Africa

Responses to the escalating crisis in Zimbabwe have accelerated, especially after Morgan Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the campaign today. Here is a roundup:

Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos has sent a message to Mugabe asking him to make sure the election is free and fair and to eliminate the violence besieging his country.

Zim’s independent SWRadio Africa has a series of important stories on the Zimbabwe crisis.

Tanzania is taking an increasingly strong stand against Mugabe.

 And in an interview with the BBC Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka believes action is needed to confront Mugabe and does not rule out force. It has come to this.

Mauritania is a poor country that produces only 30% of its own food. Meanwhile the global cost of food is skyrocketing. Naturally the result is food scarcity and the impoverished, as they always do, suffer disproportionately. And Mauritania is not alone. Much of Africa is feeling the squeeze of this global crisis of food underproduction coupled with the increasingly tenuous capacity to participate in the overpriced global market.  

So, is the Miss Landmine beauty pageant, recently held in Angola,  an example of awareness raising or exploitation? Certainly the first response is to be shocked, and maybe disturbed, but that initial impression should give way to an understanding of the larger issues at stake involving not only the self esteem of these young women, but also the realities of landmines and the devastation they cause throughout the world, perhaps no where worse than in Angola. Next year’s pageant is scheduled for Cambodia.