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There are few better records of the shifting fortunes of Liberia than the guest register at the Mamba Point Hotel. When Chawki Bsaibes opened up in the old Dutch embassy on Monrovia's bullet-pocked seafront in the dying days of Liberia's first civil war in 1993, his customers were peacekeepers, war correspondents and development workers. When fighting started again in 1999, the reporters returned, followed by mercenaries, and then - with the arrival of a second fragile peace after President Charles Taylor's defeat and exile in 2003 - a wild-eyed group of Western carpetbaggers after a quick buck...
Sustainable development needs good government. On the back of oil exports to China, Angola's economy has grown by up to 20% a year since civil war ended in 2002. But a corrupt and inept ruling party that has neglected to spread the wealth or diversify the economy means that when the good times end, as they now have, the effects are severe. Ricardo Gazel, the World Bank's representative in Angola, says Angola's GDP is likely to fall by anything from 17% to 23% in 2009. (Read: "World Bank: Crisis Hits Developing Nations Harder...
When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first elected woman President in 2006, she inherited a country shattered by nearly two decades of civil war. Harvard educated, a former banker and World Bank official, and an opposition leader who was jailed in the 1990s, Johnson Sirleaf had natural allies in the West and at home won widespread support for her promise of egalitarian development. But the test for Liberia's "Iron Lady" was always going to be in the doing. She spoke to Africa bureau chief Alex Perry at Liberia's Foreign Ministry in Monrovia...
...environment [of] equal opportunity and equity [for] all, where the rule of law is preserved and [government] transparency and accountability is respected. We're tackling infrastructure [and reactivating] our mines, forests and agriculture. We [got] all the U.N. sanctions lifted on our diamonds and forestry. We restructured the civil service and scaled down government. [We are working on] the restoration of basic services, such as schools and the improvement in conditions of our market people. If there's anything more important, we have restored hope of our people in the future. The challenges remain many. First and foremost unemployment. [Then...
...Burns, whose 15th book is a provocative assault on the "imperious" court and its tightening grip on governmental power. Unaccountable Justices have seized the right to overturn acts of Congress--an authority not found in the Constitution--and increasingly thwart the popular will, Burns argues. From blocking Reconstruction-era civil rights to slowing the New Deal, the court's pro-business ideologues have time and again created "a chokepoint for progressive reforms." More recently, the divisive Bush v. Gore ruling and far-right Roberts Court offer Burns little comfort. His partisan analysis will have dissenters, but Burns' elegant volume merits...