Word: fran
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France's change of position is also an indication of how important Sarkozy views Rwanda in his efforts to radically revise French strategy toward Africa. For the past 40 years, Paris has dealt with its former African colonies under an interventionist policy called Françafrique, under which France propped up client regimes in Africa in order to maintain its political and business interests on the continent. Now Sarkozy is looking to loosen France's heavy political and military commitments in Africa and pass the responsibilities of maintaining security to a group of stable and reliable partners in the region...
...China's big advances - and Rwanda is vital to that," says Pap Ndiaye, a specialist in black history in Europe, Africa and the U.S. at the School of Advanced Social Science Studies in Paris. "Despite his early promises to change France's relationships with Africa, he's mostly kept Françafrique intact. His very significant gesture to restore relations with Rwanda may prove the first real move towards change...
...conflict remain free despite international warrants for their arrest. So while Sarkozy's humble mission to Rwanda is being seen as a good start toward reconciliation, it remains to be seen whether the trip will bear any real fruit - and if it will lead to France finally burying Françafrique and forging a new relationship with Africa...
...given that plagiarism is not exactly new - Bertolt Brecht, one of Germany's most influential poets and playwrights, once famously admitted to a "laxity in questions of intellectual property" when he was accused of plagiarizing the French poet François Villon in his play Threepenny Opera - there must be another reason that explains why the Hegemann case has created a stir in Germany. Philipp Theisohn, a professor of literature at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology in Zurich and author of a book on the history of plagiarism, believes the case struck a chord because the literary world...
...long as mass corruption, dirty money and banking secrecy are not eradicated together as a single priority, you'll never defeat the sub-activity within that funding terrorism," says François Valerian, head of private sector programs at the Berlin-based anti-corruption organization Transparency International. "Western nations recognize the urgency to treat this problem when it involves terrorism, but they become more pragmatic when it's in the form of ordinary corruption bleeding entire countries...