Africa

While much of the world's attention is focused on conflicts of the Middle East, a growing competition is under way for influence in Africa - another leading source of oil with rising strategic importance. Chinese President Hu Jintao recently completed a 12-day, eight-nation tour of the continent, during which he sought to strengthen economic, political and military ties developed during an aggressive courtship of African leaders over the past decade. Partway through his visit, U.S. officials announced they, too, were taking a heightened interest in Africa, to be reflected in a new military command President Bush said would not only advance peace and security but also promote "development, health, education, democracy and economic growth."

The origins of Leon D. Holsey's passion for Africa are not entirely clear. Maybe it came from the stories he heard from his grandmother about her mother's slave-ship trip through the middle passage; perhaps from the uncle who was involved in Marcus Garvey's back-to-Africa movement; or from his own travels in the merchant marine that first landed him on that continent in 1946.Wherever it came from, the land once disparaged by some as the Dark Continent became a bright light for Holsey, a beacon that shone on generations of students as it guided him through a life of teaching and spiritual exploration.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is on a hero quest. He doesn't have Nazis chasing him like Indiana Jones, but he is looking to find the lost Ark of the Covenant and recover an even bigger boon, a true sense of Africa's glories past and present."

GENEVA -- They have cleared the Alps, crossed Africa and Asia and the great Pacific. They have skirted war zones and bumped through storms. They've been practically becalmed, traveling as slow as 20 mph, using up precious fuel at 8,000 feet. And they have hurtled at speeds up to 115 mph in the jet streams at more than 35,000 feet.They have been chilled and frightened, mesmerized and challenged on an aerial journey for the ages -- the quest to become the first human beings to circumnavigate the globe nonstop in a balloon.

Ed Dudley has made so many trips to Ghana, in West Africa, it's almost like going home. "I've been traveling to Africa for about 10 years now," Dudley says.The trips are more than a sightseeing venture. Dudley is a Baltimore businessman who makes the voyage once or twice yearly to purchase authentic African goods to sell here.He will be selling some of the African fashions and woodcrafts at this year's Afram, which takes place tomorrow through Sunday on the infield at Pimlico Race Course.

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Chicago Tribune, which was published Saturday.IN SUB-Saharan Africa, AIDS remains deadlier than any plague or natural catastrophe anyone can recall.Of the estimated 34 million people worldwide infected with the AIDS virus, about 22 million live in that part of the world.Such a calamity cries out for action, which in some Third World countries has included proposals to allow native manufacturers to pirate AIDS drugs developed by Western firms to produce lower-priced generics.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- NATO's decision to use military force in Kosovo has reinforced the view among many Africans that the world community is less inclined to intervene to halt conflicts in Africa than it is in many other regions.Coming as East Africa marks the fifth anniversary of a three-month ethnic rampage in Rwanda that killed an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus, the intervention in Yugoslavia has sparked a debate about when and for whom world powers are willing to take action.

WHAT'S most important about U.S. policy for Africa is that there be one. Ignoring 700 million people would not be good political sense. Disregarding the biggest oil exporter to the United States would be worse.Just because the Cold Warended, apartheid (which charged Americans' moral batteries) ended, and democracy and prosperity hit setbacks does not mean that Africa deserves low priority.For starters, the Senate should approve the House-passed African trade bill, which would allow 10 years of quota-free and duty-free import of some African goods of which the United States now imports very little.

What is life like for people around the globe? We took a quick look at the United States, then asked a few foreign correspondents to tell us.U.S.: LESS POVERTY, MORE FEARThere's plenty to celebrate in the United States these days. The economic boom continued this year. Thanks largely to the strong economy, violent crime has plunged to its lowest level in a decade. On the down side,according to a YMCA report, only one in three kids feels safe in school now -- an all-time low.-- Lou CarlozoCOLOMBIA: 'DANGEROUS, FRUSTRATING' TIMEColombia is one nation where things are still getting worse.

Manthia Diawara brought his myriad perspectives to the Maryland Institute, College of Art this week, perspectives forged in a life of contrasts.This is specialist in film and literature is at home in the bistros of Paris and lofts of SoHo. But his first schooling came at age 13 in a West Africa that was taking the first unsteady steps of independence.The second in a series of visiting scholars and authors honoring 20 years of Fred Lazarus' presidency of the institute, Diawara, 46, a professor of comparative literature at New York University, gave a lecture last night after spending two days with students, talking, criticizing, looking, absorbing.

It's a crisp fall day at Waverly Elementary School in Northeast Baltimore. It's about an hour or so before lunch, and the building perched on a hill is humming with activity. Upstairs in Room 223, about two dozen students in green and khaki uniforms are seated inside the homeroom of fifth-grade teacher Cynthia Rock. Cut-out stars and likenesses of Peanuts characters cover the walls and doors, along with graded test papers. A banner above a chalkboard reads: "Never settle for less than your best."

ACCRA, Ghana -- After crossing Africa from west to east and back, the central issues that President Bush brought on his tour came together yesterday in the white stucco Osu Castle, Ghana's seat of government. With gusto, Bush declared "that's baloney" to the notion that the United States was preparing to establish military bases in Africa. "Or, as we say in Texas, that's bull," he said at a news conference with Ghanaian President John Kufuor. Bush defended the foundation of his program to combat HIV and AIDS, which emphasizes premarital abstinence, fidelity and the use of condoms.

T. Rowe Price's newest mutual fund has invested half its assets in Africa. If the object of making money is to buy low and sell high, the Baltimore-based company seems to have the first part right. Each African lives on $2,000 per year, on average. Africa accounts for 13 percent of the world's population but less than 4 percent of its income. As the rest of the globe has boomed since 1970, Africa has grown poorer, a victim of war, disease, disastrous leadership and hostile Western trade policy.

HERE's a story to take with a healthy grain of salt, but somewhere within may be a kernel of slanted truth. Brad Pitt was in a cab not long ago, in the United States. He was chatting up the driver, who said he was a recent immigrant from Africa. Brad said, "I just came back from Africa." The driver said, "Why were you there?" Brad: "I was doing some work with my wife and the president of the Pan-African Parliament." Driver: "Who are you, and who is your wife to be working with President [Gertrude]

By neglecting Nigeria, the Bush administration has missed repeated opportunities to strengthen democracy in Africa's most populous, most fractured and most important country. This failure is particularly telling as millions of Nigerians prepare to vote tomorrow for president and 469 national senatorial and national assembly seats (some opposition parties have threatened to boycott the poll; they want the vote postponed). Last Saturday, violence and widespread cheating marred elections for 36 state governors and the members of 36 state assemblies.

WASHINGTON -- Paul D. Wolfowitz, seeking support for his beleaguered leadership as president of the World Bank, is turning for help to the one group at the bank that aides say he has focused on the most, the leaders of sub-Saharan Africa, bank officials say. At a news conference yesterday, as hundreds of delegates in Washington speculated about Wolfowitz's future, several finance ministers of African countries said he had done an outstanding job in...

While much of the world's attention is focused on conflicts of the Middle East, a growing competition is under way for influence in Africa - another leading source of oil with rising strategic importance. Chinese President Hu Jintao recently completed a 12-day, eight-nation tour of the continent, during which he sought to strengthen economic, political and military ties developed during an aggressive courtship of African leaders over the past decade. Partway through his visit, U.S. officials announced they, too, were taking a heightened interest in Africa, to be reflected in a new military command President Bush said would not only advance peace and security but also promote "development, health, education, democracy and economic growth."

Bernadette is ill and has a baby. She is at risk of losing land that her family has farmed in a village in Rwanda since 1962. She is surviving with the help of neighbors and government aid. She needs the land to survive. Frederic also is a villager. He possesses an ownership document for the land Bernadette is trying to keep. He needs the land to have a place to graze his large herd of cattle. A group of other villagers must figure out who will receive the land, where Frederic will graze his cattle and who gets to make the decision on who gets what.

WASHINGTON -- Nothing concentrates your mind out in the back roads of rural Africa like having a kid from some rebel army hold you up at gunpoint with a large, Russian-made assault rifle. Rory Anderson, a senior Africa policy adviser for World Vision, a Washington-based Christian aid and development organization, knows that experience. It happened to her and a carload of colleagues in 2003 in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, near Uganda's border. "Suddenly I was both frightened and brokenhearted," Ms. Anderson recalled in an interview.

There's enough food in the world. So why is there hunger? Why are 850 million people worldwide malnourished? The answer is simple: They live in societies that can't provide them with the means of support. The best cure for hunger is prosperity - providing it's well managed. During the 1990s, China reduced the number of undernourished people by 43 million, not because of aid programs but because of a booming economy. India is on the same track - but it's an uneven one because parts of the country are hobbled by corruption, caste prejudice, the AIDS epidemic and a lack of schooling.