen from $370 to $590.

Will Guinea have a better chance of success this time? Is Western-style democracy appropriate in a country carved up by colonialists across ethnic lines? Is there a better alternative?

What should the world do? Western countries were never particularly vocal about Conte’s version of democracy. Will they be as critical of the junta as they have been of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, or do different standards apply?

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.”

With the West reeling from the financial crisis and pulling back some of its investment in Africa, could China step into the breach and expand its footprint on the continent - a presence that already worries Western powers?

On the face of it, China, which is relatively unscathed by the crisis, has a golden opportunity to exploit Western disarray and increase its financial and political penetration of the continent. Already there are signs that Africans are starting to look away from the West and towards other emerging markets, especially China, as they watch the banking chaos in the traditional capitalist markets.

This could have a lasting impact on Africa’s perceptions of East and West as they see Asian financial structures surviving better than those in Europe and America.

China’s economy is still robust, despite the turmoil elsewhere, with GDP growth this year expected to reach 8.5 to 9 percent. Its thirst for African commodities, especially oil, is unabated to fuel Beijing’s rapid industrialisation drive. Western governments and aid groups accuse Beijing of turning a blind eye to misrule, corruption and human rights abuses as it invests in Africa, including in controversial countries like Sudan, whose Darfur region is suffering a deep humanitarian crisis. But many Africans welcome China’s refusal to interfere in political issues, in contrast to Western attitudes.

Experts say it is questionable whether China has the capacity to get more deeply involved in Africa economically because of its existing huge exposure and the diversification of investment on the continent to include other emerging market countries like Brazil, India and Russia. Not to mention the huge petrodollar funds of Gulf states. They say that in any case economic contagion will reach China which has vital export links with the West. 

But will the spectacle of the Western capitalist system in disarray push African countries to look even more towards the East, finally breaking their strong ties with former colonial powers in Europe and with the United States. What do you think?