Salim Lone

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del autor incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de noviembre de 2006. Para fechas anteriores realice una búsqueda entrecomillando su nombre.

MundoÁfrica

Despite the constraints he faced in fulfilling pledges he made as a candidate, Barack Obama has succeeded in offering avenues for co-operation to Cuba, Iran, the Muslim world in general, and now Russia. This weekend, Obama will be in Ghana, and there is intense speculation about what this son of Africa, who electrified the world by so improbably taking the helm in America, will say about what he expects from, and will offer, the continent.

The president's personal knowledge of and interest in Africa, his charisma and his grassroots support mean that he could be a major player here. This is particularly true since Africa's low profile among the American political elite allows US leaders a lot of leeway in formulating policy towards it.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONUMundoOriente Próximo

That August day four years ago in Baghdad, I was standing in the rubble of Canal Hotel, the UN headquarters that had been devastated by a huge terrorist bomb. In a break from my non-stop media briefings - I was spokesman for the UN's Baghdad mission - I was talking to Ronnie Stokes, a senior American colleague. Then, abruptly, I turned around. In front of me lay 12 neatly-draped white sheets. I found myself becoming breathless, and in the panic did not know what to feel, think or say. I saw the tips of a pair of feet sticking out from under a sheet.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

In the wake of the awful attacks of September 11 2001, Tony Blair's passionate denunciation of impoverishment in Africa as "a scar on the conscience of the world" convinced many that the west would propel the issue of mass poverty and injustice to the top of the international agenda in the cause of a more stable world.This week's news only confirms that it was a misplaced hope. Not a single country in sub-Saharan Africa has met the criteria set by the UN's millennium development goals on poverty alleviation, the centrepiece of the project. Some observers believe the number of poor, and the intensity of the poverty, has actually risen in almost all countries.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica, ,

This is the most lawless war of our generation. All wars of aggression lack legitimacy, but no conflict in recent memory has witnessed such mounting layers of illegality as the current one in Somalia. Violations of the UN charter and of international humanitarian law are regrettably commonplace in our age, and they abound in the carnage that the world is allowing to unfold in Mogadishu, but this war has in addition explicitly violated two UN security council resolutions. To complete the picture, one of these resolutions contravenes the charter itself.

The complete impunity with which Ethiopia and the transitional Somali government have been allowed to violate these resolutions explains the ruthlessness of the military assaults that have been under way for six weeks now.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

For decades, Africa has pleaded in vain for a comprehensive engagement from the west on the basis of shared interests, particularly in the economic arena. But the new engagement the continent has been offered, in the form of a military US command, is the last thing the world's most impoverished continent needs.The decision to establish Africom, as the command will be known, reflects the Bush administration's primary reliance on the use of force to pursue its strategic interests. Among the key goals for the new command, for example, is the assurance of oil imports from Africa, which have assumed much greater importance given the hostility to the US presence in the Middle East.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Undeterred by the horrors and disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With US backing, Ethiopian troops have invaded Somalia in an illegal war of aggression.But this brazen US-sponsored bid to topple the popular Islamists who had brought Somalia its first peace and security in 16 years has already begun to backfire. Looting has forced the transitional government to declare a state of emergency. Clan warlords, who had terrorised Somalia until they were driven out by the Islamists this year, have begun carving up the city once again. And the African Union, which helped create the transitional government, has called for the immediate withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from the country, as did Kenya, a close US and Ethiopian ally.…  Seguir leyendo »