Word: westernness
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With a maximum flight time of three hours, microjets will shuttle corporate executives over most of Western Europe. Given that they can land on short runways, they can also use secondary airports that may be closer to customers' final destinations. Blink will fly 45 Cessna Mustangs, and later this summer Dublin-based Jet Bird will launch a rival European shuttle service with 100 Embraer Phenom 100s. More operators are expected as manufacturers such as Adam, Hondajet and Eclipse bring new microjets to the market...
...romance has cooled. Some African activists worry that Beijing still sometimes props up ancient autocrats like Mugabe. In nations with strong civil societies like South Africa, there is a growing realization that many Western firms train local workers and understand how to operate in a free political environment. Meanwhile, activists in places like Ethiopia and Namibia have condemned Chinese investment practices, including poor wages and importation of Chinese laborers. In one of the worst incidents, Zambia exploded in protest after an accident at a Chinese-owned copper mine there in 2005 killed over 50 Zambians...
...even as African nations fall out of love with Beijing, Western fears have intensified. At closed-door briefing sessions on Africa sponsored by intelligence agencies, I've found nearly every question focuses on negative aspects of China's rise - whether it will undercut efforts to promote better governance in Africa, and whether China's thirst for oil will push out Western firms while boosting Chinese weapon sales to Africa. In part to shore up its position there, the Pentagon has launched a new Africa Command, its first unit designed to focus on the continent...
...allowed venal governments to ignore multinational donors seeking conditions to ensure that governments buy bread, not BMWs. In a world where easily recoverable oil is dwindling and the price has hit record highs, competition for untapped offshore petroleum in West Africa could spark conflict, with Chinese and Western firms jockeying to build new infrastructure, control ports and woo political leaders. Through its training programs for African technocrats, many of whom return from China amazed, Beijing could indeed promote its authoritarian development model to a continent where democracy still has shallow roots...
...many Western concerns are absurd. As a huge buyer of commodities, China has powered some of Africa's strongest growth since independence - hardly a negative trend. Cheap Chinese consumer goods have also stretched African shoppers' small budgets. Meanwhile, for a nation like France to complain about China's human-rights record on Africa seems beyond a pot-kettle comparison - France has long sponsored African "democrats" like former Central African Republic leader Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who was ultimately convicted of at least 20 murders. Likewise, the U.S. has close ties to Ethiopia's abusive regime, and to oil-rich...