One last post before I start this terrifying plane ride.

It is refreshing to see the US making Africa more of a priority. I do hope Powell also takes a firm stand on rogue nations like ours.  I still think that the US with all its expertise should help Africa with practical solutions to some of its more pressing needs. For example, running water and electric for the majority of the masses.  Simple and efficient technologies in short. It is an obligation they owe to us when one considers the vicious cycle of exploitation (human cargo, gold, cotton and tobacco) which depleted Africa of vital resources and enriched Europe and America. This system of exploitation which led to the gold standard and then evolved into the Bretton Woods system to finally the system today.  Tough talk and rhetoric needs to be replaced with aid in the form of technical expertise to empower our people.

A good start would be for them to admit these wrongs and start to rectify the wrongs of the past on the right footing..

Any comments

This is culled from the BBC's site.

American Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Mali on Wednesday at the start of a four-nation African tour to discuss regional conflicts and the devastating threat of Aids.
Mr Powell, the first African-American to hold such high office in the US government, will concentrate on health issues and Aids in his discussions in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda later this week.

Speaking to journalists Mr Powell said that Africa is important to the Bush administration but he admitted that there were differences of opinion.

He said these mostly revolve around the extent to which the United States should be involved in peacekeeping operations.

Talks

During his day in Mali, Mr Powell had a meeting with President Alpha Oumar Konare and then visited a US-funded centre for research in to a Malaria vaccine.

No recent American leader took as much personal interest in Africa as former President Clinton, and now with the new US administration in office, Africans are anxious to see whether President George Bush, who they suspect is less internationalist than his predecessor, continues the trend.

They feel their best hope is in the influence that they can bring to bear on Mr Powell.

West Africa

Mali despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, is a significant political player at the moment, holding both a seat on the United Nations Security Council and the chair of the West African regional organisation, Ecowas.



Mr Powell and Mr Konare will discuss regional security

President Alpha Oumar Konare has spent the last few months trying to talk sense into his colleagues from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

But fighting continues and is now threatening to push Liberia back into a state of civil war.

It is believed that Mr Konare would press the US Secretary of State for greater American involvement in the region.

Our correspondent in West Africa says there has been a convergence of views in Washington and African capitals on the importance of neighbouring states to resolve as a region problems once considered on a state by state basis, problems ranging from economics to guerilla insurgency.

The Americans have shown little inclination for any direct military intervention in Africa since their debacle in Somalia in 1993, when 18 US soldiers were killed.

Mali

Mali is itself an impressive case study of how a poverty stricken country can use democracy and transparent financing to steer itself away from a past of corruption and political instability.



Mali is badly hit by poverty and Aids/HIV

So although it is far from one of the key military or economic powers in the region, it is what might be described by the Americans as a success story.

But seen from Mali itself, the success is less obvious.

President Konare's critics say what they have actually got is crony capitalism, and only the very few have benefited from the huge aid inflows and the free market.

In Bamako, donkey carts still mingle with the rush hour traffic, while flashy new villas are rising all along the banks of the River Niger.

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