Some news & articles about Africa

I read some interesting (and troubling) articles about Africa posted this weekend and thought I'd share them, in case you're interested:

1. Darfur, Sudan: "AU peacekeepers seized in Darfur"
2. Nigeria: Brutal Police behaviour in Nigeria
3. "Why is Africa Still Poor?" The Nation's Andrew Rice reviews theories & proposals by Jeffrey Sachs, Martin Meredith, and Robert Guest. A very interesting review but I still don't know who's got it right. Or is it "most right"? As I was reading Rice's piece, I was reminded of Naomi Klein's June article, "A Noose, Not a Bracelet," about the Live 8 concerts, Bob Geldof & those white "Make Poverty History" bracelets. Klein asked us to remember "someone else who tried to make poverty history":
   

"Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was killed ten years ago this November by the Nigerian government, along with eight other Ogoni activists, sentenced to death by hanging. Their crime was daring to insist that Nigeria was not poor at all but rich, and that it was political decisions made in the interests of Western multinational corporations that kept its people in desperate poverty. Saro-Wiwa gave his life to the idea that the vast oil wealth of the Niger Delta must leave behind more than polluted rivers, charred farmland, rancid air and crumbling schools. He asked not for charity, pity or "relief" but for justice."