Word: africa
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French leaders have always been more frequent visitors to Africa than their Western peers, but President Nicolas Sarkozy looks set to eclipse them all in trips to the continent. On Thursday, Sarkozy began his fifth African sojourn in less than three years with a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a violence-plagued Central African nation that of which most Western officials steer well clear. His goal? To sell his ambitious plan economic cooperation aimed at bring peace to some of the region's embattled countries - and in the process restore French influence in Africa...
...incident illustrates the dilemma the best public servants face. The better they do their job, the longer they have to do it. After 13 years running Africa's biggest economy, Manuel actually would quite like to do something else. "You bet I would!" he tells TIME. But any plans are on hold for now. In the middle of the global slump, he knows he's needed more than ever. "There is a silly part of me that sees this appointment as a service to the people," he says. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...long way to go. Around one-third of South Africans still live on $2 a day or less. At the same time, Manuel has also helped transform how the rich world views the poor one. Globalization has given new status to places like Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa, but the institutions that manage the global economy - the U.N., the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund - still reflect the world as it was at the end of World War II. Manuel was one of the first to point this out and has consistently championed the view, now widely accepted...
...world counterparts spurn the "Washington consensus" of the World Bank and IMF, Green says "he uses these organizations as a chance to get powerful leaders to listen to him." It works, in part because he is so good at convincing people that change is possible. "I come from South Africa, where at various points in our history it seemed like we would not be able to resolve our problems," he says. "But we did. How? We all had to give up something." That's not a bad message for next week's meeting in London...
...group that is worried that 250,000 more children will die as a result of this crisis and that more children will be forced into poverty. We have to have as part of our G-20 conclusions help for the most vulnerable people. The crisis didn't start in Africa, but we've got to make sure it doesn't hurt the poorest people...